Charles Hayward è tra i principali protagonisti dell'imperdibile racconto autobiografico ('notes from a bass impostor') che Bill MacCormick ha finalmente ultimato e consegnato alle stampe dopo anni di anticipazioni ed estratti diffusi in modo occasionale (e a volte provocatorio) in vari gruppi di discussione sul web: Making It Up As You Go Along... (Iona Books, 2024). Ci sono Quiet Sun e Random Hold, Robert Wyatt e Matching Mole, Phil Manzanera e 501, il fratello Ian MacDonald, Brian Eno, Phil Miller, Hugh Hopper, Gary Windo, Francis Monkman e decine e decine di altri in oltre 400 pagine fitte di notizie, aneddoti, commenti e considerazioni col senno di allora - si va dal 1966 al 1980 - e col senno di poi. Bravo!
Brought up on an early teenage musical diet of Beethoven, Brahms, the Beatles, Stax, and Tamla Motown, an accidental meeting with Robert Wyatt and the newly formed Soft Machine transformed his world view. Now, radically influenced by the Softs, the Mothers of Invention, Stravinsky, and Charlie Mingus, the book describes his first faltering steps to musical anonymity with school friend and psychedelic guitar titan, Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, and their school band, Pooh and the Ostrich Feather. An ‘accidental’ bass player with failed prog rock combo Quiet Sun, he somehow survived to play, sometimes tour, and record with Robert Wyatt in Matching Mole, and on his album ‘Ruth is Stranger than Richard’; Phil Manzanera on his solo albums ‘Diamond Head’, ‘Listen Now’, and ‘K-Scope’; on two Brian Eno albums; with the short-lived 801 which spawned the highly acclaimed '801 Live' album and finally with the doomed and doom-laden Random Hold. On the way, the book touches on the social and political issues which influenced the lyrics he and his late brother, and author of Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald, contributed to Phil Manzanera’s 70s albums. It contains pen portraits and, sadly, the obituaries of several musician friends Bill met along the way: Phil Miller, Hugh Hopper, Gary Windo, Francis Monkman, Lloyd Watson, and David Ferguson. And, in appendices too numerous to mention, you may enjoy the press coverage, good and bad, the various projects generated.