Roy Babbington
Encyclopedia
Roy Babbington is a rock
and jazz
bassist
. He became well known for being a member of the Canterbury scene
progressive rock
/jazz fusion
band Soft Machine
.
in local jazz bands. After moving to London in 1969, he joined the band Delivery
, one of the side roots of the Canterbury scene
with Phil Miller
, Pip Pyle
and Lol Coxhill
. Also, he began to work as a session musician with jazz/fusion
musicians like Michael Gibbs
and The Keith Tippett
Group (including Elton Dean
), appearing on their albums You Are Here... I Am There (1969) and Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening (1970) as well as in Tippett's big band project Centipede
(1971) and on Dean's album Just Us. When Delivery disbanded in 1971 after an album with Carol Grimes
titled Fools Meeting, Babbington joined Nucleus
.
He contributed to albums by Alexis Korner
, folk singer Harvey Andrews
, Mike d'Abo
, Chris Spedding
and was a part time member of the bands "Schunge", Solid Gold Cadillac
(with Mike Westbrook
and Spedding among others) and Ovary Lodge.
's work on the Soft Machine albums Fourth (1971) and Fifth (1972), he finally replaced Hopper fully in the band with the release of their album Seven
. He used a six-string Fender VI throughout his tenure with the band. In addition to Seven, he can be heard on BBC Radio 1971-1974, Bundles
, Softs
and Rubber Riff. Babbington's funk- and rock-oriented electric bass playing went along well with Karl Jenkins
' and John Marshall
's fusion
concept of Soft Machine at the time.
by Judie Tzuke
. In the 1980s and 90s, he returned to his roots, double bass and pure jazz, and became affectionately known by the musical community as the jazz handbrake. He also worked with Barbara Thompson, Elvis Costello
, Carol Grimes
, Mose Allison
and the BBC Big Band
.
In 2008, he played with Soft Machine Legacy and has replaced the late Hugh Hopper as their electric bassist in 2009.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
. He became well known for being a member of the Canterbury scene
Canterbury Scene
The Canterbury scene is a term used to loosely describe the group of progressive rock, avant-garde and jazz musicians, many of whom were based around the city of Canterbury, Kent, England during the late 1960s and early 1970s...
progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
/jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
band Soft Machine
Soft Machine
Soft Machine were an English rock band from Canterbury, named after the book The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. They were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene, and helped pioneer the progressive rock genre...
.
Biography
Babbington started his musical career in 1958, playing double bassDouble bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
in local jazz bands. After moving to London in 1969, he joined the band Delivery
Delivery (band)
Delivery was a British blues/progressive rock musical group, formed in the late 1960s. The band was one of the wellsprings of the progressive rock Canterbury scene....
, one of the side roots of the Canterbury scene
Canterbury Scene
The Canterbury scene is a term used to loosely describe the group of progressive rock, avant-garde and jazz musicians, many of whom were based around the city of Canterbury, Kent, England during the late 1960s and early 1970s...
with Phil Miller
Phil Miller
Phil Miller is an English progressive rock/jazz guitarist who was part of the Canterbury scene.He was a member of the bands Delivery, Matching Mole, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Short Wave and has since worked in solo projects and in his band In Cahoots, which he founded in 1982...
, Pip Pyle
Pip Pyle
Phillip "Pip" Pyle was an English-born drummer from Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, who later resided in France...
and Lol Coxhill
Lol Coxhill
Lowen Coxhill, generally known as Lol Coxhill is a free improvising saxophonist and raconteur...
. Also, he began to work as a session musician with jazz/fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
musicians like Michael Gibbs
Michael Gibbs (jazz composer)
Michael Clement Irving Gibbs is a jazz composer, conductor, arranger and producer as well as a trombonist and keyboardist....
and The Keith Tippett
Keith Tippett
Keith Tippett is a British jazz pianist and composer.Tippett, the son of a local police officer, went to Greenway Boys Secondary Modern school in Southmead, Bristol. He formed his first jazz band called The KT7 whilst still at school and they performed numbers popular at the time by The Temperance...
Group (including Elton Dean
Elton Dean
Elton Dean was an English jazz musician who performed on alto saxophone, saxello and occasionally keyboard....
), appearing on their albums You Are Here... I Am There (1969) and Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening (1970) as well as in Tippett's big band project Centipede
Centipede (band)
Centipede were an English jazz/progressive rock/Canterbury sound big band with more than 50 members, organized and led by the British free jazz pianist Keith Tippett...
(1971) and on Dean's album Just Us. When Delivery disbanded in 1971 after an album with Carol Grimes
Carol Grimes
Carol Grimes is a smooth jazz and world music singer.Grimes came to prominence in 1969 as a member of Delivery, associated with the Canterbury Scene. During the 1970s she performed regularly on the London blues circuit with her band The London Boogie Band...
titled Fools Meeting, Babbington joined Nucleus
Nucleus (band)
Nucleus were a pioneering jazz-rock band from Britain who continued in different forms from 1969 to 1989. In their first year they won first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival, released the album Elastic Rock, and performed both at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Village Gate jazz club.They were...
