Steve Hillage

Stephen Simpson Hillage (born 2 August 1951) is an English musician, best known as a guitarist.

He is associated with the Canterbury scene and has worked in experimental domains since the late 1960s.

Besides his solo recordings he has been a member of Khan, Gong and System 7.

Hillage was born in Chingford, which was then in Essex but is now part of Greater London.

Whilst still at school, he joined his first band, a blues rock band called Uriel, with Dave Stewart, Mont Campbell and Clive Brooks.

The band split up in 1968 with the other members going on to form Egg, but they briefly re-united under assumed names to record the album Arzachel in 1969.

In 1969, Hillage began studies at the University of Kent in Canterbury, befriending local bands Caravan and Spirogyra and occasionally jamming with them.

Meanwhile, he wrote songs and, by late 1970, had accumulated enough material for an album.

Caravan put him in touch with their manager Terry King, who got Hillage signed with Deram on the basis of a demo of his material recorded with the help of Dave Stewart of Egg.

Although future Gong and Hatfield and the North drummer Pip Pyle was involved in the early stages, the line-up finally settled with the inclusion of organist Dick Heninghem and drummer Eric Peachey, both of whom had recently collaborated on Greenwood's solo project Cold Cuts, recorded in California in 1970 but belatedly released in 1972.

In early 1971, Hillage formed Khan with bassist/vocalist Nick Greenwood, formerly of Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

Following a series of concerts throughout 1971, several of them supporting label mates Caravan, Khan began recording their debut album in November, by which time Heninghem had left, forcing Hillage to bring in his former bandmate Dave Stewart to play the keyboard parts.

By the time Space Shanty came out in May 1972, Canadian Val Stevens (formerly of Toronto's popular soul-rock band Grant Smith & The Power) had filled the vacancy, making his debut on a short European tour (including a televised appearance at the Montreux Festival) and continuing with a UK tour supporting Caravan in June.

By then, musical disagreements between Hillage and Greenwood culminated with the latter's departure.

Hillage decided to form a new line-up with a slightly different direction, retaining the services of Peachey and asking Stewart back, and adding Nigel Griggs (later of Split Enz) on bass.

New compositions by Hillage and Stewart were added to the repertoire, including "I Love Its Holy Mystery", which would form the basis of Hillage's later Solar Musick Suite.

Hillage broke up the band in October 1972.

Hillage promptly joined Kevin Ayers' new live band Decadence, participating in Ayers' 1973 album Bananamour (Harvest, May 1973) and touring the UK and France for two months.

Having in the meantime become a fan of Gong after meeting Daevid Allen, hearing Camembert Electrique and Allen's solo album Banana Moon, as well as meeting his longtime partner Miquette Giraudy through Allen, Hillage stayed in France after the Ayers tour to join the band.

In January 1973, he took part in the sessions for Flying Teapot, the first installment of the "Radio Gnome" trilogy, and soon after graduated to full-time membership with the departure of bassist/lead guitarist Christian Tritsch.

The 'classic' line-up of Gong was now in place, with Daevid Allen, Gilli Smyth, Didier Malherbe, Tim Blake, Mike Howlett and Pierre Moerlen, and recorded two further albums, Angels Egg and You (the latter also featuring Giraudy).

In June 1973, Hillage (along with Pierre Moerlen) participated in the debut live performance of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells at Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Both Hillage and Moerlen also took part in a live-in-studio performance filmed for the BBC's Second House series, filmed in November 1973.

The BBC performance is available on Oldfield's Elements DVD.

Hillage also guested on Egg's 1974 album The Civil Surface.

From August 1974 to February 1975 Hillage worked on his debut solo album Fish Rising at Manor Studios with the group, less Allen and Smyth, and contributions from others such former as Khan bandmate Dave Stewart.

Blake left Gong at the beginning of 1975 due to tensions with Allen, then Allen abruptly left in April.

Hillage continued with the group, but he increasingly became uncomfortable feeling that Virgin wanted him to assume a leadership role which he saw at odds to the group's communal essence.

After a Marquee gig on 21 December, he left to set-up his own band, although he did contribute to the sessions of their next album Shamal.

For his first post-Gong solo work, Hillage and Giraudy relocated to Woodstock, New York in May and June 1976 to record with Todd Rundgren and his band Utopia on L, which included covers of "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and "It's All Too Much" that became integral to his live set.

The album was released on 24 September and spent 12 weeks on the UK album chart peaking at #10.

Needing to tour to promote the album, he put together a band with Christian Boulé (guitar), Clive Bunker (drums), Colin Bass (bass), Paul Hodges (keyboards) and Basil Brooks (synthesiser, flute).

They debuted supporting Queen at a free Hyde Park, London concert on 18 September, then toured heavily in the UK and France to promote the album including a BBC Radio 1 In Concert broadcast.

In January and February 1977 they supported Electric Light Orchestra on their US tour and appeared on the German television music programme Rockpalast in March.

In May 1977, Hillage was part of a live performance of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells in Glasgow with the Scottish National Orchestra.

He participated in the Gong re-union concert in Paris as part of the trilogy band, a solo set and also accompanied Blake.

In late summer, Hillage produced Nik Turner's Xitintoday album which featured contributions from other Gong members, Harry Williamson and drummer Andy Anderson.

Hillage also contributed to Williamson's protest single "Nuclear Waste" issued as The Radio Actors with lead vocals by Sting.

During the US tour Hillage had taken an interest in funk music and became disheartened that he was being perceived as "progressive rock" and so deliberately chose to move in that direction.

He had met Malcolm Cecil of Tonto's Expanding Head Band who he felt may help in his pursuit of a new style and in July they entered the Record Plant studio in Los Angeles to record Motivation Radio.