In this month’s Prog there is a great feature on the bands, old and new, from Canterbury (alongside a lovely double feature on Camel – so worth checking out).
It has always struck me that of all the various musical styles that we’ve seen over the decades the Canterbury Scene is probably the most overlooked and dismissed by the knowing cognoscenti. It never really has been in vogue even back in it’s heyday, and whenever mentioned the focus tends to be on either Caravan or Soft Machine (both mighty fine bands). Whilst there is a magic ingredient that links the artists together it still encompasses a broad sweep of music. Over there the Softs – serious boffins – Mike Ratledge surely the coolest musician to wear shades on this side of the Atlantic with that strange crablike scuttling style on the organ. And then there’s Kevin Ayers, the dapper gent with a voice like wild honey – if he’d been a footballer he’d have been Dimitar Berbatov – full of talent but never going to chase the long pass, much preferring to be cosying up to a blonde and long drink in Monte Carlo. Let’s not forget Mike Oldfield the only real household name to have emerged. Other stalwarts – Gong, Egg, the very arty Henry Cow, the very weird Comus and about a zillion other bands with Dave Stewart (no not that one !).
Interestingly the Canterbury sound continues today with some interesting new bands – notably Syd Arthur and yes that magic ingredient is still perceptible.
But my favourite album by one of my favourite genres is the first album by Hatfield and the North – it seems to encompass all that is lovely about this music. I listened to it earlier this week for first time in many a year – all the way through (how often do you do that with an album today) and it sounded wonderful and far less dated than I might have expected. Yes its Prog but for those expecting a dose of ELP or Yes style bombast then you may (initially) be disappointed because the music is as light as a feather. Breezy melodies and a real jazz sensibility abound, tempered by gentle vocals and quirky lyrics that are as nostalgic as deckchairs on the sea front. Robert Wyatt, guesting in his first musical venture following his accident, delivers a breathtakingly beautiful performance. Not enough ? Well dig deeper and you’ll also find ensemble playing redolent of Mike Westbrook, pre-sample ‘samples’, avant garde soundscapes, and self-deprecating dollops of humour when it seems to be all getting too serious. Has there been a better and more fluid rhythm section in rock than Pip Pyle on drums and Richard Sinclair on bass ?
This is wonderful and original British music at its best and most inventive, and a companion piece to Wyatt’s ‘Rock Bottom’. Gone and yes sadly, mainly forgotten.
Oh no! I have a turntable that works and most of my ellpees (ellpees are made out of vinyl, albums can be tapes/CDs/mp3s) and one that came to the top was The Hats’ first ellpee.
It sounds very dated to my ears. 🙁
I did adore them at the time but actually preferred Rotters Club.
I’m scared to play it.
Oh yes. Both Hatfield and th4e North albums are a delight. I’m also a big fan of the first two National Health albums on similar grounds.
A strange one for me. Hatfield and the North remains one of only two concerts I have ever walked out of**.
It was mid seventies and they were playing at Birmingham Town Hall. I had the album, it was alright. I wanted to go to the gig, my mates weren’t fussed but I managed to persuade them. The band came on stage, no presence, long noodle pieces of music, no tunes. My mates were getting restless. ‘Hold on guys they are just getting into the groove,They will get better’. They didn’t, we left. These days their music is more up my street – at the age of about 19 I don’t think my listening skills had developed.
** The other one was The Pet Shop boys – for completely different reasons. If anything they were worse.
(calling @fitterstoke to the thread)
Lovely OP. I had a precocious love of Caravan and Camel, all due to older brother syndrome, and they’ve seen me right throughout. Somewhere I’ve got Richard Sinclair’s calling card, which I picked up after a gig 10 years ago with Phil Miller and, I think, Pip Pyle and a support from Lol Coxhill. It was an eye-opener of a gig, drawing from all sorts of Canterbury incarnations. Given that they could have hardly honed their live act from endless touring at that stage, they were remarkably tight and bright. Sad that they don’t get out more.
I love Caravan – in fact all the Canterbury bands, though I don’t know National Health at all.
How about this gem
https://youtu.be/rIwaYwbjF3M
Bollocks
https://youtu.be/rIwaYwbjF3M
Third time lucky
OK forget it.