.
He contributed to albums by Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner was a blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a Founding Father of British Blues"...
, folk singer Harvey Andrews
Harvey Andrews
Harvey John Andrews is an English singer, songwriter, and poet.-Career:From 1964, Andrews supported his nascent career as a singer/songwriter by working as a schoolteacher, before becoming a full-time professional musician in 1966.Harvey Andrews has produced 17 successful albums singing his own...
, Mike d'Abo
Mike d'Abo
Michael David "Mike" d'Abo is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the former lead vocalist of Manfred Mann.-Biography:...
, Chris Spedding
Chris Spedding
Chris Spedding is an English rock and roll and jazz guitarist, best known for his session work. Allmusic states - "Spedding is one of the UK's most versatile session guitarists, and has had a long career on two continents that saw him tackle nearly every style of rock and roll, as well as...
and was a part time member of the bands "Schunge", Solid Gold Cadillac
Solid Gold Cadillac
Solid Gold Cadillac was a British jazz-rock group set up in the early 1970s.The band featured, variously, Roy Babbington , Mike Westbrook , Fi Trench , Chris Spedding , Brian Godding , Rick Morcombe , Malcolm Griffiths , Phil Minton , George Khan , Butch Potter and Alan Jackson...
(with Mike Westbrook
Mike Westbrook
Michael John David 'Mike' Westbrook is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces.-Early work:Mike Westbrook grew up in Torquay...
and Spedding among others) and Ovary Lodge.
With Soft Machine
Having already contributed additional double bass parts to electric bassist Hugh HopperHugh Hopper
Hugh Colin Hopper was a progressive rock and jazz fusion bass guitarist. He was a prominent member of the Canterbury scene, as a member of Soft Machine and various other related bands.-Early career:...
's work on the Soft Machine albums Fourth (1971) and Fifth (1972), he finally replaced Hopper fully in the band with the release of their album Seven
Seven (Soft Machine album)
Seven is a 1973 album by the British progressive rock and jazz/fusion band Soft Machine who were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene...
. He used a six-string Fender VI throughout his tenure with the band. In addition to Seven, he can be heard on BBC Radio 1971-1974, Bundles
Bundles (album)
Bundles is a 1975 album by the British psychedelic, progressive rock and jazz/fusion band Soft Machine.On Bundles, only keyboardist and founding member Mike Ratledge is left of the early Soft Machine line-ups...
, Softs
Softs
For softs as commodities, see Commodities.Softs is a 1976 album by the British psychedelic, progressive rock and jazz/fusion band Soft Machine who were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene....
and Rubber Riff. Babbington's funk- and rock-oriented electric bass playing went along well with Karl Jenkins
Karl Jenkins
-Other works:*Adiemus: Live — live versions of Adiemus music*Palladio *Eloise *Imagined Oceans *The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace...
' and John Marshall
John Stanley Marshall
John Stanley Marshall, better known as John Marshall, born 28 August 1941 in Isleworth, Middlesex, is an English drummer. He was a founding member of the jazz rock band Nucleus and has worked with various other jazz and rock bands and musicians, among them J.J...
's fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
concept of Soft Machine at the time.
After 1976
In 1979, Babbington appeared on the album Welcome to the CruiseWelcome to the Cruise
Welcome to the Cruise is the title of the debut album by the British singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke, released in 1979. The album peaked at no.14 on the UK Albums Chart and was certified Gold in 1981 by the British Phonographic Industry for sales in excess of 100,000 copies.Recorded and mixed at Air...
by Judie Tzuke
Judie Tzuke
Judie Tzuke is an English singer/songwriter. She is most well known for her 1979 hit "Stay With Me Till Dawn", which reached no.16 on the UK Singles Chart.-Early life:...
. In the 1980s and 90s, he returned to his roots, double bass and pure jazz, and became affectionately known by the musical community as the jazz handbrake. He also worked with Barbara Thompson, Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, Carol Grimes
Carol Grimes
Carol Grimes is a smooth jazz and world music singer.Grimes came to prominence in 1969 as a member of Delivery, associated with the Canterbury Scene. During the 1970s she performed regularly on the London blues circuit with her band The London Boogie Band...
, Mose Allison
Mose Allison
Mose John Allison, Jr. is an American jazz blues pianist and singer.-Biography:...
and the BBC Big Band
BBC Big Band
The BBC Big Band, originally known as the BBC Radio Big Band is a British big band run under the auspices of the BBC. Widely regarded as the UK’s leading and most versatile jazz orchestra, the band broadcasts exclusivley on BBC Radio, particularly on BBC Radio 2's long running series Big Band Special...
.
In 2008, he played with Soft Machine Legacy and has replaced the late Hugh Hopper as their electric bassist in 2009.