Friday Music: Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt is a music legend you may never have heard about. He was a singer and drummer of the '60s psych-jazz band Soft Machine that emerged out of Canterbury, England, along with Pink Floyd. Later, he fronted the band Matching Mole. In 1973, drunk at a party, he tumbled out a third story window and ended up paralyzed from the waist down. A lead singer with stage fright, he has said of the accident: "What could have been debilitating turned into an excuse to work in a different way without the pressure and responsibilities of performing or being in a group."
Thus began a solo career that continues with this fall's release of Comicopera, his tenth solo album of original work, though he's perhaps best known for his cover of Elvis Costello's "Shipbuilding," a touching song about the Falklands War. Here's a live video BBC performance:
Description: Wyatt, holding a microphone in both hands, sits in a traditional steel wheelchair on a darkened stage surrounded by his band. He wears an olive military-styled shirt and a black beret, with longish blond hair and a fullish beard.
The lyrics to "Shipbuilding":
Is it worth it
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boys birthday
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon we'll be shipbuilding
Well I ask you
The boy said dad they're going to take me to task
But I'll be back by Christmas
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of this shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture postcard
Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyards
And notifying the next of kin
Once again
It's all were skilled in
We will be shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
Among music trivia buffs, Wyatt may be known as the only person using a wheelchair to ever perform on Britain's Top of The Pops. The details range from funny to appalling. He was asked on the popular, long-running music chart TV program to sing his cover of The Monkey's "I'm A Believer," which he reportedly chose to record in the first place because he thought it was written by Neil Sedaka, whose music he claims to enjoy. Except "I'm A Believer" was written by Neil Diamond, which every British '60s experimental psych-jazz musician should know, right?
An argument ensued with Top of The Pops producers when they told him he needed to sit in a regular chair while performing because sitting on stage in a wheelchair was "not suitable for family viewing." This was 1974. In one 2002 account of the event:
A furious Wyatt stood his ground (metaphorically) with the end result that the entire band appeared in wheelchairs, and Wyatt spat out the lyrics with barely concealed venom and even more naked irony. The performance has never been shown anywhere since.But the Wiki for Top of The Pops states that:
The most complaints the show received for a single episode was in 1994 when Manic Street Preachers performed their song "Faster" in a manner that was seen as intimidating and featured lead singer James Dean Bradfield wearing a balaclava such as would be worn by an IRA terrorist. Prior to this the performance that was rumoured to have drawn most complaints was Robert Wyatt performing his hit "I'm A Believer" in as animated a fashion as his wheelchair would allow.You can judge the performance for yourself. Here's the YouTube video (that's Pink Floyd's Nick Mason on drums):
Another stage performance with an audience standing and dancing close to the stage. Wyatt sways in his chair as he sings. A hard-to-read text over the video indicates that this clip was missing and presumed lost for nearly 30 years. Either way, Wyatt's wheelchair evidently caused a stir for daring to show up on TV.
Then again, music trivia buffs may know Wyatt because his name has become a verb: "Wyatting" refers to the pub entertainment of intentionally picking a jukebox song that will empty the establishment.
All the above links to articles are entertaining because Wyatt is a character. Here are some other good links:
1996 interview with music writer Richie Unterberger
Sean O'Hagan's recent Guardian feature article on Wyatt
Guardian review of Wyatt's latest album Comicopera
YouTube live video performance of "Gharbadzegi" from his album Old Rottenhat (wild and jazzy live, mellow on the album, this is a personal fav of mine)
Chicago Reader review of Comicopera
Blog love from The Runout Groove
Update: First, apologies that my videos don't stay where they're placed within my text but migrate downwards. I don't know why they do that.
Also, thanks to Jennifer Justice in the comments of this post, here's a direct link to an audio file of the October 26 episode of "Sound Opinions" from Chicago Public Radio. There's some Britney Spears first, to skip directly to the discussion of Wyatt go to about 10:30 in the audio recording.
11 comments:
Cool! I hadn't heard about him, but my husband had--so we both enjoyed this entry.
Wheelchair unsuitable for family viewing... something like pregnancy in the 1950s? interracial kisses in the 1960s? gay characters in the 1970s? Wheelchairs are in good company in the history of TV.
(In Harriet McBryde Johnson's "Art Object" chapter, the photographer sent by the New York Times tries to pursuade her out of her wheelchair for photos, on the grounds that "aesthetically, it doesn't look good." Sigh.)
If memory serves, the NYT photographer also wanted McBryde Johnson to pose nude. Gah!
I just found out about Wyatt courtesy of Sound Opinions on NPR in Chicago. They interviewed him about the new album and he talked a good bit about collaborating with his wife, a poet, whose name I can't recall at the moment. I'm sure you could get the podcast from their site. They concentrated on the music, not the wheelchair or the accident- just treated it like a fact which is always refreshing. Can't wait to pick up the cd.
Thanks Jennifer. I've added a link to that audio to the post, above.
I had an album by Soft Machine, and never knew what happened to the band! Wow, can't believe the static over a wheelchair on TV, but then I remember when George Wallace was first interviewed on TV after the attempt on his life (am I old, or what?) which would have been around this same time period...and they kept saying "George Wallace will be interviewed ....IN HIS WHEELCHAIR!" as if he was being interviewed from Mars, or something.
Thanks for the info.
May be I've been around Twinner too much or something but the idea that a wheelchair is not 'appropiate family viewing!?!' Where do people get these ideas, like others have said, some of us are just "Temporairly Abled".
;)
I just ran across a music-related ASL stand-up comedy piece I thought you might (like me) find amusing -- Keith Wann: Rap, Every Interpreter's Worst Nightmare.
I find that so....well; it was not what I was expecting - I mean, him performing in a wheelchair generated complaints? Boggles my mind particularly since no one seemed to mind the particularly gender bending Sweet and Wig Wam Bam of the same period.
Thank you for the story and the youtube footage - that was the "offensive" version right?
I just keep thinking of Buffy Saint Marie and when I saw her performance of universal soldier (which I think today would almost certainly get some death threats when you directly compare the audience members with SS guards).
Still, amazing what was and is considered "unacceptable"
Who are all these people supposedly so horrified by the sight of a wheelchair that wheelchairs must be kept from family programming and restaurants? Argh, this drives me crazy, whether it happened 30 years ago on TV or yesterday at a local bistro. I am offended every time someone assumes that I or anyone else would be offended by the sight of someone else out in the world as his real self having his real life.
Grr.
Daisy: they kept saying "George Wallace will be interviewed ....IN HIS WHEELCHAIR!" as if he was being interviewed from Mars, or something.
I've seen that with a couple of other celebrities after accidents or illnesses too. It's... almost funny.
Karen: ;)
Moggy: Thanks for the link. I'll use it sometime soon for a post, I think.
Elizabeth: Yep, that was the "offensive" version. This all happened within about a year of Wyatt's paralyzing accident. I wonder if the "crippling" of a well-known musician was what made it unpalatable. I also wonder how prepared Wyatt was for that attitude, so early in his crip-life.
Sara: These are the arbiters of what is appropriate for the public eye. Makes me wonder what we're not seeing on tv today because it's inappropriate.
We definitely need different arbiters. Thank goodness for the internet where we can all put ourselves out there and people can look or not as they choose.
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