Pye Hastings

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Pye Hastings 2011

Julian Frederick Gordon Hastings , called Pye (born January 21, 1947 in Banffshire , Scotland ) is a singer , guitarist and composer . He is best known as the head of the Caravan group .

The early years

At the age of ten, Hastings moved with his parents to Kent , where he befriended Kevin Ayers . He learned to play the guitar, and after Richard Sinclair , the rhythm guitarist of Wilde Flowers , left the band in 1965, he took his place. A short time later, drummer and singer Robert Wyatt left the band to form Soft Machine , and Pye Hastings took over the vocals. In the summer of 1967 the Wilde Flowers finally disbanded.

Caravan

The other band members - Hastings, drummer Richard Coughlan , keyboardist Dave Sinclair and bassist Dave Lawrence - then formed the band Caravan . Lawrence was soon replaced by Richard Sinclair, and with this line-up (with guest appearances by Pye's brother Jimmy Hastings ) Caravan recorded three albums between 1968 and 1971. After that, first David and then Richard Sinclair left the band, and there were constant line-up changes, during which Hastings and Coughlan remained the only permanent members.

Pye Hastings also became the band's lead vocalist after Richard Sinclair left. Unusually for the progressive rock of the time, Hastings emphasized the rhythm guitar work clearly over the solo guitar. As a result, keyboards and, above all, instruments unusual for rock music such as saxophone, flute, violin and trombone came to the fore. This instrumental balance clearly set Caravan apart from other bands.

In 1978 the band broke up after the album Better by Far . Pye Hastings wrote several songs for a solo project, which he never finished; some demo recordings of it appeared in 1994 under the title Cool Water . With a new version of Caravan he recorded The Album in 1980 . Finally, the original line-up teamed up again in 1982 to record the album Back to Front , after which Caravan broke up again. Hastings took a job at Molequip, which rented out machines for tunneling.

Hastings, Coughlan, Sinclair and Sinclair got together again for a few concerts in the summer of 1990, but did not record any new material. In December Hastings played several concerts with Mirage , a project by former members of the band Camel , which also included David Sinclair and Jimmy Hastings.

It was not until 1995 that Pye Hastings took up new material for a solo project; however, the resulting album The Battle of Hastings eventually appeared under the name Caravan. Since then the band has released several new albums and toured regularly.

Sometimes Pye Hastings also appeared as a guest musician with friends from the Canterbury scene, such as 1972 to 1984 , the solo LP of former soft machine bassist Hugh Hopper .

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personal data
SURNAME Hastings, Pye
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hastings, Julian Frederick Gordon (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish guitarist, singer and composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Banffshire , Scotland