Roy was never really a hippie despite all the long hair and sixties scene. Roy was a Beatnik.
His early influences were Jazz and Beat Poetry. He was taken with Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg.
His first foray into performance was as a Jazz poet. He later went into busking of folk-blues on guitar and then had the inspiration to combine the poetry with the guitar. You can hear the Jazz and poetry in all his songs. It gives them a different structure and complexity.
You can see the Beat influence in Roy’s appearance. He loves crafting hair almost as much as music. He has that Beat/Jazz flamboyance!
I was over in Ireland with Roy when William Burroughs died. I mentioned that I had just read a good obituary and he got me to dig it up out of the garbage so he could read it.
“Show us your bum Roy!”
We’ll see tomorrow! You never know! It has been done many times!
I should explain to other readers that this isn’t a personal fetish on my part, but simply a repeat of the humorous call-out by fans over many years at his concerts!
There are a number of similar such heckles which all add to the splendour and irreverence of the event.
Looks like a Colonel Sanders mo and beard 🙂
Much more radical than the dear old colonel though, Raili. Roy is a British gem of a dissident, a musical giant and a voice of intelligent reason.
🙂
Buy Stormcock and check him out – music to blow your mind.
Aha! Do I detect a subliminal partial admittance to being the originator of such? Prey tell!
I refrain from heckling. I am usually too involved or uptight (there is a personal involvement that means that I sometimes am unable to relax).
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
A complex, intelligent man and social observer!