Of Influential Albums 3 - Folkjokeopus by Roy Harper

"Folkjokeopus" was Roy Harper's third album. It is pretty much a given that there would be a Roy Harper album in this list. I had not heard of him before I saw him live at the Royal Festival Hall in 1968 supporting Tyrannosaurus Rex (as were David Bowie and Stefan Grossman). After that I saw him many times over the next few years. His guitar style was different from that of most of the other acoustic musicians I followed. Some of this was, I believe, influenced by playing the oud during time spent in Morocco. I suspect Davy Graham may have also been an influence. He used open tunings and played extended improvisatory passages, particularly when playing live. "One For All" on this album is a great example of that. His song introductions were often quite extensive and rambling, which I liked too, although I understand if there were people in the audience who became impatient to hear the music! He engaged with the audience. His songs plotted a course that had been set by Bob Dylan. His lyrics often expressed an antipathy to authority, which of course was very attractive to a thirteen year old rebel. He sang with his native NW English accent and neither tried to emulate the American accent of so many singers at the time nor the bleating of the traditionalists. I loved the way he was able to slip into his falsetto voice, ("She's The One"). He was angry and it showed. He railed against authority, he sang about sex, he drove a coach and horses through stupidity.

I love "Folkjokeopus", still listen to it and it is the one that has so far probably had the biggest influence on my work. The first album of his that I had bought was the preceding one, "Come Out Fighting Ghengis Smith", and having encountered him live as a soloist I wasn't keen on the orchestrations on that album. This one is less densely textured. Where other musicians were employed it was more a band format than an orchestral one. I taught myself to play some of the songs on "Folkjokeopus" and set about the monumental task of learning the eighteen-minute epic, "McGoohan's Blues". I can't claim that I understood it, but the song touched me somewhere at a very deep level. I never was able to commit it to memory. I saw Roy Harper play in London a few months ago. He was well into his seventies, but his voice was still amazingly strong and I was very impressed that he only forgot one verse of "McGoohan's Blues" - quite an achievement! I aspire to be able to create something of similar depth and quality. Some of the chord sequences used on "Folkjokeopus" found their way into some of my teenage attempts to write songs. I guess many an aspiring songwriter is a plagiarist in their early attempts.

I spent many happy hours reading the tiny writing on the graffiti style back of the sleeve. Apart from "McGoohan's Blues" my favourite songs on this album included "She's The One", "The Composer of Life", "One For All" and "Exercising Some Control". I wish I'd remembered that Clem Cattini played drums on "Folkjokeopus". I met Clem a few months ago and we had the opportunity for quite a long discussion about some of the work he'd done. Had I remembered I would have talked to him about this album for sure.

Side one 1. "Sgt. Sunshine" 3:04 2. "She's the One" 6:55 3. "In the Time of Water" 2:16 4. "Composer of Life" 2:26 5. "One for All" 8:11 Side two 6. "Exercising Some Control" 2:50 7. "McGoohan's Blues" 17:55 8. "Manana" 4:20