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Artist
Robert Wyatt
12+ albums
Progressive rocksinger-songwriterexperimentalCanterbury SceneCanterbury
about
Robert Wyatt, born Robert Ellidge, in Bristol, UK on 28 January 1945, is an English musician, and a former member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine. As a teenager, he lived with his parents in a fourteen-room Georgian guest-house, Wellington House, in Lydden near Canterbury. Here he was taught the drums by visiting American jazz drummer George Niedorf. In 1962, Wyatt and Niedorf moved to Majorca where they stayed with the poet Robert Graves. The following year, Wyatt returned to England and joined the Daevid Allen Trio with Daevid Allen and Hugh Hopper. Allen subsequently left for France, and Wyatt and Hopper formed the Wilde Flowers with Richard Sinclair, Kevin Ayers and Brian Hopper. Wyatt was initially the drummer in the Wilde Flowers, but following the departure of Ayers, he became lead singer. In 1966, the Wilde Flowers disintegrated, and Wyatt and Mike Ratledge formed the Soft Machine with Ayers and Allen. Here Wyatt both drummed and sang, an unusual combination for a stage rock band. In 1970, after chaotic touring, three albums and increasing internal conflicts in Soft Machine, Wyatt released his first solo album, The End of an Ear, which combined his vocal and multi-instrumental talents with tape effects. A year later, Wyatt left Soft Machine and formed his own band Matching Mole (a pun on "machine molle", the French for Soft Machine), a largely instrumental outfit. After two albums and a split, Matching Mole were about to embark on a third re
