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Why Robert Wyatt’s wife Alfie is his most important collaborator
Robert Wyatt came to prominence as the drummer and singer with Soft Machine – alongside Pink Floyd, one of the twin "house bands" of the s London underground scene. His life took an abrupt turn in , when a fall from a fourth-storey window left him paraplegic.
Alfreda benge biography templates printable
Alfreda Benge born [1] is an Austrian-born British lyricist and illustrator. Benge was born in Austria to a Polish mother, and came to the UK in Her stepfather, Ronald Benge, was a prominent librarian who established library schools in developing countries. She has been married to musician Robert Wyatt since Benge has also illustrated two children's books written by Scottish poet and musician Ivor Cutler.Unable to play drums, he reinvented himself as a singer and composer with the following year's Rock Bottom.
Since then he has made the top 40 twice – first with his cover of I'm A Believer, in , and again with Shipbuilding, released in the aftermath of the Falklands war. Wyatt is happier, though, far from the mainstream, working with jazz musicians or singing revolutionary songs of the international left.
Now nearing 70, he finds himself perhaps more recognised than ever: in recent years, he's been shortlisted for the Mercury prize, guest edited BBC Radio 4's Today programme, and curated London's Southbank Centre's prestigious Meltdown festival.
Since the end of his “drummer biped” days, Wyatt has been known as a solo artist, although in fact his numerous collaborators include Brian Eno, David Gilmour, Paul Weller and Björk.
Wyatt's most important collaborator by far, however, is often overlooked: his wife Alfreda Benge, known to all as Alfie.
She and Wyatt met in and were married two years later, on the day Rock Bottom was released.
Almost immediately, Wyatt was writing about her on Rock Bottom tracks such as Alifib, Alifie and Sea Song. Yet Benge's role is both more multi-faceted and far more active than mere muse.
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“Alfie’s role in the studio is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly important – I can’t emphasise that enough,” says Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, in whose studio Wyatt has recorded all his recent albums.
“There is no Robert without Alfie.” Geoff Travis, whose Rough Trade label put out some of Wyatt’s finest music in the s, agrees: “Both of them are great artists, and I see them together.”
Benge has been Wyatt's manager for decades, but also makes a major artistic contribution in terms of both lyrics and artwork.
Originally, Benge conceived her words as poems rather than lyrics.
Alfreda benge biography templates free Born in in Austria to a Polish mother, she came to England in Alfie studied painting at Camberwell Art School, then typography and graphics at the London School of Printing before winning a competitive place at the RCA to study film. At the time she was completing her undergraduate studies the Royal Academy of Arts were looking for a someone to make a film celebrating the Royal Academy's Centenary. Alfie secured the role as part of her Post Graduate studies. Wyatt was in the process of making his second album with the band Matching Mole and Alfie contributed some uncredited backing vocals to Little Red Record.Set to music by Wyatt, they provide some of the highlights of 's Dondestan, as well as its breaks from overt politics: Benge takes the listener to an out-of-season Spanish town, picking out details with a painter's eye. Writing music to fit someone else's words also had a positive effect on Wyatt's compositional process, forcing him beyond the familiar, and Benge has gone on to write lyrics for tracks on every subsequent album.
Benge's other major contribution to the albums that bear her husband's name is in terms of cover art, a process that began with Rock Bottom.
Her muted pencil drawing was a reflection of the music and its Venetian inception, but also a deliberate attempt to distance the album from the famously elaborate covers of progressive rock contemporaries.
Benge would be responsible for the artwork of every record Wyatt released from this point on. They vary considerably, from pencil drawing to cut-out collage – I'm no art critic but see shades, variously, of Miró, Hockney and Matisse – and yet a consistent vision runs throughout.
Alfreda benge biography templates Back to the list. It was a rare treat to speak to Robert Wyatt by phone for this interview, I'd like to gratefully acknowledge Joyce at Cuneiform Records for kindly setting this up. When I first dreamt of doing Dream Magazine, Robert Wyatt's name was near the top of the list of folks I wanted to talk to. His angelic lighter than air voice is one of the most unique and lovely ever recorded, his continuing creative flow reveals some of the finest work in a forty-plus year career. His open armed embrace of jazz, folk, pop, socialist politics, intelligence, wit, minimalism, progressive rock, compassion, psychedelia, several different international musical forms, and his own distinctive vision is a singular contribution to the history of recorded music.They're among the most remarkable covers in popular music, and I can't think of another example of an artist designing album covers for the same musician over 40 years. Wyatt says he's had messages from people who bought 's Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, for instance, simply for its vivid, anthropomorphic and mildly sinister cover, and only then realised they liked the music too.
Benge's visual ideas reflect her proximity to, and involvement in, the creative process, and sometimes the biographical background behind that process too.
Her cover for 's Shleep, for instance, depicts a snoozing Wyatt clutching a dove, reflecting his recovery from breakdown and severe insomnia – not the sort of thing your typical marketing department would suggest. Dondestan, meanwhile, depicts their room in Spain.
Biography templates free Alfreda Benge born [ 1 ] is an Austrian-born British lyricist and illustrator. Benge was born in Austria to a Polish mother, and came to the UK in Her stepfather, Ronald Benge, was a prominent librarian who established library schools in developing countries. She has been married to musician Robert Wyatt since Benge has also illustrated two children's books written by Scottish poet and musician Ivor Cutler.If listeners feel an affinity to Wyatt, who manages to seem uncommonly approachable for an artist who hasn't played a headline gig since and is certainly not on social media (although he does a fine line in DIY postcards), it might in part be down to Benge's artwork.
Benge has occasionally written lyrics and designed covers for other artists – words for French musician Bertrand Burgalat, artwork for Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Annette Peacock, Fred Frith – but is all too often overlooked in both respects.
It may be sexism; it may be that she doesn’t sing her words, beyond the occasional backing vocal or spoken word cameo; it may be that artwork in general tends to be neglected (increasingly so, perhaps, in an age in which music is so often intangible). It may even be that, whether we realise it or not, we are still in thrall to the Romantic notion of the artist as solo individual.
Benge serves as a pertinent reminder that creative labour is in fact frequently collaborative.
Fans of popular music know this instinctively: a roll call of creative couples would include, say, Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Lieber and Stoller, Morrisey and Marr. The husband-and-wife dynamic, though unusual, is not unprecedented: we might think, for instance, of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.
Then there’s the artist Moki Cherry, who designed several album covers for her jazz trumpeter husband Don, and Kathleen Brennan, who has contributed artwork and lyrics to albums by her husband Tom Waits.
Even in such company, however, Alfie is unusual in making such a consistent and crucial contribution, while remaining, in her own words, a "hiding-in-the-shadows sort of person".
It's something, I hope, that comes through in my book Different Every Time, which should perhaps have been subtitled "the authorised biography of Robert Wyatt and Alfreda Benge", and in the accompanying compilation album. Even better, to accompany the book, two of Benge's covers are now available for the first time as limited edition giclée prints.
I've already ordered mine.
Different Every Time: the Authorised Biography of Robert Wyatt by Marcus O'Dair is out now from Serpent's Tail. Peter Murphy reviews it in The Irish Times on Saturday, December 13th. An accompanying compilation, also called Different Every Time, is out now on Domino Recordings.