Peter Hammill, adored by Bowie, Mark E Smith and many others, co-founded Van Der Graaf Generator when he was 19. And he’s made 47 albums since, powered by “hubris, enthusiasm and sheer bloody-mindness” and celebrated in a new 18-CD box set. He talks to us here from Somerset about …

… supporting Hendrix at the Albert Hall and being ‘the Shirley Bassey of the Underground’

… meeting David Bowie - who asked for Hammill’s new music to be sent to him all his life

… Van Der Graaf Generator being bottled off by medical students in the days when you rang from a phone-box to see what gigs you were playing

… the Bee Gees, Eric Clapton, Champion Jack Dupree and Jimmy James & the Vagabonds at the Locarno in Derby

… Tony Stratton-Smith and the Six Bob Tour – 30p! – with Lindisfarne and Genesis

… Nut Rocker, Theme Of Exodus and other teenage keyboard staples

 … the value of “Boswellian superfans” who know more about you than you do

… breaking the £100 barrier for a live performance

… writing blues songs, aged 16, with “a gnat’s experience of life”

… the unsettling lyric to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘You've Got to Be Carefully Taught’

… and his new young audience via the internet and “that right of passage, your parents’ records”

Order The Charisma & Virgin Recordings 1971 - 1986’ here: https://peterhammill.lnk.to/CVRecordingsPR

Pre-order 'ROCK and ROLE: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator' here: https://burningshed.com/store/kingmaker

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