Hi and welcome to the thread for anyone who would like to talk about or explore the work of the great Roy Harper.

Ive seen Roy Live 50-60 times live since 1979 and his music and lyrics have been a source of inspiration all my adult life. Some of his live performances have been fairly stoned, shambolic affairs (so were many of Peter Hammill's earlier solo shows!) and I know he has been a very divisive artist over the years in terms of his attitudes to life, love, religion and philosophy but I believe him to be an intensely progressive musician who has never abandoned his principles and his muse.

I'm particularly keen to hear from anyone who saw him late 60s into the early mid 70's.

;)

I was going to put up 'favourite epic' in the Polls section:

One of those days in England

Lords prayer

Mc Goohan's blues

Burn the world

Me and my woman 

Circle (come out fighting Genghis smith)

Which would you choose and why?

I went to a small festival in Cornwall in the mid 1980's where Roy headlined 3 nights, doing a different set every night ending in one of these three epics!

SteveG wrote: Big Harper fan here both professionally and personally! Love his music but not Roy too much when he get's in a mood and gets on a soap box. I missed seeing him in his stoned days so I've only seen the eccentric, like the time he stopped playing in order to explain the next song and then went off on some 20 minute unrelated tangent! But that's Roy! Still love him though and a lot of his music should have been much more popular, no doubt about that.

 

Totally agree- he could (and did) go off on a stoned ramble many, many times and incur some major heckling in the years I saw him though I think he was more 'straight' (if there can be such a thing) the first few times I saw him at the very end of the 70's with a tighter band, trying a more commercial sound. Then I think he just went back to being a 'one man rock n roll band' and slipped back into old habits plus drinking a fair bit.. but the few times I actually met him he was very amiable and not the grumpy so & so I was led to believe he would be.

Venues, dates and ticket links for Roy's 2019 UK tour, from the Roy Harper Newsletter:

 

 

Kotro wrote: It's a funny thing. I've heard Stormcock years ago, and loved it - still do. It's an almost perfect album for me, and for that reason, I never felt compelled to hear more from Roy, out of fear of being disappointed.

 

I think for many its the quintessential RH lp; its certainly the most balanced in terms of composition.. but that was never Roy's way of working and so there were always going to be some elements and/or songs which shine out better than others. For instance 'Lifemask' is a phenomenal lp in terms of songs and composition let down by poor production and possibly by Roy's state of health/ being a bit too out of it. With an artist as mercurial as Roy, you've got to take the rough with the smooth

Holy crap, that might have been one of the most negative 4-star reviews I've read. 

So what album do you recommend, then? 

I'm of the opinion that the 3 greatest poets that have graced rock music over the years, and not just 5 of them, would have to be Bob Dylan, Roy Harper and Peter Hammill. 

I'm not exactly a Bob Dylan fan, but a lot of his wording sticks in your mind, and that is exactly what a poet and writer tries to do, although the style for Roy is more likely to be totally ad-lib and about the moment when he did his thing, and really, I loved it when he said no to going out with Pink Floyd, probably figuring that he was going to get only 5 minutes and the chair and the dark the rest of the time, and for that he would probably say a loud _______ to Roger, I bet! Or have a beer, sucker!

Over the years, Roy has put together incredibly satisfying albums, and it is a great compliment to his ability when someone says that they are/were afraid of hearing anything else because one album was so good ... many of the other albums stand out as well, just as much!

Special for me:

Lifemark

HQ (and that one fabulous piece ... "Playing the Game Pts 1-5")

BullinaMingVase (One of These Days in England)

The Unknown Soldier

Jugula +4

.... just for starters ... specially as so few rock bands can even get past themselves and two albums, if that!

This is the one 'epic' from RH that I forgot to put on my poll of his longer pieces!! and I agree, its a fabulous piece!

Yes...I like those others better also........Death and Glory is classic Roy in angst over lost love and other issues.

;)

There are two of my favorite songs on Baroque....How Does It feel? and Tom Tiddler's Ground. Also a big fan of Once and Green Man.....

But there really isn't an album by him I don't like.

Just to nudge this thread here's an old poster I found in amongst my stuff

Squonk19 wrote: You have good 'stuff'! As I said a while back - your experiences and memories would make a very good read, Cosmiclawnmower.

 

Ha ha you're too kind.. to be honest its the bits I cant remember that would probably make the best stories Ah.. British reticence you know; I don't want to sound too much like a certain one of our friends from across the water..

Tom Ozric wrote: I recently bought an original LP of Lifemask. I haven’t spun it yet.....looking forward to it !

 

Its a great lp hampered by 'biscuit tin' production in places.. South Africa and The Lords Prayer are truly sublime.. With the Lords prayer in particular, stick with it.. its pretty dense and repetitive in sections but it is a true work of poetic genius IMHO 

I think that he is more than that, and the main issue is that folks are so stuck on a "sound", and some cheap, and sometimes meaningless, lyrics. When you first hear someone like Roy Harper, Peter Hammill and those extremely "independent" voices that just seem to flow around their words, this is not something that happens so naturally in a lot of rock music, that is supposedly better and all that ... 

I always like to say, and I am a writer and a poet, that the words are as good as an instrument, and sometimes are what brings the music out ... but in a lot of hit driven things, this is not the case, and the music and the lyrics do not seem to match for my mind ... it's like one goes right and the other one goes left, and this has been something that has prevented me from enjoying a lot of bands, like Dream Theater and other heavies, because their "sound" is more important than anything that could be said and understood ... and immediately they go back to the one thing they do well, and the lyrics get kinda lost in the shuffle, and come off not as valuable and important. This is specially clear in a DT concert when the singer takes a step back, and is not a part of the whole thing.

Also reminds me, of the time when Roy declined touring with PF. He knew that it was a one off 5 minute song and he would be backstage bored senseless, and probably thinking that he did not care, or like for some of the material ... which he might have been more polite by refusing and not saying anything about his friends, that helped him right from the start of his career. But, it tells you, what kind of writer, poet and person he is ... he wants the poetic freedom to "live" live on the stage ... and there are many stories as to how difficult he can be to play with since he changes parts and pieces like no one else can ... and you already know that this is because of the flow of the words ... bring up something else, and it is really hard not to follow it up and lose that special sense in the wording at that very moment. 

All poets, and writers, live for those magical seconds in time ... they are one of the greatest inspirations one can find and get!

The best he can hope and the worst he can fear

on the Solstices of an illusion''

These few lines from the start of 'The Lords Prayer' express succinctly (for me) something very fundamental about the nature of mankind.

Jeffro wrote: I'd like to see Mike Judge bring back Beavis and Butthead for the sole reason to comment on Stormcock.

 

Snrk snrk he's got cock in the title snrk snrk..

Finbarr Saunders and his double entendres got there long before B&BH

SteveG wrote: ^ (Snapping fingers) Heavy man, heavy! (Snapping fingers.)

 

Far out Brother far out (puts beads on)

Another gem form Roy.