Roy Harper
Man & Myth

It wasn't a blind listen.

About Roy Harper, I knew something: he is English (still alive? Who knows…), a singer-songwriter, plays the guitar, has been making albums since the late sixties, never achieved the success he might have deserved. I knew something but had never listened to anything.

I load a random work of his on a USB stick, “Man and Myth”, maybe just because I like the sound of the title (I always give extreme importance to certain useless feelings). Damn, but it's beautiful, the calm comment after the first listen. The 7 tracks immerse me in a dreamy atmosphere built by a typically English folk guitar with rare electric bursts where the synapses activate delightful Drake-ish (or Drakonian?) memories. But it's the voice that tickles other (or higher?) pleasures. It's his “painful” high notes that awaken the emotions of a lighter and more gentle Papa Buckley. Enchanting. And spectacular are the measured escapades of the strings, never excessive, never contrived. And again, that guitar, so clean and clear and luminous. And that voice, damn what a voice! Everything is perfect, a sonic paradise. And for those who might have some doubts reading certain grand words of mine, the 15 minutes of “Heaven Is Here” will be an excellent testament against me. Subsequent listens will only confirm and enhance the first impressions, a lyrical and ecstatic work that reconciles me with the “beloved & hated” musical seventies.

I would say it's definitely worth delving deeper into Roy Harper, what can I continue with? I open his wiki page and, surprise of surprises, I discover that “Man and Myth” is a 2013 album, Roy's return after 13 years since his last LP of new material (“Green Man”, 2000). But if “Man and Myth” flaunts such beauty, what could I expect from his early works from almost half a century ago? What a rough diamond could he have been in 1966? And what a pleasure to learn that Jonathan Wilson played on the album and supported Roy in live performances, and what a surprise to discover that the electric guitar is played by a certain Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (some dunce might say, Townshend WHO?).

I feel like a child on Christmas day, a thousand gifts, a thousand joys. I wish it would never end. But I'm calm, I still have many backlogged Grandpa Roy parcels to unwrap. I had never seen a Santa Claus with a big beard and horns.

But I like it, I like it, I like it…