Pye Hastings

Julian Frederick Gordon 'Pye' Hastings (born 21 January 1947 in Tamnavoulin, Banffshire, Scotland) Hastings is of course a nickname (legend has it being a reference to him "liking his food hot"!) is a British musician. He is the guitarist, vocalist and leader of the Canterbury scene band Caravan he was also in the band The Wilde Flowers. Hastings started playing the guitar, having befriended Kevin Ayers who was at that time going out with his sister Jane. Armed with Kevin's guitar, he ended up sitting at rehearsals of The Wilde Flowers playing rhythm guitar, shortly after Richard Sinclair had left the position vacant. Eventually, he was offered to join and made his first appearance on stage with the band (or any band, actually) on June 24th, 1966, at a Radio London rock music contest held at the Dreamland Ballroom in Margate. This turned out to be Robert Wyatt's last gig with the Wilde Flowers before he left to form Soft Machine. At that point, Hastings hadn't told anybody he could sing in addition to playing guitar. The opportunity to reveal his distinctive vocal talents came with Wyatt's departure. He became the Wilde Flowers' singer overnight, being given only a few days to learn all the words of the songs in the band's repertoire before the next gig. The Wilde Flowers carried on until the following Summer. Unfortunately, no recordings were made during this period as the band had dropped most of its original material in favour of covers. During a pause in Caravan's activities in 1979, Hastings embarked on an aborted solo project which was eventually shelved when the band reformed later that year. Several tracks were recorded with members of the Gordon Giltrap Band and Jimmy Hastings, four of which later appeared on the Cool Water CD (1994). After Caravan's breakup in 1982, Hastings continued writing songs, but in spite of the band reforming in 1990-92, he didn't really think of recording them until 1994 when he was offered a solo deal by HTD Records. In the meantime, he'd founded his own plant hire company, immortalized in Richard Sinclair's song "Only The Brave". By the Spring of 1995, Hastings' solo project had metamorphosed into a new Caravan album, The Battle Of Hastings, soon followed by another, All Over You, and the band's first British concerts in four years in the Autumn of 1996. Looking back on his career, Hastings regrets the fact that Caravan didn't become enormously successful, but agrees that the band's policy was not to chase commercial success but to balance the 'art' with the entertainment. He has always held to his musical beliefs and philosophy. . User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.