21 Facts About Henry Cow

Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson.

In October 1968 Henry Cow expanded when they were joined by Andy Powell, David Attwooll and Rob Brooks.

Henry Cow exposed them to a variety of new music from bands and musicians like Soft Machine, Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa.

Improvisers Bailey and Coxhill became "enthusiastic supporters" of Henry Cow and attended many of their concerts; Frith later stated that he was "strongly affected by their critical engagement and encouragement".

In May 1974 Henry Cow were on tour again around England and Europe with Captain Beefheart.

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Henry Cow's music was challenging and uncompromising and this often led to them being accused of deliberately making it unapproachable.

In May 1976 Henry Cow compiled a double LP Concerts for a new Norwegian underground label Compendium.

Henry Cow began auditioning for a bass player and found Georgie Born, a classically trained cellist and improviser.

Henry Cow returned to London in early 1977, where they merged with the entire Mike Westbrook Brass Band and folk singer Frankie Armstrong to form the Orckestra.

Henry Cow needed to record again but Virgin refused to give them studio time at The Manor.

When Henry Cow referred to the contract, Virgin Records agreed to cancel it.

Henry Cow agreed to disband as a permanent group, but did not announce the fact immediately.

In March 1978 Henry Cow invited four European groups, Stormy Six, Samla Mammas Manna, Univers Zero and Etron Fou Leloublan, to come to London and perform in a festival Henry Cow had organised called Rock in Opposition, or RIO.

Partial Henry Cow reunion occurred in 1993 when Hodgkinson, Cutler, Cooper and Krause came together to record "Hold to the Zero Burn, Imagine" for Hodgkinson's solo album, Each in Our Own Thoughts.

The Henry Cow set featured Cutler, Frith, Greaves, Hodgkinson, Roelofs, Michel Berckmans, Alfred Harth and, on one piece, Veryan Weston and Zeena Parkins; Krause performed later in the evening, but not on the Henry Cow set.

In September 2019, American historian of experimental music and an associate professor of music at Cornell University, Benjamin Piekut published Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem, a detailed biography and analysis of the band from their inception in 1968 to their demise in 1978.

Henry Cow's music included elaborately scored pieces, tape loops and manipulations, "flat-out free improvisation" and songs.

Henry Cow's music was challenging, not only to the listener, but to the band themselves.

Henry Cow conducted their affairs as a collective and all decisions, including those related to their music, had to be approved by the group.

Henry Cow were largely a live band, yet of the original six albums they made, only one, Concerts gave a glimpse of their live performances.

In January 2009 Recommended Records released The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set, a nine-CD plus one-DVD collection of over 10 hours of previously unreleased and mostly live recordings made between 1972 and 1978, over four hours of which was improvised.