Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt: Free Will and Testament
Review by Colin HambrookI've always been intrigued by Robert Wyatt's music. He has a strength and vulnerability in his voice and a wonderful absurdity, albeit within a jazz/pop sensibility. Moreover his music often displays a depth of emotion and an originality, even when he's covering other peoples' material. His haunting version of Elvis Costello's Shipbuilding comes back to me time and again. Especially that one line that seems to sum up so much frustration with the modern world: With all the will in the world / fighting for dear life / when we could be diving for pearls.
I sometimes wonder why disabled artists of his repute have never joined the fray within the disability movement? In the BBC 2 documentary on 13 August: Free Will and Testament, Robert Wyatt's attitude mirrored ideas within the Social Model of Disability. He talked about how the onset of disability, after an accident, had been an opportunity for him to resolve dilemmas of artistic direction. Suddenly he was freed to get on with what he really wanted to do. And boy, when you hear his music and read his lyrics you get a sense of someone with a strong artistic and political vision. His Left on Man
is one of the best arguments against the persistent cat-calls against left wing politics, that it is too simplistic.
He expressed something of the hurdles he's had to surmount as a result of discrimination. In particular the story of the Top of the Pops producer in the mid-70s, who insisted he perform in a wicker chair, because it was a family show and Robert wasn't to be seen in a wheelchair. As if wheelchairs were some kind of obscenity. He described the incident as the one time he responded like a disabled activist
.
Free Will and Testament was an inspiring music documentary. It managed by and large, to edit out most of the hyperbole and allow the music to speak for itself. And what sensitive and powerful music it is. A favourite meditation on being real and alive, is the title the documentary was named after.
You can look up the lyrics at: www.strongcomet.com/wyatt
Cover of Robert Wyatt album 'Shleep'
Related information
Strong Comet website
www.strongcomet.com/wyatt
last updated: 2004-12-01 00:00:00
More by this author : Andrew Roberts Holton Lee Disability Arts Competitive Exhibition Editors' Blog Mark Ware Oska Bright 2007 Sign Dance (Theatre) Collective The Disabled Avant-Garde Today! Oska Bright Film Festival 2005 DAO and Disability Arts National Disability Arts Collection and Archive The National Disability Arts Collection Colin Hambrook Xposure 2004: London Festival of Deaf and Disability Arts Nancy Willis: Early Days The Way Ahead Laurence Clark: The Jim Davidson Guide to Equality Lynn Manning Liberty Festival 2004 CandoCo Foundation Course Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors. Late Works 1950-1954 Phil Lancaster Oska Bright Film Festival 2004 Extant present Resistance Art + Power Critical Writing Masterclass Paul Cade: Sanity for Vanity StopGap dancers on the move Paddy Masefield Award Maria Kuipers Frida Kahlo’s Corset Interview with Julie McNamara Liberty Festival 2007 Leave Home Stay Noemi Lakmaier Pauline Alexander: the art of discrimination
tags : music