Former Soft Boys frontman and noted solo artist Robyn Hitchcock has announced the publication of his memoir, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left, due June 28 from Akashic Books.
Known for his eccentric songwriting, the 71-year-old Hitchcock has been an alternative rock favorite since the late '70s, when he fronted the Soft Boys. Following their break-up, he's released nearly two dozen albums as a solo artist and with backing from the Egyptians and the Venus 3.
As the title suggests, his memoir will focus on the landmark year in which he turned 13 and was sent to boarding school at Winchester College in the south of England.
"1967 is the point when I and the world went through the change," Hitchcock said in a statement announcing the book. "It was all just blissful synchronicity as I grew nine inches in 15 months, just as Dylan was electrified and pop groups turned into rock bands. Arguably as much was lost as was gained, but at the same time, you had Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd and others producing music that couldn't have even been described three years earlier. You had The Beatles wearing suits and ties producing inaudible shows with tiny amplifiers, in many ways playing to the old rules of showbiz, and then suddenly up came Dylan with his thousand-watt PA and Jimi Hendrix with his Marshall stacks, and the whole thing erupted."
The book has already received advance praise from some of Hitchcock's peers. "1967 . . . in which our hero looks down from the future at his squeaky realm of boyhood, a world of Day-Glo sunsets, and would-be denizens of music and the mind. Cometh the year, cometh the groover," writes former Smiths guitarists and solo artist Johnny Marr.
"Page Turner could be the name of a lead singer in a '60s psychedelic band, but it's not - it's a description of Robyn Hitchcock's tender and hilarious memoir," adds acclaimed producer Joe Boyd.
Pulitzer Prize-winning fellow author Michael Chabon also has praise for Hitchcock's book. "Memoirists rarely begin their work with a stroke of genuine inspiration, and Robyn Hitchcock's ingenious idea to limit his account of his life to the titular year gives this sharp, funny, finely written book an unusually keen, wistful intensity without sacrificing its sense of the breathtaking sweep of time. I absolutely adored every line of 1967 and every moment I spent reading it," Chaborn writes.
Hitchcock is currently on tour, playing solo dates with special guest Eugene Mirman and will be backed by Kelley Stolz & His Men for some upcoming West Coast dates in May. For a full list on his upcoming tour dates, visit www.robynhitchcock.com/tour.
