1993's Respect, influenced a great deal by his father's death, marked the last Egyptians release and the end of his association with A&M Records. Īt the beginning of 1990, Hitchcock took a break from the Egyptians and A&M Records to release another solo acoustic album, Eye, then resumed with the band's Perspex Island release in 1991. The Crosses also had their cover of ' Wild Mountain Thyme' included on a Byrds tribute album, though Hitchcock always alluded to the Bryan Ferry version when performing it live with the Egyptians.

and Peter Holsapple of The dB's, playing two gigs as Nigel and the Crosses, mostly covers. In 1989 they also teamed up with Peter Buck of R.E.M. The album Globe of Frogs, released in 1988, further expanded their reach, as the single 'Balloon Man' became a college radio and MTV hit, followed in 1989 by 'Madonna Of The Wasps' from their Queen Elvis album. (A live album, Gotta Let This Hen Out!, was released at the end of that year.) Their popularity grew with the 1986 album Element of Light and they were subsequently signed to A&M Records in the U.S. Following his solo acoustic album I Often Dream Of Trains in 1984, he formed a new band, The Egyptians, comprising former members of The Soft Boys ( Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor, supplemented at first by early keyboardist Roger Jackson), resulting in their 1985 debut Fegmania!, which featured typically surrealist Hitchcock songs such as 'My Wife and My Dead Wife' and 'The Man with the Lightbulb Head'. He followed it in 1982 with the generally critically maligned Groovy Decay, a record which he would ultimately disown. Hitchcock released his solo debut, Black Snake Diamond Röle in 1981, which included instrumental backing by several former Soft Boys. After recording A Can of Bees (1979) and Underwater Moonlight (1980) the group broke up in 1981. His next group, Dennis And The Experts, became the neo-psychedelia band The Soft Boys in Cambridge in 1976, recording their first EP, 'Give It to the Soft Boys', in his living room in 1977. Blackberry And The Swelterettes, the Chosen Few, the Worst Fears, and Maureen And The Meatpackers. In 1974 he moved to Cambridge, where did some busking, and joined a series of locals bands: B.B. While at art school in London around 1972, Hitchcock was a member of the college band the Beetles. The Soft Boys to The Egyptians (1972–1993)īetween 19 Hitchcock learned how to write a song by himself.

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