Robyn Hitchcock

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, 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. 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. 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" for his unique body of work.