It seems fitting that I reproduce here, a tribute from his friend and colleague, Robert Wyatt.
'About 50 years ago, someone said to me that there was another bloke with long hair in east Kent, so I should meet him because we'd be sure to get on. I did, and we did. He wrote songs and sang in an amazingly deep voice for someone so young.
His little record collection included Astrud Gilberto and acoustic jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd. He admired Oscar Wilde and Louis McNiece. His songs were witty and touching.
He and a couple of us decided to try to form a group using just our own tunes. We called ourselves Soft Machine [with William Burroughs' permission]. We played together, in various incarnations, until the end of 68.
By that time, we'd become a mainly instrumental band, in which Kevin played bass guitar. Kevin wanted to get back to song writing, which resulted in a sequence of great records such as Joy of a Toy.
In 1970, I played in his new band, The Whole World, a few times. Playing with Kevin was like basking in sunshine. He was funny, wise and unhurried. I am very lucky to have worked with him all those years ago. Goodbye Kevin'.
I was not a great collector of the music of Kevin Ayers but I do feel that Soft Machine were never as good without him and I did own a vinyl copy of his 1974 album 'The Confessions Of Dr Dream & Other Stories'. I never got round to replacing that on CD but I must rectify that now as well as increasing my collection of his music.
Incidentally while reading through a couple of obituaries, I noticed that his father Rowan Ayers created the BBC music programme, 'The Old Grey Whistle Test'. I never knew that.
RIP Kevin
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