PROFILE - The Wilde Flowers: The Origins of the Canterbury Scene

The Origins of the Canterbury Scene, The Wilde Flowers:
- Wilde Flowers by The Wilde Flowers, Vinyl, Compilation, 2018
- Wilde Flowers by The Wilde Flowers, CD, Compilation, 2014

The Wilde Flowers are a band I'm passionate about, not only, or not so much, for their record production, which was nil—no official albums as long as the band was active—but for what this group of young friends, artists, and musicians represented for progressive rock, particularly for the Canterbury scene, which without them would never have existed. Perhaps it was the era, perhaps their talent, perhaps the excitement of the music emerging at that time, beyond classical standards, perhaps also a little because of Miles Davis, who had released albums that were considered already masterpieces at the time, or perhaps because psychedelic music was also just beginning to take its first steps, but... something happened.

In the mid-1950s, a group of students from Simon Langton Primary School in Canterbury met. This group included brothers Hugh and Brian Hopper, Robert Wyatt, Dave Sinclair, and Mike Ratledge, and their friendship developed around music, spending entire afternoons at Robert Wyatt's house listening to jazz and playing his most famous songs.

In 1960, an Australian boy named Daevid Allen rented a room in Wyatt's house. He had a nonconformist lifestyle and a huge passion for jazz, which immediately influenced the other boys and roommates.
At the end of 1962, still at the Wyatt house, the first recordings of what would become the core of the group began, featuring the two Hoppers, Brian on guitar and saxophone, Hugh on bass, Wyatt on drums, and Ratledge on piano.

Allen, who had meanwhile moved to London, invited Wyatt to join him in 1963, and after a while, Hugh Hopper joined them: together, they formed the Daevid Allen Trio, which performed in England, alternating free jazz with readings of Beat poetry.

Ratledge occasionally joined the trio's concerts as a guest, such as the June 1963 date at the Marquee Club in London, a recording of which was released in 1993 by Voiceprint Records as Live 1963. The lack of bookings caused the group to lose confidence, and they disbanded after a few weeks.

Daevid moved to Deià on the island of Mallorca, where a community of Beat Generation artists had been living for years, and where many of the Canterbury musicians would often stay as well, so much so that it can be considered the birthplace of Gong and Soft Machine.
Here, he was joined by Wyatt and Ayers, with whom he spent a busy summer filled with musical evenings. Around the same time, Hugh, his brother Brian, and fifteen-year-old Richard Sinclair officially formed the Wild Flowers, which, with the return of Wyatt and Ayers, took the name Wilde Flowers in homage to the Irish writer Oscar Wilde.

The Wilde group's recordings became increasingly frequent and involved more and more musicians. They remained active until 1969, and their only album to be released was not until 1993, titled The Wilde Flowers. With the departure of Ayers, followed by that of Wyatt, who went on to form Soft Machine in 1966, the Wilde Flowers were dominated by the members who left in 1968 to form Caravan.

History has it that the Wilde Flowers are a group formed in Canterbury, Kent (UK) in the early 1960s, and their name is a tribute to the Irish writer Oscar Wilde.

Despite their short existence and although they never released any records, they were the cradle of musicians who later became key figures. The band was a fertile ground for the development of future leaders of the Canterbury scene, creating a core group of musicians who would later join other key projects. Let's see them:

(All links to the musicians' works are in the TAGS at the beginning of the article.)

Daevid Allen
- guitar, vocals
- Wilde Flowers, Gong, Daevid Allen Trio, Soft Machine

Robert Wyatt
- drums, vocals, keyboards, trumpet, percussion
- Daevid Allen Trio, Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine, Matching Mole, a successful solo career

Kevin Ayers
- vocals, bass guitar, guitar, piano
- Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine

Hugh Hopper
- bass guitar
- Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt

Brian Hopper
- saxophone, vocals, guitar, flute
- Jazzmatazz, Happy Accidents, Wilde Flowers, Zobe, Beggars Farm

Richard Coughlan
- drums
- Caravan, Wilde Flowers

Richard Sinclair
- electric bass, bass
- Wilde Flowers, Caravan, Hatfield and the North, Caravan of Love, Camel, Sinclair and the South, Caravan of Dreams

Pye Hastings
- Guitar, Vocals
- Caravan, The Wilde Flowers

Mike Ratledge
- piano, electric piano, organ, synthesizer
- Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine

Along with the birth of the Canterbury scene, this movement had a significant influence on the development of progressive rock as a whole, fusing psychedelic rock, jazz, avant-garde, and electronic music, and employing lyrics with strong surreal overtones—characteristics we'll later find in the band that originated with the band's founders.

This album is a true Progressive Rock METEOR. Visit the PROG METEOR section for more information.

Note: All links to the musicians' works are in the TAGS under the article title or on the "Artists" page.

Their works, which are two historical documents: