Almost four decades after his career began, Robert Wyatt remains one of very few drummers worthy of sustained interest and examination.  The great paradox of Robert’s drumming in Soft Machine is that what made him great limited him and what limited him made him great. To begin with, lack of formal training and technique forced Robert to be more creative and more musical in designing his drum parts for the Softs’ extraordinarily challenging music. These limitations also allowed him to be cliché proof. You simply did not hear him play drum parts that you had ever heard before. That this …  [ read more ]