For other uses, see Robyn Hitchcock (disambiguation).
This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Robyn Hitchcock" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR(May 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Robyn Hitchcock
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, 6 October 2012
Background information
Birth name
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock
Born
(1953-03-03) 3 March 1953 (age 71) Paddington, London, England
Genres
Alternative rock
jangle pop
psychedelic folk
post-punk
Occupation(s)
Musician, actor
Instrument(s)
Vocals
guitar
piano
harmonica
bass
Labels
Tiny Ghost
Yep Roc
Rhino
Slash
Relativity
A&M
Sequel
Website
robynhitchcock.com
Musical artist
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock (born 3 March 1953) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano, and bass guitar. After leading the Soft Boys in the late 1970s and releasing the influential Underwater Moonlight,[1] Hitchcock launched a prolific solo career. His musical and lyrical styles have been influenced by Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Syd Barrett, Captain Beefheart, Martin Carthy, Lou Reed, Roger McGuinn and Bryan Ferry.
Hitchcock's earliest lyrics mined a rich vein of English surrealist comic tradition and tended to depict a particular type of eccentric and sardonic English worldview. His music and performance style was originally (and remains) heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, but also by the English folk music revival of the 1960s and early 1970s, and this was soon filtered through a then-unfashionable psychedelic rock lens during the punk rock and new wave music eras of the late 1970s and early 1980s.[citation needed] This combination of musical styles won Hitchcock's band of the time, The Soft Boys, a very enthusiastic if small fanbase, but an extremely frosty critical reception from the UK music press of the era.[citation needed] However, the Soft Boys' final album together, Underwater Moonlight, posthumously earned them a glowing reputation (particularly in America) as a major influence on bands like R.E.M.
After finding a measure of success in the latter 1980s in America, Hitchcock's lyrical and musical horizons broadened further to encompass a range of approaches while still retaining a recognisably surreal, but more serious, signature style. He has recorded for two major American labels (A&M Records, then Warner Bros.) over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, and was the subject of a live performance/documentary film (Storefront Hitchcock) by major motion picture director Jonathan Demme in 1998. Since the turn of the millennium he has also finally received belated critical recognition in his home country. Despite this, mainstream success remains limited. He continues to tour and record prolifically and has earned strong critical reviews over a steady stream of album releases and live performances, and a dedicated "cult following"[2] for his unique body of work.
^Holdship, Bill (13 March 2001). "The Soft Boys: Underwater Moonlight". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2 October 2007. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
^Trager, Oliver (4 December 1997). The American Book of the Dead. Simon and Schuster. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-684-81402-5. Hitchcock developed a sizable cult following on the heels of the critical acclaim he received in the mid-1980s for his highly poetic, if somewhat obscure, songs.
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock (born 3 March 1953) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica...
The Soft Boys were an English rock band led by guitarist RobynHitchcock The band formed in 1976 in Cambridge, England and released two albums before...
Storefront Hitchcock is a 1998 American concert film featuring RobynHitchcock and directed by Jonathan Demme. It was conceived as "a document not a documentary"...
heartfelt music." Swift has toured the US, Australia, UK, and Europe with RobynHitchcock, and they have released two 7" vinyl singles together, "Follow Your...
Arthur), Hindu Love Gods, The Minus 5, Tuatara, The Baseball Project, RobynHitchcock and the Venus 3, Tired Pony, The No-Ones, and Filthy Friends, each...
including collaborative albums with Peter Blegvad, Harold Budd and RobynHitchcock. From 2002 to 2006, Partridge's APE House record label released several...
Cure, Peter Buck of R.E.M., Kate Bush, Paul Weller, Aimee Mann, Beck, RobynHitchcock and the Black Crowes. The first Drake biography appeared in 1997; it...
and spent many years recording and touring with artists including RobynHitchcock, the Television Personalities, the Finnish rock band Hanoi Rocks, and...
Globe of Frogs is the sixth album released by RobynHitchcock and his third with his backing band The Egyptians, released on A&M Records in 1988. Made...
Perspex Island is the ninth studio album by English musician RobynHitchcock and his fifth with backing band, The Egyptians, released on Go! Discs in...
Barbican Centre, London, on 10 May 2007 with Barrett's bandmates and RobynHitchcock, Captain Sensible, Damon Albarn, Chrissie Hynde and Kevin Ayers. Gilmour...
He was a member of Katrina and the Waves from 1981 to 1999 and of RobynHitchcock's Soft Boys from 1978 to 1981. For Katrina and the Waves, he wrote "Walking...
the band played two dates in New York City with RobynHitchcock. The performances included the Hitchcock album "Black Snake Diamond Role" in its entirety...
Knopfler, the Decemberists, Sam Phillips, Conor Oberst, Ani DiFranco, RobynHitchcock, Barry Gibb and Molly Tuttle. Welch was born on October 2, 1967, in...
third album by RobynHitchcock, released in 1984. It is Hitchcock's first acoustic-based album. After the break-up of The Soft Boys, Hitchcock recorded two...
performance by Pink Floyd with Wright, who died in September 2008. RobynHitchcock covered the song on his 2020 album The Man Downstairs: Demos & Rarities...
lead singer Tunde Adebimpe. Singer-songwriter RobynHitchcock plays a wedding guest. At the ceremony Hitchcock, at the request of his old friend Demme, performs...
Queen Elvis is the seventh studio album by English musician RobynHitchcock, released on A&M Records in 1989. It is his fourth studio album to be released...
and other underground pop of the 1980s." All tracks are written by RobynHitchcock, except as noted All the tracks on this disc were taken from rehearsal...
Musician Johnny Marr, formerly with The Smiths, The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse and The Cribs and now playing solo, has appeared as a guest musician...
was featured in the Jonathan Demme movie Storefront Hitchcock performing alongside RobynHitchcock. She was also the subject of a 2001 Wall Street Journal...