ROBERT WYATT’S gloriously bearded face stares out like an Old Testament god from the cover of this book. 

But its seemingly judgmental and deadly serious expression conceals a man of great generosity and tolerance, with a prodigious talent and mischievous wit.

Once a minor star in the celestial heaven of popular music, Wyatt metamorphosed to become an iconic, widely admired and influential pater familias of popular music. 

His background story is rich. He was drummer and vocalist with the band Soft Machine during the ’60s, moving on to form his own radical group Matching Mole.

Then, in June 1973, he tragically fell out of a fourth-floor window while drunk and broke his back. He was at the time only 28 years old and has since been confined to a wheelchair. But he hasn’t let that stop him making music, despite periods of depression and despair.

Together with his indefatigable and hugely talented partner Elfrieda (Alfie) Benge as his manager and sometime lyricist he has ploughed his own musical furrow with a stubborn determination. 

Over the years his unique style of music-making has attracted a hugely diverse range of figures from the pop, classical and jazz worlds to collaborate with him, from Brian Eno and Elvis Costello to the eccentric but super-talented Ivor Cutler, Paul Weller and Bjork, to name only some. During his Soft Machine days he also toured with Jimi Hendrix in the US.

His music certainly can’t be pigeonholed, crossing as it does the boundaries of pop, jazz and classical. Yet that massively diverse range of musical influences never eradicates the unmistakable stamp of Robert Wyatt. 

What marks him out as different from most popular musicians is his strong humanitarian and left-wing political views, on which he refuses to compromise. 

Jonathan Coe in his introduction to this excellent book by Marcus O’Dair sums it up when he writes: “More and more, Robert Wyatt sounds like the voice of sanity. Sane songs for insane times. 

“No wonder that I, and countless others, have been inspired and uplifted by them for so long and will remain forever grateful.”

Wyatt’s musical odyssey which began with Soft Machine continued after he left the group and set up Matching Mole and, although Wyatt couldn’t read musical notation at this time, he was still able to produce innovative music which, he says, he conceives in visual terms.

Their 1972 release Little Red Record, with its allusion to Mao’s Little Red Book and a cover to match its ultra-left aspirations, reflects early days of political engagement. Wyatt went on not only to mature musically but also politically. He still regards Marxism “as the least silly way of analysing world events,” a marvellous way of putting it.

Over the years he had drifted slowly from a Liberal, Fabian Society type of background to the far left, where he remains. Both he and Benge were initially in the Labour Party but, after the disappointments of the Callaghan government and the general world situation, they joined the Communist Party in 1979, attracted by its clear class stance and its internationalism.

“I just took this imagery of what seemed to me a perfectly reasonable idea, of which the failures were being highlighted so as to discredit it,” he says of his ideas on socialism. 

“To me culture is pudding. It’s lovely and I’ll always eat one. But to me, on its own, it’s not a full life’s diet for the brain. And the politics, to me, is indeed the protein.” But politics he views as a “secular religion” — he hasn’t let his fascination with Marxism rob him of his wicked sense of humour.

In 1974, soon after he was released from hospital, he and Benge got married, despite facing a seemingly dire economic future. 

Wyatt was surrounded by many generous friends in his time of need. The actor Julie Christie bought a house for them and Pink Floyd did a benefit gig. Warren Beatty, Julie Christie’s then partner, offered to pay for private healthcare treatment but Wyatt declined, preferring to stay in Stoke Mandeville hospital under NHS care. The renowned DJ John Peel, a keen admirer of both Soft Machine and Matching Mole, became one of Robert’s close friends and gave generous support too.

In the 1970s his enforced sedentary existence encouraged him to read more and watch films. He and Benge started devouring left-wing literature, watched Open University programmes on TV and went to the London Film Festival. In this way he underwent a late educational spring.

Although Soft Machine and Matching Mole had been signed to the Virgin label, Robert decided to leave of his own accord — the only artist to have left Virgin in this way, he says. He then signed up with Geoff Travis’s independent label Rough Trade, which was run as a co-operative and which issued almost all of his later albums.

During his period in the Communist Party, Wyatt took part in a benefit concert at the Roundhouse in London for the Clyde shipyard workers, became involved in the Art Against Racism and Fascism movement and supported the miners during the 1984-5 strike. With Jerry Dammers from the Specials he helped to produce the record The Wind of Change to raise money for the Namibian freedom struggle led by Swapo.

In 2004 he was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize — Britain’s most prestigious popular music award — and in 2005 won Mojo magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Although no longer a member of the Communist Party, Wyatt remains very much a convinced leftie and still reads the Morning Star.

O’Dair, who’ll be in conversation with Wyatt at the Queen Eliabeth Hall in London tomorrow, relates an epic story of a fascinating, humble but heroic individual. It’s exceedingly wellwritten and the author shows an honest determination to get under the skin of his subject without unnecessary fawning or dodging of awkward facts. 

Understandably focusing largely on Wyatt’s musical development, the book doesn’t underplay the role politics have played in Wyatt’s life and work and that’s why it’s such a rich and informative read.

Different Every Time: The Authorised Biography of Robert Wyatt by Marcus O’Dair is published by Serpent’s Tail, price £20. Coinciding with the book’s publication, two brilliant new CDs of Wyatt’s music, Ex Machina and Benign Dictatorships, are out now on Domino Records and tickets for An Evening with Robert Wyatt at the QEH on November 23 are available from southbankcentre.co.uk.