Saturday, 5 January 2019
Kevin Ayers - May I.
I was introduced to the music of Kevin Ayers by my good friend, and fellow painter, Simon Fletcher. So here's song for him that I'm sure he'll enjoy. He's not been too well recently.
In around 1969, we went to a concert in Guildford together, which was possibly part of a promotion tour for the album 'Shooting at the Moon' (below). I still have my copy.
Lol Coxhill was his Sax' player at the time, and spent the entire show fiddling with his electronics; he never did get it right. Mike Oldfield was on bass. David Bedford was on keyboards, and Mick Fincher (unknown to me) on all things percussion. A small but brilliant lineup.
Here are Ayers & Co with 'May I'; a beautiful little song from the album.
Ayers had previously been the frontman with Soft Machine, he died at his home in Southern France in 2013.
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14 comments:
I hope the family are not caught up in the tropical storm in Thailand.
I hear that Wills's house was battered a bit; mostly damaging the garden. He didn't exactly choose the right time to go.
Are they all there at the moment?
Not yet, the Mem-Sahib flies out on the 14th; hopefully when the storms have calmed a bit.
I also saw Kevin Ayers at around the same time in a small venue in Norwich. Probably part of the same tour.
Somehow I'm not surprised, he was very big on the university/art college circuit. He wasn't really a 'Top of the Pops' act.
I once spent the afternoon looking after his daughter at a garden party. A stunningly pretty little girl. She must be about 50 by now. I used to drink with Lol Coxhill here in a Bath boozer too. Right. That's enough name-dropping.
Later on Lol took his experimental music to another level, and it became rather self-centred and tedious. I think he often found himself playing to an audience of ONE.
He was not a very sociable person, bordering on rude.
Shooting at the Moon. It doesn't matter if you miss - you'll end up in the stars.
Poor Ayers is up there; probably earlier than he expected too.
Oh dear. He always looked at bit 'marginal'.
So is Lol Coxhill.
He is described as a 'raconteur'. I wonder if anybody ever listened to him.
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