Robert Wyatt was born in Bristol in 1945 to a psychologist father and BBC producer mother. At 21, he joined prog pioneers Soft Machine; at 25 formed his own group, Matching Mole; at 29, he fell out of a fourth-floor window while drunk, at a party, permanently paralysing himself from the waist down. His solo career proper began a year later, with 1974’s dreamlike Rock Bottom. He has had two top 40