Following his departure from the seminal Soft Machine in 1973, Bristol-born Wyatt became one of the most affecting songwriters and distinctive voices of the period. After his debut solo album 'End Of An Ear' was released, Wyatt drunkenly fell from a window at a party and found himself paralysed from the waist down. The subsequent album 'Rock Bottom' (1974) is a brutally honest chronicle of his accident, but Wyatt moved on and landed of the most unexpected hits of 1974 with a cover of The Monkees' 'I'm A Believer'. Top Of The Pops refused to let Wyatt perform onstage in his wheelchair, but after a public outcry, they relented. Wyatt was quiet for the rest of the decade, but reappeared in the 80s when artists such as Elvis Costello started namechecking him - Costello paid tribute with an emotional rendition of Wyatt's politically-charged 'Shipbuilding', a damning indictment of the Falklands war.
