Robyn Hitchcock Releases 1967 Album Companion to Acclaimed Memoir Today

ROBYN HITCHCOCK RELEASES NEW ALBUM, 1967: VACATIONS IN THE PAST STREAM/PURCHASE   LEGENDARY SINGER-SONGWRITER PRESENTS MUSICAL COMPANION TO HIS ACCLAIMED NEW MEMOIR, 1967: HOW I GOT THERE AND WHY I NEVER LEFT   12-TRACK COLLECTION FEATURES ACOUSTIC RENDITIONS OF CLASSIC SONGS BY THE BEATLES, THE KINKS, PINK FLOYD, JIMI HENDRIX, TRAFFIC, AND OTHERS   1967: HOW I GOT THERE AND WHY I NEVER LEFT AVAILABLE NOW FROM AKASHIC BOOKS

Photo Credit: Emma Swift

Robyn Hitchcock has released his new album, 1967: Vacations In The Past, an acoustic musical companion to his critically acclaimed new memoir, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left (Akashic Books). A 12-track collection comprising all-new versions of songs from and inspired by that epochal year, 1967: Vacations In The Past was heralded by Hitchcock’s renditions of Small Faces’ classic “Itchycoo Park,” performed with longtime friend and musical companion Kimberley Rew, as well as the early Pink Floyd single, "See Emily Play."   LISTEN TO “ITCHYCOO PARK” LISTEN TO "SEE EMILY PLAY" STREAM/PURCHASE 1967: VACATIONS IN THE PAST DIGITAL PURCHASE 1967: VACATIONS IN THE PAST CD/VINYL   1967: Vacations In The Past sees Hitchcock offering up his own distinctive takes on songs by Jimi Hendrix, Traffic, The Move, and others, milestone music which both redefined the shape of things to come and left an indelible mark on his own work as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Produced by Hitchcock with his longtime collaborator Charlie Francis (R.E.M., The High Llamas, Martin Carr) at studios in Sydney, Cambridge, Cardiff, and San Francisco, the album features auxiliary musical contributions from such friends as Kelly Stoltz, Kimberly Rew, guitarist Davey Lane (You Am I, The Pictures), and Lee Cave-Berry. Among its myriad highlights are stripped-bare takes on such ornate classics as The Beatles’ “A Day In The Life,” The Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset,” Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play,” Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” and fittingly, “Way Back In The 1960s” by The Incredible String Band.   “For me, 1967 was the portal between childhood and the adult world,” says Hitchcock, “where these songs flickered in the air to greet me like hummingbirds. They're full of saturated color and melancholy, just as I was charged with hormones and regret as one part of me said goodbye to the other. Perhaps I peaked then – at the supernova of boyhood – the black hole of the grownup world awaited me with its dwarf-star mentality, all beige and hell and compromise.   "Forever after, I've wandered beneath the dayglo Waterloo Sunset and burned the Midnight Lamp, yearning for that time. A Whiter Shade of Pale, she's the wan ghost that haunts me in summer twilight, all the way down to the river where the specter of Emily plays, Ophelia-like, with strands of green waterweed. Look – they're full of dead minnows! See, now she's draping wet strips of it over her hair!   "By coincidence, the world was changing as fast as I was, and music embodied that change. The world grew hair, became infused with new desires and crawled out of its grey nest to test its fresh, multicolored plumage. We all crash eventually, but at least some of us take off first: if we are left only with sullen cravings and a sense of loss, well, so be it. 1967 is a phantom heart that glows inside me, lighting me up like a lamp on a good day. ‘So long, Mum! Thank you, Dad! I'm off to infinity! Please leave my dinner in the oven.’” ROBYN HITCHCOCK 1967: VACATIONS IN THE PAST (Tiny Ghost Records) Release Date: Friday, September 13, 2024

