Hugh Hopper: Innovative bassist with Soft Machine and stalwart of the
Canterbury scene



Friday, 12 June 2009



Hopper with Soft Machine outside the Royal Albert Hall before a gig with
the London Symphony Orchestra in 1970: (L-R) Mike Ratledge, Hopper,
Robert Wyatt and Elton Dean

* Photos enlarge



The bass guitarist and composer Hugh Hopper was a pivotal member of Soft
Machine, the Canterbury group which went through many incarnations and
shifts in musical identity and proved more successful in continental
Europe than the UK in the late Sixties and early Seventies. A friend and
schoolmate of the founder-member, drummer and vocalist Robert Wyatt,
Hopper contributed to the group's psychedelic debut in 1968 and was
their road manager before replacing bassist Kevin Ayers on the jazzier
Volume Two album the following year. Hopper was a mainstay of the Softs
until May 1973, his trademark fuzz Fender Precision bass riffs and
experiments with tape loops as important to the group's ever-evolving
sound as Mike Ratledge's Lowrey electric organ through five albums,
including the best-selling Third (1970) and Fourth (1971).
www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hugh-hopper-innovative-bassist-with-soft-m\
achine-and-stalwart-of-the-canterbury-scene-1703161.html
(full story)



Simon

Think Green!