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Biography
Hugh Hopper (29 April 1945 - 7 June 2009) was a composer and bass player from Canterbury, United Kingdom who achieved his highest public profile through his work with Soft Machine between 1968 and 1972. Though mass-market acceptance was never high on his list of priorities, Hopper will be remembered by connoisseurs of British experimental art-rock for his instrumental gifts and his idiosyncratic composing style, with The Soft Machine, as well as on a long string of solo albums, the most recent of which was Dune (2008).
Born in Kent, Hopper found himself in at the ground floor of what would become known as the "Canterbury scene", a musical and philosophical network encompassing Kevin Ayers & The Whole World, Gong, Caravan and Henry Cow. When he became a member of The Wilde Flowers in June 1963 , his was a fairly conventional pop and soul band that served as a seed bed for the late-1960s flowering of progressive music in the cathedral city. Future Soft Machinists Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers also passed though The Wilde Flowers, as did the future members of Caravan.
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