Kevin Ayers
The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories

A short time ago - February 18, to be precise - marked five years since Kevin Ayers left us. From a commemorative standpoint, comparing his passing with that of his friend and fellow Syd Barrett is inconceivable (a simple observation that doesn't intend to take anything away from the Mad Hatter). The fact that such a great artist and essential talent scout - primarily Mike Oldfield, Andy Summers, among many others - remains less in the collective memory than deserved is thought-provoking. And to think that during his life, dozens of big names collaborated with him and his influence was enormous (ask Bryan Ferry, please). Becoming, over the years, a name almost of the elite, even if he never cared about it, does little justice to him anyway.

A true example of genius and recklessness, he left the successful Soft Machine after just one album in 1968, mainly because, besides wanting more freedom, he was disgusted by the way their manager Chas Chandler was handling his other “protégé” Jimi Hendrix and feared the same fate might soon befall him too. Despite his now ex-Softs companions remaining his friends and helping him record, Kevin wanted to do everything his own way and pursue his career without answering to anyone. Unfortunately, it must be said, this stubbornness backfired a bit: an invaluable and eclectic songwriter and melody creator, and at the same time an impulsive and sometimes senseless experimenter, despite creating overall beautiful albums, he would never again achieve the perfect magnificence of that total masterpiece that is his solo debut “Joy Of A Toy” (1969), a magnificent balance of melody, playfulness, and experimentation. Anarchic and capricious (only heaven knows how many tours he canceled in his life), endowed with versatility so extreme that it sometimes bordered on schizophrenia, even with his whims and peculiarities, indeed, often by virtue of them, he wrote great music. Kevin Ayers is missed, and it’s absolutely worth rediscovering him. My advice is to retrieve his excellent fifth album “The Confessions Of Dr. Dream And Other Stories” (1974), his most beautiful record after “Joy Of A Toy,” perhaps tied with the third “Whatevershebringswesing” from '71.

Far from being cohesive (not necessarily a bad thing), it nonetheless has a certain logic in being divided into a first “American” side, where Ayers measures himself in his way with typically American genres, and a second more traditionally “English” and progressive one, dominated by a four-act suite. Rich in illustrious guests that naming one would be unjust to the others, costly in production, versatile and ambitious.

The first part offers three of the best songs he ever wrote: the danceable funk of Day By Day, which a white person, and an Englishman at that, could hardly have rendered darker; Didn’t Feel Lonely Till I Thought Of You, one of the most beautiful southern rock pieces ever heard - and I want to be repetitive: Kevin Ayers is English - with a textbook guitar solo by Ollie Halsall, also very English and also never too lamented; Everybody’s Sometime And Some People’s All The Time Blues, slow blues with an erection that instead hosts on guitar his old companion and now superstar Mike Oldfield. Thus, a tribute to the United States, which however turns into parody precisely in the two shortest moments, namely in the funny reinterpretations of country-western and Mississippi blues in See You Later and Ballbearing Blues, demonstrations of his innate ironic and extravagant verve. Finally, still on this side, a clever homage to his origins in the mini-suite It Begins With A Blessing/Once I Awakened/But It Ends With A Curse, no less than a remake of that Why Are We Sleeping from the first Soft Machine and brought as a soloist in his concerts, here becoming a monumental fusion of psychedelia, prog, jazz (another ex-companion on sax, Lol Coxhill, not just anyone), hard rock, and soul.

The suite dominating the second is another melting pot of styles, starting from vague suggestions of Mike Oldfield's “Tubular Bells” - still his heir, it must be reiterated - of the first act (with Nico guesting alongside Kevin on vocals), passes in the central parts into a territory somewhere between Canterbury, Roxy Music (another case of claimed stylistic paternity?) and Pink Floyd, and finally lands at the gloomy march Doctor Dream Theme, perhaps the best moment. The album closes with a touch of bitter nostalgia in the brief space-folk of Two Goes Into Four, which effectively seals the last album of his best phase, as well as a magical period of his career that unfortunately will not be repeated.

My most sincere wish is that this writing can bring a bit of attention to an artist who, in my humble opinion, shouldn’t need any introduction. Make him yours.