Kevin Ayers: The bizarre life of Britain’s psychedelic hero
Britain has always produced some of the world’s most eccentric characters, particularly within the sectors of music and art. These personalities give fans something to hold on to outside of the artist’s physical output. Increasingly, within the world of modern music, fewer unconventional characters are establishing themselves, largely due to the ever-growing idea that music is a business rather than an art form. Even if that was not the case, you would be hard-pushed to find any characters as bizarrely endearing or inventive as the psychedelic hero Kevin Ayers.
Ayers had an utterly essential impact on the development of psychedelic rock on the shores of the United Kingdom. The style, which is often viewed as being inseparable from the counterculture hippie movement on the West Coast of America – populated by innovative groups like Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin – changed the world of rock music forever. All of a sudden, the toe-tapping rhythms of late 1950s rock and roll had been knocked down, and from the rubble, a mind-bending new sound was forged, which altered the perceptions of audiences and terrified parents everywhere.
The psychedelic scene of Britain was considerably less brash than that of its American cousins. This is thanks, in part, to the fact that the vast majority of the UK’s LSD supplies were almost exclusive to the middle-class university students of the nation. This led to future legends like Syd Barrett, Robert Wyatt, and Nigel Waymouth grappling with their own psychedelic journeys, finding the newly introduced drug an excellent source of artistic inspiration. Their experimentation with acid eventually led to the formation of the Canterbury scene, which was characterised by its stunning experimentation, blending avant-garde jazz with rock and psychedelia.
Canterbury’s psychedelic scene fostered a colossal amount of talent, much of which would go on to have an impact on mainstream rock years later. In the midst of all this LSD-inspired experimentation sat Kevin Ayers, co-founder and lead singer of the pioneering Canterbury band Soft Machine. Even within this ruthlessly inventive, avant-garde movement, Ayers was still something of an oddball, and he always used that to his advantage. With the band, he helped to create some of the most inventive music of the Canterbury scene, laying the future groundwork for progressive rock and psychedelia in the process.
To the surprise of nobody, being in a band like Soft Machine is a fairly tiring affair, and by the time the 1960s came to a close, Ayers was utterly exhausted. Selling his bass to Noel Redding of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, the songwriter retreated to sunnier climes, uprooting from the shores of England and heading for Ibizia, Spain. This was a common theme throughout Ayers’ life; whenever he was on the cusp of mainstream musical success, just as everything was coming together, he would suddenly leave it all behind to go spend some time in the sunshine.
His penchant for fun in the sun likely came from Ayers’ childhood, which was spent largely in Malaya at the request of his stepfather, who was a British civil servant working in the colonies. Aside from his clear love of a warm climate, Ayers’ tendency to move away at the first signs of musical success speaks to his endlessly defiant attitude. The songwriter was never out to make fame or fortune; he was simply looking for a good time. So, when it stopped being fun, he stopped sticking around.
Inevitably, Ayers would eventually return to music. In fact, that extended holiday in Ibiza acted as a source of inspiration for the songwriter’s first solo LP, Joy of a Toy. Composed largely on an acoustic guitar gifted to him by Jimi Hendrix, who Ayers had toured with during the Soft Machine years, this album allowed the songwriter to express all the strange and eccentric themes that Soft Machine might not have been able to achieve. Joy of a Toy laid the foundations for the future of Ayers’ music career, which only became more profound and inventive with every album.
Perhaps the best product of Ayers’ early solo career came with the 1971 album Whatevershebringswesing, a stunningly experimental album which drew from Ayer’s roots in psychedelia as well as the blossoming world of progressive rock. The record managed to blend long, complex efforts with the pop potential of tracks like ‘Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes’, with the distinctly deep, velvety tones of the singer acting as a guiding voice through the chaos. Likely as a result of Ayers’ suspicion of fame and notoriety, the album failed to impact the music scene of the early 1970s, but it earned the songwriter a cult following, and rightly so.
The first four solo records created by Ayers – all of which were published by Harvest Records – formed something of a golden age within his musical output. These were the albums where the Kent-born musician was at his most experimental, eccentric, and endearing. Following this unparalleled run, Ayers made the switch to Island Records, creating some of his most commercially focused music, before once again returning to the sunshine exile of Spain during the latter part of the 1970s.
As is tradition, Ayers would sporadically return from the European mainland, releasing the odd album here and there as he deemed fit. Although he failed to recapture the inventive brilliance of his early Harvest recordings, each and every album he put out seemed to reveal a bizarre new detail about the life of this elusive psychedelic master. Repeatedly, Ayers would record an album, inspiring a sense of wonder to artists and fans alike, before disappearing once again, to be found years later lying in the sun of Spain or Southern France.
In total, Ayers recorded 16 solo albums throughout his life, the last of which, The Unfairground, was released in 2007. Like many eccentric characters, the mainstream never quite understood the strange world of Kevin Ayers, but for those who were willing to listen, his impact was colossal. The influence of the prog progenitor can be heard in everything from the noise rock of Sonic Youth to the artful sounds of Roxy Music. At present, it seems unlikely that the musical world will ever witness a character that can rival Ayers in terms of personality or songwriting talent, but then again, perhaps the cultural fabric of Britain is simply not strong enough to support such a titan.
