IN MEMORY OF MIKE RATLEDGE

Soft Machine’s co-founder and driving force, Mike Ratledge played a key role in helping to lay a firm foundation for what would become the Canterbury scene. The organist’s clever compositions and creative sound – he was encouraged by Jimi Hendrix to add a fuzz pedal to his kit – enhanced the Softs’ psychedelic, and later free-jazz, style. We pay tribute to the influential musician, who died after a short illness in February.

Sid Smith

Guitarist John Etheridge recalls doing a little sightseeing in Venice while Soft Machine were touring Italy, not long after he’d joined the group in spring 1975: “We were on a day off and I was wandering around St Mark’s Square and happened to see Mike Ratledge sitting in the corner having a coffee.” Previously a member of Darryl Way’s Wolf and Global Village Trucking Company, Etheridge’s experience of band life on the road and in the studio had been the usual mixed bag of ups and downs, but mostly it had been an enthusiastic and supportive environment wherein bandmembers encouraged each other’s musical endeavours. In Soft Machine Etheridge discovered that such interactions were generally rather more cordial and circumspect. “When I joined, Mike was friendly enough, but we had hardly…

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Prog Italia (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 158

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