THE PROG INTERVIEW ROY HARPER

Every month we get inside the mind of one of the biggest names in music. This issue: Roy Harper. Since the mid-60s, the progressive folk singer-songwriter has enjoyed a successful solo career that’s also found him collaborating with everyone from Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel to Kate Bush and Ian Anderson. But he’s never quite reached the commercial heights of his peers. As his Final Tour: Part Two fast approaches, he looks back over highlights from his career so far and teases a brand-new album.

Words: Rob Hughes

Not for the first time, Roy Harper is considering his art. “In order to remain current, songs have to pertain to what’s happening in a modern sense,” he declares. “I always aim to write with a sort of timelessness; that’s the number one consideration.”

This MO has served him pretty well down the years. His greatest long-form songs – be it I Hate The White Man, The Same Old Rock, One Of Those Days In England or When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease – transcend the era in which they were written. Harper has largely been a social commentator, training his lens on issues ranging from institutional dogma to ecological collapse and various points between. He’s the rebel poet who started out in the folk clubs of 60s Soho – centred around the fabled Les Cousins –and bloomed into one of Britain’s most vital talents.

Stormcock : all about 1969, but annoyingly released in 1971.

ADAM GASSON/GUITARIST/FUTURE OWNS

“People have lumped me in with prog for a long time now,” he says. “But when does folk become prog? And when does Roy become folk? There are various questions to be asked there.”

At 84, Harper is still tricky to categorise. Jazz, blues, rock and classical music have formed the constituent parts of his output, which hit a creative peak during a 70s run that included HQ, Bullinamingvase and the ravishing Stormcock. Commercial success, however, never quite materialised. Instead, Harper has had to make do with something more akin to cult hero status. His friends Led Zeppelin paid tribute with 1970’s Hats Off To (Roy) Harper. Pink Floyd invited him to sing on the Wish You Were Here album. Other collaborators have included Paul McCartney, Ian Anderson, Bill Bruford and Kate Bush, who also covered the sublime Another Day with Peter Gabriel.

Roy Harper onstage at Hyde Park, London, on September 14, 1971.

MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES

It’s now been 70 years since Harper first picked up a guitar. Initially inspired by the Beat Generation – “I was probably the leading beatnik in Lytham St Annes, French beret and all,” he says with a laugh – he got serious by the time he was 18, starting a skiffle band that “kind of veered into electric”.

This might be a good time to mention that the group’s four-song acetate was stolen from a drawer in Harper’s house in 1992. He’d really like to know where it is.