Players - Downbeat

BEYOND
Harper’s Grand
Inspirations
A strange and sympathetic pioneer of
the psychedelic folk scene in England,
Roy Harper emerged in the mid-’60s
sounding like another Bob Dylan/Woody
Guthrie wannabe. But by the time he
recorded his first album using just an
acoustic guitar and a Revox, it was clear
that Harper was treading his own musical
path.
Wielding a distinctive, ringing guitar
style and a regal, authoritative singing
voice, Harper’s ambitious song-prose
often manifested into imposing, tour-deforce
solo epics that mixed his haunting
vocals with hallucinatory and socially
conscious commentary and finger-picking
flourishes—many of which can be found on
the two-CD best-of collection, Counter
Culture (Science Friction 039) AAAA. The
sets feature quality performances drawn
from 1966 to 2000, but the anthology is
dominated by Harper’s most prolific
phase—the 1970s—including long-form
classics like “I Hate The White Man,” “Me
And My Woman” and the 19-minute saga
“One Of Those Days In England.”
While his quirky career can barely be
contained within a two-disc primer, this collection
features many of Harper’s finest
songs and gives great indications of his
depth as an artist. Harper’s recordings
moved beyond the folk idiom into a
grander rock esthetic, and much has been
made of his affiliation with musicians from
Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin—especially his
longstanding camaraderie with guitarist
Jimmy Page. In the course of several
decades and still counting, Harper’s eclectic
muse remains undiminished.
For those with an interest in the freakier
foundations of U.K. folk, a few of Harper’s
more marketable recordings have been reissued.
Flat Baroque And Berserk (Science
Friction 028) AAAA was Harper’s fourth
album, originally released in 1970, and it
still exudes the power and confidence of a
daunting young talent spreading his wings.
Showcasing his songwriting prowess with
a definitive live version of “I Hate The
White Man” and other pensive essentials
like “How Does It Feel” and “Tom Tiddler’s
Ground,” Harper’s troubadour stance is
unyielding and confrontational as much as
it is stoned, playful and obtuse. His acoustic
guitar playing is intricate and propulsive,
and other than an occasional harmonica,
harp or recorder (and full backing band on
Roy Harper:
finger-picking
and poetic
flourishes
by Mitch Myers
“Hell’s Angels”), Harper’s guitar provides
the sole counterpoint to his emphatic
vocals. Whether addressing race relations
and worldly politics or simply singing silly
love songs, Harper was unafraid to explore
the inner and outer realms of his brash hippie
consciousness.
Harper’s next album, Stormcock
(Science Friction 047) AAAA 1 /2, is rightly
considered a dramatic high point in a sterling
recording career. Featuring just four
songs ranging between seven and 13 minutes
in length, Stormcock is progressive in
its sensibility and elegantly spare in instrumentation.
Harper’s voice is even more
sure here, and he uses it to great dramatic
effect, including hypnotic vocal overdubs
on the opening track, “Hors d’Oeuvres,”
and “The Same Old Rock,” which also features
Harper on the 12-string guitar, jamming
prodigiously with Page on lead guitar.
All the tracks feel somewhat open-ended
and merit their extended lengths. “One
Man Rock And Roll Band” is a hallucinatory
war epic with an echoing acoustic guitar
sound and “Me And My Woman” is yet
another emotive vocal journey—this time
with string arrangements by David Bedford
and a dreamy sonic ambience.
Finally, there’s the 1985 album from
Harper and Page, Jugula (Science Friction
032) AAA. Somewhat heavier musically,
this disc still contains several instrumental
highlights and a couple of rousing performances,
particularly the opening track,
“Nineteen Forty-Eightish,” and “Hangman,”
which echoes the acoustic/electric guitar
structures of Led Zeppelin III. Harper is
always convincing as the front man, but
was lacking some of his grand poetic inspirations
on this recording. DB
Ordering info: royharper.co.uk
April 2009 DOWNBEAT 71