Was going to post this for you @twang, but it shows up on the updates page. just not on this page. Very Odd?
Do I need to declare an interest?
I was introduced to this stuff by some heads at school, who used to hang around the art department & wore greatcoats and afghans. It just spoke to me like nothing I’d ever heard before: suddenly I was picking up Soft Machine 7 from Charlie Heyes’ Record Exchange in Pollockshields and drawing pothead pixies on my schoolbag – never looked back…..
….should have mentioned This Heat, Quiet Sun (and lots of solo Manzanera), Matching Mole and, of course, Henry Cow….
https://youtube.com/watch?v=eH9Iar0Qwmw
You’re the Canterbury Man, Fitter. You got me into Hatfield & The North and Egg, for which I am eternally grateful.
….awww, shucks, Rob…..
John Greaves on bass is just awesome in that clip – a proto-punk almost.
Weirdly he now helps pay his bills by doing voiceover work – there are some examples on his website here:
http://johngreaves.org.uk/voice.php
It’s the organ tone and english understated vocal, with whimsy in the lyric, that defines it for me. Some is still great but, jeepers, the silly stuff is shite, all those students dreaming for a shag. (No wonder I could relate so well and for so long)
Funny that the band Spirogyra, which was formed while they were students at Kent University, always get omitted from lists of Canterbury bands. Their first album was named after St. Radigund St. where a lot of musicians used to congregate in Canterbury. Barbara Gaskin met Dave Stewart through fellow student Steve Hillage and they became a couple when Barbara was a member of the Northettes, the backing singers of the Hatfields. Martin Cockerham himself does not associate the band with the Canterbury sound as they are more folky than Prog and Spirogyra was initially an acoustic duo up in Bolton.
There is more information about the band here. I have a vested interest as I administer the site for Martin and still have some occasional contact with Barbara & Dave.
https://www.facebook.com/SpirogyraFolk
I know what you mean, Beany….I suppose I tend to think of them as a “folky” band, despite the obvious Canterbury associations….just as you suggest….one way or another, I tend to think of Canterbury music as a more whimsical branch of progressive music (never Prog); so Spyrogyra never quite fit.
I’m now inspired to go and listen to them….back later…..
Well, I’m back, @Beany
Having listened to St. Radigunds and Bells, Boots and Shambles –
I enjoyed them both. The band might have hailed from Canterbury geographically, but I can’t hear any of the so-called Canterbury scene in their sound – more like their own contemporary folk-rock bands from the early seventies, or even more like the so-called Acid-Folk compilations that were coming out a few years ago. So, on that basis, I suppose I agree with Martin C., as you noted above.
Since I like the Fairports and early Steeleye; and I enjoy a good part of the acid-folk compilations, I don’t know how I missed them – especially since I have likes Barbara Gaskin’s voice for many years in other contexts. So cheers for the steer, Beany!
I dunno about it never being “cool” or whatever, back then when it first happened. It was a definitely hip sub-scene. Ownership of the very first Caravan album was a badge of Cool Merit, most of us catching up with the second, the memorably titled “If I Could Do It All Over Again, I’d Do It All Over You”. Nobody had the first Softs album, though, because it was import-only. But they were as hip as anything else on John Peel from the second album onwards. Egg were more obscure, and rightly so.
Here’s a tear-inducingly wonderful clip of “Les Softs Machines” (bless) on French TV, featuring Robert Wyatt as The Coolest Dude In The Group, a position he held until Ratledge learned about shades.
That’s a superb clip, Mr Saucebox….there are some mighty black ‘n’ white Softs clips from Les French TV, but I’ve never seen that one…..Wyatt is incomparable….
I do have a soft spot for Hatfield and bits of Caravan but, even there, there’s something a bit ‘sixth form’ about it all. I think their fellow travellers at the progressive end of British jazz in the late 60s/early 70s – jazzers exploring rock rather than the Canterbury people (vice versa) – are a more satisfyingly grown up occupier of that space in one’s head. OOAA of course.
Here’s John Taylor & co with a Kentish groove on ‘..And Think Again’ from 1971 album ‘Pause…’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcIbafENuHk