This week will be the last of these challenges for a while, unless someone else wants to pick them up, as I will be off on holiday for a couple of weeks.
This week, I am going with someone whose music I have enjoyed ever since I first heard him on John Peel’s BBC1 late night radio programme back in the early 1970s.
He released several solo albums, played with a huge number of different people and was one of the founding members of Soft Machine. He gave up the music business in the 1990s but did get back into action in the mid 2000s, releasing one final album. He died in his sleep at his home in France in 2013 and he is the late, great Kevin Ayers.
To start things off, here is the title track from his third solo album, Whatevershebringswesing
And here is a link to the playlist. Fingers crossed that it will work first time.
The 'Spill 
Kevin Ayers is one of those artists that i don’t know much about but liked what i heard, and always meant to check out more. I have a lot of free time on my hands over the next couple of weeks, can you recommend a good place to start?
Wikipedia gives me a motherlode of choice here, but I’ll go for these guys. Ayers was a huge influence on them, and some members contributed to one of his albums.
Teenage Fanclub – Start Again
Personally, I love his 1970s solo stuff. Whatevershebringswesing is my favourite but Bananamour is also worth a listen, as is his first album JoyOf A Toy. I’d give Shooting At The Moon a miss, though.
Ooh, so many choices! I’ve not consciously listened to his solo work, but listened to many artists he’s worked with. Have to go with Gong as they are Daevid Allen’s baby. I Never Glid before from 1973 should do it. Will try the link.
Gong, I knew it!
By the way, I thought that you would have gone for a Nick Cave link with Lydia Lunch last week, Beth.
I will go and listen to some solo Ayres, thank you for the suggestions! I’m so sorry I missed last week, Carole, absolutely up my street, but I had a work do in London on Thursday and had to leave before 6am, so I went to bed very early and didn’t visit the internet much.
btw Beth, like Miles Davis, Nick Cave is slowly becoming unlocked fo me.
@amy999 yay another convert to the Church of Cave 😉
P.S. Have a lovely holiday!
I don’t know much of his solo work but “After The Show” is one of the songs I would find it hard to live without.
While I’m feeling sentimental and thinking about songs I couldn’t live without. Kevin Ayers was in the first line-up of Soft Machine and so was Robert Wyatt. Who sings on Matching Mole’s wonderful O Caroline. Which is my pick.
LINKO
Kevin Ayers was with the Wilde Flowers, I don’t think they released any albums but some of the members of that band went on to form Caravan ( David Sinclair, Richard Sinclair, Pye Hastings and Richard Coughlan). One of my favourite albums of all time is “In the Land of Grey and Pink”, by Caravan, so I will add “Winter Wine”. Enjoy your hols – would you like me to cover the next 2 weeks Family Tree?
Great call, Ali! I love Caravan. Yes, please cover the family tree until I’m back, thanks,
Will do, wish me luck with the playlists!!!
Ali – for the playlists you need to create the playlist, then go into it and click on “Share”. Then check the box that says “Allow people to add videos with link” and copy the link that is created. You can then embed it in the main post.
Caravan would have been my next choice too, dond!
Thanks!
Good luck with the playlist, looking forward to next week’s family tree.
My fave Robert Wyatt song, which I managed to get into an A-list way back when: