As anyone who has heard Pierre Bensusan live can attest, the French guitarist is among the world’s finest solo performers. Difficult to pin down to a single style, Bensusan has played steel-string fingerstyle guitar with peerless compositional depth, harmonic richness, and dynamic range for 40 years. “Pierre’s work transcends the guitar itself,” says fellow fingerstyle god Tony McManus. “What he communicates are pure musical ideas—storytelling in melody, rhythm, and harmony, always creative and always inspiring.”
Bensusan started out playing folk guitar and bluegrass, which eventually led to a gig as mandolinist for American banjo master Bill Keith. But the release of Bensusan’s debut album Près de Paris in 1974 (at the age of 17!) immediately established him as an extraordinary guitar talent. In the years since Bensusan has released nine more albums (not counting compilations and box sets). While his early efforts focused on arrangements of traditional Celtic music, the emphasis has increasingly shifted toward original compositions influenced as much by jazz and classical music as by North African styles, showing Bensusan’s Algerian heritage.
Most Bensusan recordings feature additional instrumentation (2000’s Intuite is his only true solo studio album), at times veering into a smooth new age/adult contemporary sound, though always featuring stunning guitar work and gorgeous, engaging compositions. But many fans have longed for an album that captures Bensusan as he appears onstage: solo, with his guitar tuned to DADGAD, the tuning he’s used almost exclusively since 1978.
Good things come to those who wait. Not only has Bensusan released a live recording, he decided to make it a beautifully packaged three-CD retrospective. “I wanted to celebrate 40 years of making a living with just my own work, making very little compromise,” he said via Skype from his home near Paris. “My life is on the road. I exist mostly because of my concerts.”
The result, fittingly called Encore, is a stunning overview of Bensusan’s career. While not arranged chronologically, Encore features glimpses into Bensusan’s earliest work playing bluegrass with Keith and solo guitar arrangements of tunes originally found on Près de Paris.Also featured are incredible versions of such tunes as “Nice Feeling,” the Middle Eastern-flavored tapping masterpiece “Agadiramadan,” and "So Long Michael,” Bensusan’s beautiful tribute to Michael Hedges, as well as the looping and vocal workout “Cordillière.” There are also several previously unreleased staples of Bensusan’s shows, such as the guitar and scat-singing “Bamboul’hiver,” and even a couple of duets with Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess. Overall, Encore is an amazing 40-year retrospective that sounds great (thanks to Grammy-winning engineer Rich Breen) and serves as an excellent introduction to Bensusan’s work.
What was it like to listen to recordings of yourself from 30 or 40 years ago?
It was agonizing! I hadn’t heard most of the recordings in years, and you never know what you’re going to find. I spent three months without playing, just listening.
How did you decide what to include?
It had to do something to me. It had to move me. The guitar had to be in tune, and the sound had to be decent. Even if the sound wasn’t decent, I’d choose the performance over the sound. For instance, the Celtic medley was recorded in Charlottesville, and every time I played my second bass [5th] string, there was a bit of feedback. That dictated my way of playing, because I tried not to hit that string too much, and when I did, I tried to control the resonance and sustain so it wouldn’t be overwhelming. I thought, “Okay, that’s bad luck, but the playing is really fine.” It’s a marathon—for 18 minutes!
I’m glad you included some early bluegrass recordings. Not many players have gone from flatpicked guitar and mandolin to fingerstyle. Were you already doing both at the time?
I was doing guitar first. I enjoyed bluegrass music a lot and played with a flatpick. Then I joined a band in a suburb of Paris, and we couldn’t find a mandolin player. My friends asked me to play the mandolin, so I bought one the next day. My reference and inspiration came from people like John Duffey, Sam Bush, Bill Keith, and the Stanley Brothers. I also loved Country Cooking, and Clarence White with the Kentucky Colonels. I was going to some hidden record stores in Paris where you could find those records. The guy working in one of those stores came to me one day when I was 16 and had just left school. He said, “Would you like to join the Bill Keith Bluegrass Band? I’m going to produce a tour for him.” I said, “You’ve got to be joking!” That’s how it started for me. Those recordings come from that very first tour.
I took my guitar with me on the road because I was backing Bill on one song, using a flatpick. In the daytime I would practice on my own, and Bill heard me play those different arrangements of Celtic tunes and some of my own compositions. He said, “I want you to play a couple of numbers onstage every night.” That’s how it started for me, because we were in Belgium, France, and Switzerland, and all the promoters of those shows wanted to invite me the next year on my own.
You mostly play original music now. Do you have a composition process?
Probably, but I’m not aware of it. I listen to the music inside of me. As Bobby McFerrin put it, I am my own Walkman. The idea is for the moments when I play and the moments when I hear music to coincide, so that I can play what I hear. There are a lot of different approaches for getting there on the guitar. One of them, of course, is to be ready technically. I never feel that I’m ready, but I work a lot on my arrangements and my technique. I want something difficult to become agreeable and pleasant so I don’t have to be anxious when I play.
Your live shows have the feeling of a single connected event, rather than a bunch of tunes strung together. How much do you plan your set, and how much just happens?
It’s both. I feel that a show is a bit like listening to a record or reading a book. You can’t do just anything at a show. I wish sometimes that I could start a show on a very high energetic point. I get there during soundcheck, but when the show comes, I need to calm down, start low, and then come up and up until the end. I try to give a form to the concert so that it sustains attention until the end. It has to include contrast, surprises, predictable moments, and unpredictable moments.
You’ve said the tuning players use doesn’t matter much as long as they’re familiar with it. But obviously, DADGAD had a big impact on what you do.
It’s not a tuning that influences me—it’s the music, and DADGAD becomes a tool. But at the beginning, DADGAD was amazingly and vividly present, and it probably shaped my approach to the guitar for a while. But I realized very soon that you had to look for the notes, and it was not obvious. A lot of people take open tunings for granted. They get a flattering first impression, which is great, because it inspires. But you can’t stay there. That’s why I chose to play in only one open tuning, rather than spend my time going between various tunings and always having challenges with intonation, breaking strings, and never really knowing my way. I chose DADGAD in 1978, and my life became much simpler.
Pierre Bensusan Gear
Guitars
Lowden Pierre Bensusan Signature Model
1978 Lowden S22
Amps and Effects
Highlander iP-1 pickups
Line 6 Relay G30 wireless system
Ernie Ball volume pedal
Roland RC-50 Loop Station
Universal Audio Apollo Duo FireWire audio interface
MacBook Pro
Schoeps CMC 64 mic for guitar
Neumann KMS 104 mic for vocals
Strings and Picks
Wyres Signature DADGAD set, gauged .013, .017, .023, .032, .042, .056.
How did your collaboration with Jordan Rudess come about?
We met at the New Milford summer camp in Connecticut 20 years ago and became friends on the spot. A couple of years later I was commissioned to create a piece for a children’s choir. I invited Jordan to join me. We were the only two musicians backing 200 singers! In the first part of the show, I played solo a bit and then I invited Jordan. We played some duets, and two of them can be heard on Encore. That was the only time they were played, so I was very pleased that they were played so well.
You played your original Lowden S22 (“Old Lady”) exclusively for 25 years, and now you’ve been playing your signature Lowden for quite a while. Can you compare those guitars?
I played the Old Lady in Germany the other day, because my signature Lowden was stuck between airplanes. It was not even set up, so I found a great German luthier, Dietmar Heubner, who spent three hours setting it up for the show. I played the guitar all day to get familiar with it again, and I felt, “Oh my god, this is my home!” It was amazing to play that guitar again. It was like, “Why do I play another guitar?”
Two Extraordinary Lowdens
Pierre Bensusan is a virtual guitar monogamist. Sure, he played a Gurian at the very beginning of his career, and for a few years he played a signature model Kevin Ryan guitar. But for most of his career, he’s been a Lowden man.
Bensusan first fell in love with Northern Irish luthier George Lowden’s work in 1978, when he acquired an S22 (equivalent to today’s O-22 model). Featuring a cedar top and mahogany back and sides, the guitar was originally a non-cutaway model. Rather than replace it with a new guitar when he felt that a cutaway was necessary, Bensusan had Lowden modify it in 1989, and also had the fretboard and string spacing widened. For 25 years “Old Lady” was the only guitar Bensusan played. He still pulls it out of semi-retirement from time to time.
In 2009, Lowden and Bensusan began work on a signature model. To the surprise of some fans, the result wasn’t a copy of Old Lady, but an updated guitar. Using the company’s midsize F-model body, the guitar is built with an Adirondack spruce top and Honduras rosewood back and sides. It also has a bevel on the bass side of the lower bout, a maple neck with a nut-width of 1.77", and fairly wide string spacing of 2.36" at the saddle. An unusual but very cool feature is the neck shape, available on other Lowdens as a “fingerstyle” option: It flares out slightly more than standard, providing a bit more width in the upper positions, which makes it less likely to slip off the fretboard when playing vibrato on the outside strings. The guitar’s list price is $8,765.
Bensusan and Lowden are now working on a 40th-anniversary signature model: a faithful recreation of Old Lady. Due in 2014, the guitar will have Lowden’s original jumbo body (slightly deeper than the current O-shape, and with a more pronounced taper between the neck block and the neck joint), older-style parabolic bracing, and an optional bevel.
How does it differ from your signature model?
It’s richer. You can’t invent 35 years of life in a guitar. Even if today the high harmonics have less sustain, they are still very present. In fact, I like less sustain, because sometimes it’s overwhelming, and it’s hard work to tailor that sustain so that it’s not in the way of the musical conversation. But the new guitar is a very special instrument. It’s three-dimensional. It has depth, horizontality, sustain, a lot of harmonics, and a lot of sound. The relationship between a note and the history of the note is extremely vivid on those two guitars. It’s a bit like the taste of a great wine. There’s the first taste, and then the whole history of the taste after the first drop. Both guitars have that quality, which is what defines a great instrument.
What can you tell us about your amplification setup?
First of all, the pickup is very important. I use the Highlander. From there I go into a Line 6 wireless preamp, an Ernie Ball volume pedal, and a Roland RC-50 looper. From there it goes into Universal Audio Apollo Duo hardware, and then into a MacBook Pro. I’m very happy with that setup. I can now do my stage monitor sound on my own. I can even do my front-of-house!
And your guitar and vocal mics also go through the MacBook Pro?
Yes, and all the effects—reverb, limiter, expansion, EQ—are there. I can even record the show.
Why a volume pedal?
It’s very convenient, because when I tune, I cut the sound. I also use it to shape the note attack for a bowing effect.
What are you using an iPad for onstage?
For walk-in music. I also use it for my song lyrics, and I have a little Bluetooth foot controller that turns the pages.
What’s next?
I’m going to be doing a lot of touring from January until the end of July. Until then, I’ll stay home, work on some new pieces, revise my old pieces, work on my improvisation, and catch my breath a bit. I’m doing my album release shows in Paris, and I’ll be in the States from March until May. It’s going to be a driving tour with my new van!
YouTube It
If you haven’t heard Bensusan, you’re in luck—there are lots of great clips on YouTube.
A mid-1980s performance of “Nice Feeling.” (The title is a play on the word “nice” and the French city of Nice.) This performance occurred before Bensusan’s Lowden S22 (“Old Lady”) was modified with a cutaway and wider, extended fingerboard.
Pierre Bensusan plays “Agadiramadan” on Old Lady in 1993. Note the fluid single-note improvisation over the looped theme.
Pierre Bensusan plays his tribute to the late Michael Hedges, “So Long Michael,” on his Lowden Signature Model.
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Gibson originally launched the EB-6 model with the intention of serving consumers looking for a “tic-tac” bass sound.
The Gibson EB-6 was announced in 1959 and came into the world in 1960, not with a dual-horn body but with that of an elegant ES-335. They looked stately, with a thin, semi-hollow body, f-holes, and a sunburst finish. Our pick for this Vintage Vault column is one such first-year model, in about as original condition as you’re able to find today. “Why?” you may be asking. Well, read on....
When the EB-6 was introduced, the Bass VI was still a glimmer in Leo Fender’s eye. The real competition were the Danelectro 6-string basses that seemed to have popped up out of nowhere and were suddenly being used on lots of hit records by the likes of Elvis, Patsy Cline, and other household names. Danos like the UB-2 (introduced in ’56), the Longhorn 4623 (’58), and the Shorthorn 3612 (’58) were the earliest attempts any company made at a 6-string bass in this style: not quite a standard electric bass, not quite a guitar, nor, for that matter, quite like a baritone guitar.
The only change this vintage EB-6 features is a replacement set of Kluson tuners.
Photo by Ken Lapworth
Gibson, Fender, and others during this era would in fact call these basses “baritone guitars,” to add to our confusion today. But these vintage “baritones” were all tuned one octave below a standard guitar, with scale lengths around 30", while most modern baritones are tuned B-to-B or A-to-A and have scale lengths between 26" and 30".)
At the time, those Danelectros were instrumental to what was called the “tic-tac” bass sound of Nashville records produced by Chet Atkins, or the “click-bass” tones made out west by producer Lee Hazlewood. Gibson wanted something for this market, and the EB-6 was born.
“When the EB-6 was introduced, the Bass VI was still a glimmer in Leo Fender’s eye.”
The 30.5" scale 1960 EB-6 has a single humbucking pickup, a volume knob, a tone knob, and a small, push-button “Tone Selector Switch” that engages a treble circuit for an instant tic-tac sound. (Without engaging that switch, you get a bass-heavy tone so deep that cowboy chords will sound like a muddy mess.)
The EB-6, for better or for worse, did not unseat the Danelectros, and a November 1959 price list from Gibson hints at why: The EB-6 retailed for $340, compared to Dano price tags that ranged from $85 to $150. Only a few dozen EB-6 basses were shipped in 1960, and only 67 total are known to have been built before Gibson changed the shape to the SG style in 1962.
Most players who come across an EB-6 today think it was a response to the Fender Bass VI, but the former actually beat the latter to the market by a full year.
Photo by Ken Lapworth
It’s sad that so few were built. Sure, it was a high-end model made to achieve the novelty tic-tac sound of cheaper instruments, but in its full-voiced glory, the EB-6 has a huge potential of tones. It would sound great in our contemporary guitar era where more players are exploring baritone ranges, and where so many people got back into the Bass VI after seeing the Beatles play one in the 2021 documentary, Get Back.
It’s sadder, still, how many original-era EB-6s have been parted out in the decades since. Remember earlier when I wrote that our Vintage Vaultpick was about as original as you could find? That’s because the model’s single humbucker is a PAF, its Kluson tuners are double-line, and its knobs are identical to those on Les Paul ’Bursts. So as people repaired broken ’Bursts, converted other LPs to ’Bursts, or otherwise sought to give other Gibsons a “Golden Era” sound and look ... they often stripped these forgotten EB-6 basses for parts.
This original EB-6 is up for sale now from Reverb seller Emerald City Guitars for a $16,950 asking price at the time of writing. The only thing that isn’t original about it is a replacement set of Kluson tuners, not because its originals were stolen but just to help preserve them. (They will be included in the case.)
With so few surviving 335-style EB-6 basses, Reverb doesn’t have a ton of sales data to compare prices to. Ten years ago, a lucky buyer found a nearly original 1960 EB-6 for about $7,000. But Emerald City’s $16,950 asking price is closer to more recent examples and asking prices.
Sources: Prices on Gibson Instruments, November 1, 1959, Tony Bacon’s “Danelectro’s UB-2 and the Early Days of 6-String Basses” Reverb News article, Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars, Tom Wheeler’s American Guitars: An Illustrated History, Reverb listings and Price Guide sales data.
Originally released in the 1980s, the Victory has long been a cult favorite among guitarists for its distinctive double cutaway design and excellent upper-fret access. These new models feature flexible electronics, enhanced body contours, improved weight and balance, and an Explorer headstock shape.
A Cult Classic Made Modern
The new Victory features refined body contours, improved weight and balance, and an updated headstock shape based on the popular Gibson Explorer.
Effortless Playing
With a fast-playing SlimTaper neck profile and ebony fretboard with a compound radius, the Victory delivers low action without fret buzz everywhere on the fretboard.
Flexible Electronics
The two 80s Tribute humbucker pickups are wired to push/pull master volume and tone controls for coil splitting and inner/outer coil selection when the coils are split.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Gibson Victory Figured Top Electric Guitar - Iguana Burst
Released in 1983, the Roland SDE-3000 rackmount delay was a staple for pro players of the era and remains revered for its rich analog/digital hybrid sound and distinctive modulation. BOSS reimagined this retro classic in 2023 with the acclaimed SDE-3000D and SDE-3000EVH, two wide-format pedals with stereo sound, advanced features, and expanded connectivity. The SDE-3 brings the authentic SDE-3000 vibe to a streamlined BOSS compact, enhanced with innovative creative tools for every musical style. The SDE-3 delivers evocative delay sounds that drip with warmth and musicality. The efficient panel provides the primary controls of its vintage benchmark—including delay time, feedback, and independent rate and depth knobs for the modulation—plus additional knobs for expanded sonic potential.
A wide range of tones are available, from basic mono delays and ’80s-style mod/delay combos to moody textures for ambient, chill, and lo-fi music. Along with reproducing the SDE-3000's original mono sound, the SDE-3 includes a powerful Offset knob to create interesting tones with two simultaneous delays. With one simple control, the user can instantly add a second delay to the primary delay. This provides a wealth of mono and stereo colors not available with other delay pedals, including unique doubled sounds and timed dual delays with tap tempo control. The versatile SDE-3 provides output configurations to suit any stage or studio scenario.
Two stereo modes include discrete left/right delays and a panning option for ultra-wide sounds that move across the stereo field. Dry and effect-only signals can be sent to two amps for wet/dry setups, and the direct sound can be muted for studio mixing and parallel effect rigs. The SDE-3 offers numerous control options to enhance live and studio performances. Tap tempo mode is available with a press and hold of the pedal switch, while the TRS MIDI input can be used to sync the delay time with clock signals from DAWs, pedals, and drum machines. Optional external footswitches provide on-demand access to tap tempo and a hold function for on-the-fly looping. Alternately, an expression pedal can be used to control the Level, Feedback, and Time knobs for delay mix adjustment, wild pitch effects, and dramatic self-oscillation.
The new BOSS SDE-3 Dual Delay Pedal will be available for purchase at authorized U.S. BOSS retailers in October for $219.99. To learn more, visit www.boss.info.
English singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock is as recognizable by tone, lyrics, and his vibrantly hued clothing choices as the sound of Miles Davis’ horn.
Itchycoo Park
“I like my songs, but I don’t necessarily think I’m the best singer of them,” he effaces to me over Zoom, as it’s approaching midnight where he’s staying in London. “I just wanted to be a singer-songwriter because that’s what Bob Dylan did. And I like to create; I’m happiest when I’m producing something. But my records are blueprints, really. They just show you what the song could be, but they’re not necessarily the best performance of them. Whereas if you listen to … oh, I don’t know, the great records of ’67, they actually sound like the best performances you could get.”
He mentions that particular year not offhandedly, but because that’s the theme of the conversation: He’s just released an album, 1967: Vacations in the Past, which is a collection of covers of songs released in 1967, and one original song—the title track. Boasting his takes on Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play,” and Small Faces’ “Itchycoo Park,” among eight other tracks, it serves as a sort of soundtrack or musical accompaniment to his new memoir, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left.
Hitchcock, who was 14 years old and attending boarding school in England in 1967, describes how who he is today is encased in that period of his life, much like a mosquito in amber. But why share that with the world now?
In the mid ’70s, before he launched his solo career, Hitchcock was the leader of the psychedelic group the Soft Boys.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/tinnitus photography
“I’m 71; I’ve been alive quite a long time,” he shares. “If I want to leave a record of anything apart from all the songs I’ve written, now is a good time to do it. By writing about 1966 to ’67, I’m basically giving the context for Robyn Hitchcock, as Robyn Hitchcock then lived the rest of his life.”
Hopefully, I say, the publication of these works won’t ring as some sort of death knell for him.
“Well, it’s a relative death knell,” he replies. “But everyone’s on the conveyor belt. We all go over the edge. And none of our legacies are permanent. Even the plastic chairs and Coke bottles and stuff like that that we’re leaving behind.... In 10- or 20-thousand-years’ time, we’ll probably just be some weird, scummy layer on the great fruitcake of the Earth. But I suppose you do probably get to an age where you want to try and explain yourself, maybe to yourself. Maybe it’s me that needs to read the book, you know?”
“I’m basically giving the context for Robyn Hitchcock, as Robyn Hitchcock then lived the rest of his life.”
To counter his description of his songs above, I would say that Hitchcock’s performances on 1967: Vacations in the Past carve out their own deserved little planet in the vintage-rock Milky Way. I was excited in particular by some of his selections: the endorsement of foundational prog in the Procol Harum cover; the otherwise forgotten Traffic tune, “No Face, No Name and No Number,” off of Mr. Fantasy, the Mamas & the Papas’ nostalgic “San Francisco,” and of course, the aforementioned Floyd single. There’s also the lesser known “My White Bicycle” by Tomorrow and “I Can Hear the Grass Grow” by the Move, and the Hendrix B-side, “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.”
Through these recordings, Hitchcock pays homage to “that lovely time when people were inventing new strands of music, and they couldn’t define them,” he replies. “People didn’t really know what to call Pink Floyd. Was it jazz, or was it pop, or psychedelia, or freeform, or systems music?”
His renditions call to mind a cooking reduction, defined by Wikipedia as “the process of thickening and intensifying the flavor of a liquid mixture, such as a soup, sauce, wine, or juice, by simmering or boiling.” Hitchcock’s distinctive, classic folk-singer voice and steel-string-guided arrangements do just that to this iconic roster. There are some gentle twists and turns—Eastern-instrumental touches; subtly applied, ethereal delay and reverb, and the like—but nothing that should cloud the revived conduit to the listener’s memory of the originals.
And yet, here’s his review of his music, in general: “I hear [my songs] back and I think, ‘God, my voice is horrible! This is just … ugh! Why do I sing through my nose like that?’ And the answer is because Bob Dylan sang through his nose, you know. I was just singing through Bob Dylan’s nose, really.”
1967: Vacations in the Pastfeatures 11 covers of songs that were released in 1967, and one original song—the title track.
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“I wait for songs to come to me: They’re independent like cats, rather than like dogs who will faithfully trail you everywhere,” Hitchcock explains, sharing about his songwriting process. “All I can do is leave a plate of food out for the songs—in the form of my open mind—and hope they will appear in there, hungry for my neural pathways.”
Once he’s domesticated the wild idea, he says, “It’s important to remain as unselfconscious as possible in the [writing] process. If I start worrying about composing the next line, the embryonic song slips away from me. Often I’m left with a verse-and-a-half and an unresolved melody because my creation has lost its innocence and fled from my brain.
“[Then] there are times when creativity itself is simply not what’s called for: You just have to do some more living until the songs appear again. That’s as close as I can get to describing the process, which still, thankfully, remains mysterious to me after all this time.”
“In 10- or 20-thousand-years’ time, we’ll probably just be some weird, scummy layer on the great fruitcake of the Earth.”
In the prose of 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left, Hitchcock expresses himself similarly to how he does so distinctively in his lyrics and speech. Amidst his tales of roughing his first experiences in the infamously ruthless environs of English boarding school, he shares an abundance of insight about his parents and upbringing, as well as a self-diagnosis of having Asperger’s syndrome—whose name is now gradually becoming adapted in modern lexicon to “low-support-needs” autism spectrum disorder. When I touch on the subject, he reaffirms the observation, and elaborates, “I think I probably am also OCD, whatever that means. I’ve always been obsessed with trying to get things in the right order.”
He relates an anecdote about his school days: “So, if I got out of lunch—‘Yippee! I’ve got three hours to dress like a hippie before they put me back in my school clothes. Oh damn, I’ve put the purple pants on, but actually, I should put the red ones on. No! I put the red ones on; it’s not good—I’ll put my jeans on.’
Robyn Hitchcock's Gear
Hitchcock in 1998, after embarking on the tour behind one of his earlier acoustic albums, Moss Elixir.
Guitars
- Two Fylde Olivia acoustics equipped with Sennheiser II lavalier mics (for touring)
- Larrivée acoustic
- Fender Telecaster
- Fender Stratocaster
Strings & Picks
- Elixir .011–.052 (acoustic)
- Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottom .010–.054 (electric)
- Dunlop 1.0 mm
“I’d just get into a real state. And then the only thing that would do would be listening to Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart. There was something about Trout Mask that was so liberating that I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t care what trousers I’m wearing. This is just, whoa! This music is it.’”
With him having chosen to cover “See Emily Play,” a Syd Barrett composition, the conversation soon turns to the topic of the late, troubled songwriter. I comment, “It’s hard to listen to Syd’s solo records.... It’s weird that people enabled that. You can hear him losing his mind.”
“You can, but at the same time, the fact they enabled it means that these things did come out,” Robyn counters. “And he obviously had nothing else to give after that. So, at least, David Gilmour and the old Floyd guys.... It meant they gave the world those songs, which, although the performances are quite … rickety, quite fragile, they’re incredibly beautiful songs. There’s nothing forced about Barrett. He can only be himself.”
“There was something about Trout Mask Replica that was so liberating that I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t care what trousers I’m wearing. This is just, whoa!’”
I briefly compare Barrett to singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston, and we agree there are some similarities. And then with a segue, ask, “When did you first fall in love with the guitar? Was it when you came home from boarding school and found the guitar your parents gifted you on your bed?”
Robyn pauses thoughtfully.“Ah, I think I liked the idea of the guitar probably around that time,” he shares. “I always used to draw men with guns. I’m not really macho, but I had a very kind of post-World War II upbringing where men were always carrying guns. And I thought, ‘Well, if he’s a man, he’s got to carry a gun.’ Then, around the age of 13, I swapped the gun for the guitar. And then every man I drew was carrying a guitar instead.”
Elaborating on getting his first 6-string, he says, “I had lessons from a man who had three fingers bent back from an industrial accident. He was a nice old man with whiskers, and he showed me how to get the guitar in tune and what the basic notes were. And then I got hold of a Bob Dylan songbook, and—‘Oh my gosh, I can play “Mr. Tambourine Man!”’ It was really fast—about 10 minutes between not being able to play anything, and suddenly being able to play songs by my heroes.”
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Hitchcock does me the kindness, during our atypically deep conversation—at least, for a press interview—of sharing more acute perceptions of his parents, and their own neurodivergence. Ultimately, he feels that his mother didn’t necessarily like him, but loved the idea of him—and that later in life, he came to better understand his lonely, depressive father. “My mother was protective but in an oddly cold way. People are like that,” he shares. “We just contain so many things that don’t make sense with each other: colors that you would not mix as a painter; themes you would not intermingle as a writer; characters you would not create.... We defy any sense of balance or harmony.
“Although the performances are quite rickety, quite fragile, they’re incredibly beautiful songs. There’s nothing forced about Barrett. He can only be himself.”
“The idea of normality.... ‘Normal’ is tautological,” he continues. “Nothing is normal. A belief in normality is an aberration. It’s a form of insanity, I think.
“It’s just hard for us to accept ourselves because we’re brought up with the myth of normality, and the myth of what people are supposed to be like gender-wise, sex-wise, and psychologically what we’re supposed to want. And in a way, some of that’s beginning to melt, now. But that probably just causes more confusion. It’s no wonder people like me want to live in 1967.”
YouTube It
In this excerpt from the Jonathan Demme-directed concert film of Robyn Hitchcock, Storefront Hitchcock, the songwriter performs an absurdist “upbeat” song about a man who dies of cancer.