From the late 1960s to the mid-70s, Soft Machine forged a career as trailblazers of an unusual blend of psychedelic, rock and jazz-fusion music, expressive of the rich and turbulent cultural cross-currents of their era. Mike Ratledge, who has died aged 81, was the driving force of the group during that period, through his groundbreaking work as composer, keyboard player and studio experimentalist. With his thick moustache, dark glasses and curtains of long hair, Ratledge also projected an image of impenetrable cool. The NME journalist Ian MacDonald described him as “tall, super-intelligent, forceful, self-possessed, and altogether daunting”.
Soft Machine formed in Canterbury, Kent in 1966, and their career began to take off when they moved to London and played gigs at the UFO Club in Tottenham Court Road alongside the fledgling Pink Floyd. They acquired a manager, Mike Jeffries, who with his partner Chas Chandler also managed Jimi Hendrix. Soft Machine were invited to support Hendrix on his American tour in 1968, a gruelling two-part campaign which took them to such venues as the Chicago Opera House, Madison Square Garden, New York, and, for the finale, the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
The future Police guitarist Andy Summers was temporarily a band member, after the previous incumbent Daevid Allen left in August 1967 to form Gong. While in New York, the group recorded their first album, The Soft Machine, produced by Chandler and Tom Wilson (the latter was renowned for his work with Bob Dylan, which included producing the single Like a Rolling Stone).
The album made little impact and was not released in the UK, though the follow-up, Volume Two (1969), was, and received some glowing reviews for the group’s musical expertise and eclectic jazz and experimental influences. By now the bassist/vocalist Kevin Ayers had departed, replaced by the bassist Hugh Hopper. A third album – a double-LP set entitled Third, much of it composed by Ratledge – appeared in June 1970, comprising a mix of live and studio recordings. Rolling Stone magazine would later declare it “one of the greatest prog-rock albums of all time”.
In August 1970, Soft Machine made history by being the first rock band to perform at the BBC Proms (though “rock” was a barely adequate term for their exploratory, free-form music), an event featuring Ratledge’s compositions Out-Bloody-Rageous and Esther’s Nose Job.
Ratledge was born in Maidstone in Kent, and learned to play classical piano as a child thanks to the influence of his father, who was headmaster of the Archbishop’s school, Canterbury. Only classical music was allowed in the Ratledge household. Mike attended Simon Langton grammar school for boys, Canterbury, where he met the clarinet and saxophone player Brian Hopper, who recalled: “Mike was one of the brightest people I’ve ever known. He challenged me all the time but it was stimulating nonetheless, he would never let you get away with half an argument – you always had to justify what you said!”
Thence he met Hopper’s bass-playing younger brother, Hugh, and the vocalist and drummer Robert Wyatt. In 1961, Allen, an Australian poet and musician, also found his way into the Kent artistic scene. Having left his native Melbourne in 1960, Allen had rubbed shoulders with the writer William Burroughs and spent time in Paris with the budding minimalist composer Terry Riley. It was Allen’s influence that sparked Ratledge’s interest in jazz musicians such as John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, and in 1963 Ratledge played with the Daevid Allen Trio.
However, he also wanted to pursue academic studies. He won a scholarship to University College, Oxford, where he studied for a degree in philosophy and psychology, while also pursuing music studies. He intended to take a further degree in American poetry in the US, but missed the deadline for his scholarship application.
Returning to Kent in 1966, he joined Wyatt, Allen, Ayers (on bass and vocals) and the guitarist Larry Nowlin to form the original Soft Machine, the name taken from a Burroughs novel (they had previously toyed with calling themselves the Bishops of Canterbury or Mr Head). The group became a quartet when Nowlin quit in September 1966.
Ratledge’s last recording as a full member of Soft Machine was Bundles (1975), by which time he was the last of the band’s original lineup. He left in 1976, having made a marginal contribution to the album Softs.
He subsequently built his own recording studio and pursued a variety of solo projects, including composing the soundtrack for the British experimental film Riddles of the Sphinx (1977). He also composed music for commercials and theatre productions, and undertook several projects with Karl Jenkins, who had become an increasingly influential member of Soft Machine after joining the group in 1972.
Ratledge was a performer and co-producer on Jenkins’ album Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary (1995), which became an international hit boosted by the use of the title track in a TV commercial for Delta Air Lines. Ratledge and Jenkins also collaborated on the 2010 albums Movement and Some Shufflin’.
In 1967 Ratledge married the singer, novelist and actor Marsha Hunt, who commented that the key to a happy marriage was to “separate immediately”.
He is survived by his partner, Elena.
• Michael Roland Ratledge, musician and composer, born 6 May 1943; died 5 February 2025