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Tracklist: A Whiter Shade of Pale Itchycoo Park Burning of the Midnight Lamp I Can Hear The Grass Grow San Francisco (Flowers In Your Hair) Waterloo Sunset See Emily Play My White Bicycle No Face, No Name, No Number Way Back In The 1960s Vacations In The Past A Day In The Life   # # # Hitchcock is marking the arrival of both 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left and 1967: Vacations In The Past with a typically busy schedule that has included live performances and free bookstore events in Europe, the US, and the UK, and will continue through 2024 and beyond. For complete details and ticket availability, visit www.robynhitchcock.com/tour.   ROBYN HITCHCOCK - TOUR 2024   SEPTEMBER 13 – Twyford, UK – St. Mary's Church, Twyford 14 – London, UK – EartH OCTOBER 6 - Mill Valley, CA - Sweetwater Music Hall 9 & 10 - Portland, OR - The Old Church Concert Hall 11 & 12 - Seattle, WA - Freemont Abbey Arts Center 23 - Pittsburgh, PA - Thunderbird Cafe & Music Hall 24 - Philadelphia, PA - City Winery Philadelphia 25 - Washington, DC - The Atlantis 26 - Montclair, NJ - Outpost in the Burbs 29 - Boston, MA - City Winery Boston 30 - New York, NY - City Winery New York City NOVEMBER 1 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios 2 - Fairfield, CT - The Loft at FTC   # # #   Told with the inimitable wit, wisdom, wordplay (and original illustrations) fans have come to expect from this one-of-a-kind artist, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left is a singularly unique portrait of a bright, slightly awkward boy becoming a significantly taller young man, as both he and the black-and-white world around him blast off into an iridescent new future. Hitchcock details a truly epochal year via his own exceptional experience, expertly chronicling a life-changing, mind-blowing 12-month span that both redefined the shape of everything to come and left an indelible mark on his own work as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist.   1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left begins as 13-year-old Robyn arrives at Winchester College, a 600-year-old boarding school in the South of England, away from his rather complex relationship with his rather complex family for the first time. Hitchcock is quite suddenly thrown into the bottom tier of a determinedly male hierarchical universe, a backdated realm of arrested academics still living in their monochrome past and hormone-addled teenaged boys teetering on the precipice of young manhood. Slowly and not entirely surely, he finds his way – and his place in this strange, peculiarly English, new world – through the strength of his humor, intelligence, and most importantly, an ever-increasing love of art and music.   With the help of his school’s antiquated House Gramophone, Hitchcock hears sounds that had never been heard before, from the Earth-shaking appearance of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to the early songs of Bob Dylan, the latter of which shook him to his very core and undeniably shaped his own work and worldview forever to come. The secrets of the universe are soon revealed via encounters with a young (but already exceedingly Eno) Brian Eno and the electrified mayhem of Jimi Hendrix and the Pink Floyd, revelatory music that ultimately inspires him to play his first guitar and begin writing songs of his own. By 1967’s end, the young Robyn Hitchcock is no longer a boy, still not quite a man, but undeniably, irrevocably different – slightly wiser, somewhat less innocent, and beginning to take shape as the band leader, master songwriter, and utterly original artist he would soon become.   “1967 is the point when I and the world went through the change,” Hitchcock says. “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 producing inaudible shows with tiny amplifiers wearing suits and ties, 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.”

# # # PRAISE FOR ROBYN HITCHCOCK + 1967: HOW I GOT THERE AND WHY I NEVER LEFT   “A charming and compulsively perceptive work.” – The Telegraph (*****)   “Brings to mind the great Italian novelist Italo Calvino… 1967 taps into the music high that untethered the restraints of boarding school and shaped his life and music for eternity.” – PopMatters   “Hitchcock is loose, energetic company, writing with infectious enthusiasm about the liberatory sights and sounds that continue to inspire him. Readers need not be fans of Hitchcock’s music to find this enchanting.” – Publishers Weekly   “Robyn Hitchcock is an erudite writer with a talented pen (finger) and a way with words… An essential snapshot in time of a nascent psychedelic music fan who goes on to create his own style.” – Psychedelic Scene   “It’s an artistic and personal coming of age even for those who haven’t fallen under the spell of Hitchcock’s eccentric musical output. (But really, if you read the book you’ll need to hear his music and if you love his music, you’ll definitely want to read his book.)”  – Parade   “A bright, nostalgic look at the exhilaration of 1967, this book – illustrated throughout with Hitchcock’s surreal sketches – will appeal to not only the author’s many fans but also anyone interested in the music and culture from the golden age of psychedelia…Wistfully reflective reading.” – Kirkus Reviews   “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.”  – Michael Chabon, author of Telegraph Avenue   “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.” – Johnny Marr   “Page Turner could be the name of a lead singer in a sixties psychedelic band, but it’s not – it’s a description of Robyn Hitchcock’s tender and hilarious memoir.” – Joe Boyd   “Robyn Hitchcock belongs to an almost extinct species, ‘The Totally Original Artist,’ once relatively commonplace, now only occasionally glimpsed in the dense tree canopy of the pop rainforest. Mysterious, elusive, a kind of rock ‘n’ roll olingo . . . 1967 presents his many fans with a tantalizing print-bite of how he wound up in those trees and in so doing (whether he likes it or not) became a National Treasure.” – Nick Lowe # # #