40 Year Itch : A Twelfth Man At Silly Mid-On

Roy Harper : When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease

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Played on the BBC's Radio 1 as a tribute to John Peel on the day of his funeral, this Roy Harper tune from 1975's HQ has layers upon layers of melancholy and meaning.

When an old cricketer leaves the crease, you never know whether he's gone
 If sometimes you're catching a fleeting glimpse of a twelfth man at silly mid-on
And it could be Geoff, and it could be John, with a new ball sting in his tail
 And it could be me, and it could be thee, and it could be the sting in the ale

Harper would also sing lead vocals on Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar", which was recorded at Abbey Road the same time Harper was making HQ.

40 Year Itch: Illusions and Movies

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My songs are my diary
-Roy Harper

   Now this is how you throw a record release party! On February 14, 1974 the English folk rocker Roy Harper was joined onstage by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham, Ronnie Lane and Keith Moon. It happened at London's Roxy Theater to mark the release of Valentine on which  Page, Lane and Moon play.

  They'd only practiced the Valentine cut "Male Chauvinist Pig Blues"  that afternoon. They also played "Too Many Movies" and "Home" which would appear on the live album Flashes from the Archives. ( You will now get those cuts on an extended CD version of Valentine) At one point Roy presented his musician friends with  Harpic Awards 

  Like Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood, Roy Harper was best friends with a lot of English musicians. By 1974, he'd recorded with Bert Jansch, Keith Emerson, Ritchie Blackmore, Nicky Hopkins, Ian Anderson and the musicians who performed at the album release party. These friendships were sealed when Harper faced what appeared to be a life threatening illness a year earlier. And of course there's the Led Zeppelin III track  "Hats Off To (Roy) Harper" and the future Pink Floyd track " Have A Cigar" which Roy would sing.




   Valentine is a collection of love songs, lust songs, admittedly chauvinistic songs and a Bob Dylan cover of  "North Country". Like Dylan, Harper was a poet who explored the possibilities of the art form. His last album, Lifemask,  had one epic 25-minute track , "The Lord's Prayer", that took up all of Side Two.

 Best of all the Valentine cuts  may be "Twelve Hours of Sunset", about a six thousand mile airplane flight:

Twelve hours of sunset, 
six thousand miles. 
Illusions and movies, far away smiles. 
Twelve hours of sunset, half a day in the skies,
 I'll see you tomorrow, 
as the steel crow flies........ .....oh...........how time flies..

More 1973 Albums We Missed

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Harper (the subject of Led Zep's "Hats off to (Roy) Harper" and the vocalist on Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar")   follows the now legendary Stormcock with an album of songs recorded when he was ill and facing the possibility of dying. Jimmy Page plays on several of the tunes including "Bank of the Dead". Side Two is one ambitious 23-minute track, "The Lord's Prayer", which begins with a long monologue and is made up of at least 5 movements. Harper would recover from what ailed him and follow this with another masterpiece in 1974, Valentine.

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John Martyn's follow-up to his masterpiece Solid Air. Recorded with members of Traffic, Inside Out is jazzier than Solid Air and highlighted by tunes "Fine Line" and "Make No Mistake". Some of the singing is too over-the-top for these ears.

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  1973's best live album? ( Bill Withers, Yes and Focus fans might disagree.) That's right, kids, people once had time to play four sides of a live album for their friends. Especially one recorded this well. Alvin Lee and his band raise the game from their legendary Woodstock appearance. Plenty of boogie. Plenty of blues. Most CDs don't contain the epic drum solo in "The Hobbit". 

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Cobbled together from a variety of session, Roadmaster still offers great tunes. Gene Clark recorded "Full Circle Song" again for the Byrds 1973 reunion album. Clark would top this effort in 1973 with the more complex No Other.

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With Uriah Heep near the peak of its success, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ken Hensley took Heep bassist Gary Thain and Heep drummer Kerslake into the studio to record this solo album. Mellower than what the Heep was putting out but great stuff.

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Milton Nascimento's backing band has made the transition from psychedelic rock to jazz fusion

[Out of Print]

Mexican garage rock. Ole!