The “father of ambient music” has talked about how US airbases shaped his musical training. Former Roxy Music synth player Brian Eno has collaborated and produced music for well-known performers and groups like David Bowie, U2, and Coldplay.
Eno visited Suffolk, where he was born, over the weekend to perform the festival’s opening concert. He expressed his happiness with the return of ambient music to Woodbridge.
Eno, a 70-year-old postman’s son, spent 18 years residing in Woodbridge. He studied art and experimental music at Ipswich Civic College in the 1960s.
The festival attendees at St. Mary’s Church were informed of the impact of the neighboring, now-vacated US air force facilities at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge.
4,000 locals lived in Woodbridge at the time, while 17,000 Americans lived within a five-mile radius, according to him.
He observed how big Cadillac automobiles in their droves would frequently become stranded in the congested Suffolk lanes.
We had around 11 or 12 coffee shops with jukeboxes, and the music on them was nearly entirely American Southern R&B, he added.
“As a result, the music scene was completely different here than it was practically anywhere else in England.
At the time, the music on these jukeboxes was far superior to the English-language rock n’ roll.
These formative events, according to Eno, are what first got him “thinking about music.”
“It soon became abundantly evident that you needed to look for quality music. It wasn’t something you could just turn on the radio and acquire,” “said he.
I later started trading cassette cassettes with other music-loving individuals and discovered that I preferred albums with minimal variation in the music.
Albums “always had the sense that there ought to be variation,” Eno claimed in the 1960s.
“As a result, you would have three fast songs followed by a calm tune. Considering that no one would wish to remain in the same mood for longer than three minutes, “said he.
“I made it quite plain that, if I could, I enjoyed being in the same mood for extended periods.
I recall thinking about what it would be like if you could create music that looked like a painting as I walked toward Kyson Point, which overlooks the River Deben estuary.
Eno once remarked that he preferred “music that stood stationary so that you were the one who moved in connection to them.”
“Endless, largely silent music”
By the time he entered art school, he had already started to discover the avant-garde minimal music being produced by classical composers like Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich.
The teenage Eno found their sounds to have an “intense repetition” that was appealing, but he still thought “it was all a bit too fantastic.”
In Woodbridge, the singer claimed, “I started thinking this idea of a type of eternal, quite still, sound.”
In the 1970s, he started recording ambient music.
“The concept of ambient music was mine. Of course, it wasn’t only me who sensed it in the air and wanted to work in the music industry; I was merely the one who gave it a name.”
Before introducing tabla player Talvin Singh and pianist Tom Rogerson, Eno was addressing the crowd and discussed his musical ties to the region.
He said in closing: “I’m merely here to introduce this event and express my gratitude that ambient music is once again playing in Woodbridge. I’m hoping you like it.”
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