I always come back to Rock Bottom, by Robert Wyatt; even though I try to entertain other possibilities! It’s not something early that made me fall in love with music – which is sort of why it’s so powerful to me. When you’re a teenager and you hear things for the first time they have an incredible impact; and I certainly had experiences like that at that age. But it’s much rarer that you get that kind of impact later in life; and this is one of those records for me. I say ‘later in life’ - I probably heard it when I was 27, so I was still a young person; but by that point, I’d heard so much music.
It was nice to go into something with no preconceived notions; and it doesn’t happen that often, because usually you know something about whatever it is. It felt like discovering something that I couldn’t believe I’d been missing my whole life! To have that experience when I was a little older was great. I don’t know if I’d heard it when I was younger whether I’d have made sense of it? Perhaps it was the perfect time for me to hear it.
A friend played it for me, and I had no idea who he [Wyatt] was. I have an almost visceral memory of sitting on my living room floor in front of the speakers and my jaw dropping - I’d never heard anything like it. I could feel the emotions and intensity of the music. His voice is very unusual but, to me, incredibly beautiful.
The sense of melody and intentionality and the lyrics, it was just one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard. And there are so many surprises: there’s a moment on the first song where he basically starts scat singing, he almost imitates a horn - I was not expecting that at all! I thought I knew what the song was at that point, and then this whole other surprise unfolded. I laughed when it happened!
I’ve listened to the album hundreds of times. There was a point in my life when I was going through some difficult stuff and that record was like medicine - it really helped me. And it’s still a record I listen to, I’ve never got sick of it. It hasn’t lost its power.
There are also certain musical things in it that resonate with my music, even though I approach my music in a very different way, and I don’t think my music sounds very much like his music. But I’ve always had a love of strong melodies, and songwriting; and also of things that are left of centre, and a little bit weird! He’s able to incorporate the weird with the beautiful in such a nice way; and those are things I aspire to. Plus it’s totally unique - I still haven’t heard anything like it.
After I discovered it, I did a deep dive into his music, and went back and listened to Soft Machine, and I read his biography. That’s when I found out that it was the first record he made after he became paralysed. He never said, ‘The record is about that’; but clearly it was an intense thing that was happening. And knowing that made the intensity of the record make sense.
What I’ve noticed about Robert Wyatt is people either have no idea who he is, or they’re fanatical about him. There’s a club in Brooklyn, and every time I went in there the owners would be playing Robert Wyatt. We started talking, and they said, ‘He loves jazz, we mail him a package every year - would you like to include some of your music?’.
So, I gave them whatever my current album was at the time and they mailed it to him. I’d written him a little note; and I got a postcard in the mail, thanking me for sending it - just the sweetest person! Then we began a correspondence, eventually switching to e-mail. I’ve always mailed him my records. And I actually had the honour to have him sing as a special guest on my album Artlessly Falling. That was a dream come true for me! We had a little back and forth where I’d send him samples of a song and say, ‘Is this comfortable for you to sing?’; and he’d send something back; which was lovely.
It’s cool when you meet your heroes - though I’ve never actually met him! - and they end up being super-nice!
Mary Halvorson’s latest albums are Bone Bells (Pyroclastic) with Sylvie Courvoisier; and About Ghosts (Nonesuch, out 25 June)
