Biography
Born Robert Newton Calvert in Pretoria, South Africa, Calvert's parents moved to England when he was two years of age; he attended school in London and Margate. He began his career by writing poetry and in 1967 formed a Street Theatre group Street Dada Nihilismus. He was best known as the lead singer, poet and frontman of Hawkwind intermittently from 1972–1979 during which time he co-wrote their hit single "Silver Machine" and directed their Space Ritual Tour. Calvert suffered from bipolar disorder, at one point being sectioned under the Mental Health Act, Lemmy would sing on the single version of "Silver Machine", his vocal an overdub of a live recording taken at the Roundhouse in London. "They tried everyone else singing it except me" Lemmy later said.
During periods away from Hawkwind duties, and after finally leaving the group in 1979, Calvert worked on his solo career, his creative output including albums, stage plays, poetry, and a novel. His first solo album in 1974, Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters, attained mainstream success.
His other musical collaborators include Michael Moorcock, Brian Eno, Arthur Brown, Steve Peregrin Took, Jim Capaldi, Steve Pond, Inner City Unit, Vivian Stanshall, Nektar, John Greaves, Adrian Wagner, Amon Düül II, and Spirits Burning (posthumously).
Calvert died of a heart attack in 1988 in Ramsgate, England.
Nik Turner, and other former Hawkwind musicians are currently collaborating as Hawklords as a tribute to Calvert.
Read more about this topic: Robert Calvert
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“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)