Yes, I’ve long been curious to hear this Roy Harper guy. Although I only learned to love Led Zeppelin in my early 20s and although I’ve yet to be anything more than fascinated by the emotional sludge of Classic Pink Floyd, those bands were huge during my formative rock years, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d missed out on the rock nugget that was Roy Harper. It seems like a lot of you have yet to hear this guy as well, so take your hat off, have a cigar, and check him out as I check him out for the first time.
I found this rare 1966 recording, his first single, on a compilation called The Best of Strike Records. It’s pretty cool, as is the entire compilation.
Roy Harper, “Take Me Into Your Eyes”
Here’s a track from Harper’s “legendary” and recently re-released Stormcock album. This seems more like the kind of stuff that would make him a friend of Zeppelin and the Floyd.
I’m trying to make sense of this guy and the vocalist on Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar”. Isn’t he supposed to be singing lead on that song?
Rockin’ the Ovation! Man, that’s one hideous acoustic guitar.
As with so many promising British folk-rockers of the late-60s and early-70s, the second half of the ’70s seemed to have done a real number on this guy.
There’s that Ovation again–and he brought a second one along for his friend!
Roy Harper, “Solar Wind Sculptures”
Finally, here’s what I believe is a more-recent recording. The guy can play. He’s a Musician’s Musician. I could see poking around dollar bins for scratchy Roy Harper albums, hoping to find a killer track or two, as I’ve done with other British folk-rock cult heroes, like Mike Heron. Not bad, as well, but maybe you’ve got to be a ’70s British Rock Star to get the full effect. I’m thinking he was a calming cup of chamomille tea for the likes of Jimmy Page and David Gilmour.
I disagree with you Mod. Harper was far from a burnout in the late 70s: two of my favorite Harper albums, One of Those Days in England and When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease were released in 1977. Unfortunately, both are out of print. You do have to go to some effort to find his best records, but I think it’s worth it.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest he was a burnout in the late-70s. I’m only just beginning to hear this guy’s music. Not even I would make so rash a judgement. What I meant to say was that he and a lot of other folk-rockers from the late ’60s quickly LOOKED out of place in the latter half of the ’70s. The Ovation guitars, maybe the beginnings of feathered hair (eg, Graham Nash), slightly stylish clothes… They started losing that crunchy, earthy Look. They start becoming the kind of out-of-time hippie character that turns up in movies, tv shows, and cartoons. Was it Freaks and Geeks that had such a teacher?
I’m noting the relatively top shelf British Psychic Oblivion elements on that Stormcock cut. One could fade away quite genuinely listening to this guy…
Yeah, Mod, but pretty much everyone looked awful in the late 70s. Can you think of any artists who had a good LOOK at that time?
Enough late-’60s/early-’70s rockers looked fine into the second half of the ’70s: Townshend, Daltrey, the Zeppelin guys, the Pink Floyd guys, the prog guys… Look at Page in his bomber jacket and scarf. You know that’s Harper’s Ovation he’s playing. Beside that he looks perfectly fine. Like the British folk rockers, the prog musicians had little going for them in the Look department in the first place, but they didn’t bottom out in the fashion department until the early ’80s, when they started wearing the asymmetrical red jumpsuits favored by their fusion brethern.
Take Me Into Your Eyes kind of just ends before it gets started. I didn’t like that at all. The first two YouTubes left me cold, too, and I thought I might like the one with the band.
I was going to just give up, but I like that One Man Rock N Roll Band song. I love the guitar sound and I can definitely hear how he would be a guitar players kinda guy.
The other video sounds like Jimmy Page is playing a different song than Roy. The last song I got to 1:12. It sounds like that medieval stuff Ritchie Blackmore is up to to me.
So I guess Roy Harper just isn’t my cup of meat. I think I can go another 46 years without checking into him, but thanks for putting up some of his stuff. It’s not like you get many opportunities to hear him.