Philippe Thieyre & Jean François Déran  : Robert Wyatt

(Editions des Accords 2009)

 

A book about Robert Wyatt written by French music journalist Philippe Thieyre (Rock & Folk) with B/W photos by Jean François Déran. The book is quite short and based on two long interviews, one recent, that Philippe Thieyre led with Robert Wyatt (and Alfie) at their home in Louth. Thieyre arranged the interview into thematic parts following Wyatt's thoughts. As a foreword Thieyre quotes Wyatt ,who says about himself that he agrees easily to give an interview, but that he is hard to interview, speaking about Robert's (non)discipline to answer questions in a straight ahead way.  Robert Wyatt gives away some touching details about his childhood, his doubts as a teenager his relation to the other Soft Machiners and so on. In  a way it's more rewarding if one knows already some biographic details about Robert Wyatt, but that's not indispensable. The book is  easy to read with great B/W photos by Jean François Déran.