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Obituaries
Kevin Ayers 1944-2013
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 21 February 2013
Kevin Ayers, co-founder of psych-rock pioneers Soft Machine, died at his home in France on Monday, he was 68.
Born in Kent, though spending much of his childhood in Malaysia before returning to England aged twelve, Ayers became involved in the then burgeoning music scene in Canterbury in his early college years, joining a band called Wilde Flowers in the mid-1960s.
That group subsequently morphed into Soft Machine, influential players in the British sixties psychedelic movement whose distinct sound stood out partly because of an eclectic mix of influences, and partly because of the contrast between Ayers’ voice and that of drummer and co-vocalist Robert Wyatt.
Sharing management with Jimi Hendrix, Soft Machine toured America with the guitarist and while in the States recorded their acclaimed eponymous debut album. Ayers departed the group shortly after the tour, though, and moved to Ibiza where he began his prolific solo career, collaborating with Syd Barret on some early releases, and regularly producing albums through to the early 1990s.
After 1992’s ‘Still Life With Guitar’, Ayers stopped releasing new works. Settling in Southern France and battling drug addiction, he had become something of a recluse by the late 1990s. But in 2007 he returned with a new album called ‘The Unfairground’, a project initiated by collaborations with American artist Timothy Shepard, who spearheaded the completion and release of the album after discovering the level of interest in Ayers’ work amongst a new generation of British artists.
Confirming Ayers’ death, Bernard MacMahon of Lo-Max Records, which released the 2007 album, said of Soft Machine co-founder: “He was the moving embodiment of that sixties ideal of creativity, freedom of speech and free love”.
Ayers is survived by two daughters, Rachel and Galen.
