Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard is the third solo album by Robert Wyatt.
The follow-up to Rock Bottom, for which Wyatt had written all of the music and lyrics, Ruth... consisted of Wyatt's adaptations and arrangements of other people's music (either friends - Phil Manzanera, Fred Frith, Mongezi Feza, former Wilde Flowers bandmate Brian Hopper - or influences - Charlie Haden) with Wyatt adding his own lyrics in much the same way as he'd done on Matching Mole's Little Red Record. Apart from "Sonia", recorded for the aborted "Yesterday Man" single in October 1974 (again with Nick Mason as producer), Ruth was made at Virgin's Manor Studios with Wyatt himself handling production duties. Much the album features Wyatt (on lead vocals and keyboards) backed by a "band" consisting of bassist Bill MacCormick, drummer Laurie Allan and saxophonists George Khan and Gary Windo, with Brian Eno adding his own idiosyncratic "anti-jazz" touch.
The album contains several pieces which recall the complexity and despair of Rock Bottom, but much of the record echoes the relaxed, almost silly feel of earlier Wyatt efforts such as The End of an Ear or his work with Matching Mole. This becomes evident from the choice of title (a pun on "truth is stranger than fiction") onwards; the two sides of the original LP release were not labeled "Side A" and "Side B", but rather "Side Richard" and "Side Ruth", the implication being that Side B was less outlandish than Side A. True to his word, Wyatt punctuated the three "serious" pieces on Side Richard - the beautiful ballad "Solar Flares", "5 Black Notes And 1 White Note" (a funeral instrumental, supposedly a cover of Jacques Offenbach's Barcarolle, which degenerates into a series of noises somewhere between free jazz and electronic noise) and the piano-led Rock Bottom-esque Fred Frith collaboration "Muddy Mouth"—with a series of brief, nonsensical interludes featuring only sparse piano accompaniment and some very strange high-pitched yelping vocals under the collective title "Muddy Mouse".
The songs on Side Ruth all have more traditional structures; the rollicking "Soup Song" (derived from the Wilde Flowers song "Slow Walking Talk", of which Wyatt had recorded a version with Jimi Hendrix) has the air of a pub singalong. The remaining songs are all covers or collaborations; the lengthy Mongezi Feza trumpet piece "Sonia", featuring a guest appearance by Feza himself (as do a number of other songs on the album) in the last year of his life, "Team Spirit" (written with Phil Manzanera, who would record the same song on his album Diamond Head under the title "Frontera") and a cover of "Song for Che" by Charlie Haden round off the album.
Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard was released in May 1975. Unlike its predecessor Rock Bottom, it received a mixed critical and public response; not counting 1982's Nothing Can Stop Us (which brought together a series of previously released single A and B sides, most of which were cover versions), Ruth... would be Wyatt's last solo studio album until 1985's Old Rottenhat.
Track listing
Side Richard
- (Ri1) "Muddy Mouse (a)" (Fred Frith, Robert Wyatt) – 0:49
- (Ri2) "Solar Flares" (Robert Wyatt) – 5:36
- (Ri3) "Muddy Mouse (b)" (Fred Frith, Robert Wyatt) – 0:50
- (Ri4) "5 Black Notes And 1 White Note" (Offenbach arr. Robert Wyatt) – 5:00
- (Ri5) "Muddy Mouse (c) Which In Turn Leads To Muddy Mouth" (Fred Frith, Robert Wyatt) – 6:15
Side Ruth
- (Ru1) "Soup Song" (Brian Hopper, Robert Wyatt) – 4:03
- (Ru2) "Sonia" (Mongezi Feza) – 4:18
- (Ru3) "Team Spirit" (Bill MacCormick, Phil Manzanera, Robert Wyatt) – 8:33
- (Ru4) "Song For Che" (Charlie Haden) – 3:42
Personnel
- Robert Wyatt - vocals, piano, imitation electric piano (Ri4), organ (Ri2), drums (Ru2, Ri2)
- Brian Eno - guitar (Ri4), synthesizer (Ri4), direct inject anti-jazz ray gun (Ru3)
- Gary Windo - bass clarinet (Ri2, Ru2), tenor saxophone (Ri4, Ru1, Ru3, Ru4), alto saxophone (Ri4, Ru2, Ru4)
- Nisar Ahmad "George" Khan - tenor saxophone (Ri4, Ru4), baritone saxophone (Ru1, Ru4)
- Mongezi Feza - trumpet (Ru2)
- Fred Frith - piano (Ri1, Ri3, Ri5)
- Bill MacCormick - bass guitar (Ri2, Ri4, Ru1, Ru3, Ru4)
- John Greaves - bass guitar (Ru2)
- Laurie Allan - drums (Ri4, Ru1, Ru3, Ru4)
Album Cover
The distinctive and slightly disturbing artwork for the cover of the album was by Wyatt's wife Alfreda Benge.
