The Songs of Roy Harper Performed by Jon Pollard Relive the authentic sounds and atmosphere of a classic Roy Harper gig. Roy is rock music's best-kept secret, like a one-man Pink Floyd/Led Zeppelin mash-up. Jon re-creates the atmosphere and sound of a classic Roy Harper gig.
What people are saying... "The best Roy Harper covers I ever heard! Absolutely incredible..." "Couldn't put a Rizla paper between your rendition and the original" "Absolutely F***ING AMAZING - a joy to watch" "Impressive and powerful" "Gives the original a run for its money"
Jon Pollard is a singer-songwriter living in Wiltshire England. When he isn't making music he makes websites - turtlereality.com.
I do play a short version of McGoohans Blues but it's not one of my best RH songs. There is also a question of how many long songs you can get into a show - and the best songs are all long! The song I've been playing most recently is Desendants of Smith, which is a cracker and in fact the whole album is pretty good if you can just get over the 80s production!
Thanks! I watch Joao's tutorials for tips, they have been invaluable. He is more rigorous than i am when it comes to being accurate. I love to sing so I can often be happy if I am close enough to get through the song, but getting the chords and the guitar part right does make a big difference.
This is such an anthemic song of hope and victory - but is actually a song about the struggle to overcome alcoholism and addiction. Heroism is the day to day struggle to face reality without being bombed.
Thanks, Roy is the best- and this is his best song. Have you seen my newer version here - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XNuLB1QcsG0.html
I'm in the lovely county of Wiltshire. I don't do many gigs, a Roy Harper Tribute show is not an easy thing to gig with! When I do play it tends to be in the South of England or the Midlands. If you know of a venue that would be interested, I am always open to suggesitons!
@@mikeh4441 there is an outside chance that I could do a Yorkshire gig, but it's quite a slim chance. I really don't know what happens next with this. It's a shame your not closer - we could do a band version of the game!
Having seen Roy Harper on both sides of the Atlantic and revisiting his albums every few years, it was with some trepidation that we headed cross country to see this Jon Pollard upstart. Wow! After only a few bars the years fell away and the memories flooded back. Though even Jon's quips were in the style of Roy he brought his own musical talent, vocal confidence and personality to this intimate gig and charming wee venue. Would have loved to hang back and chat, but with a long trip home, could only shake his hand, mumble my thanks and wonder at the impression he made on new converts and old fans he so charmed this evening. Roy must be so honored too.
Thank you for the lovely review - I love your description of me "this Jon Pollard upstart"! Attempting to perform a Roy gig and "be" Roy Harper for the evening is an incredibly scary thing to do. He is such a unique and incredible talent and the songs are SO difficult. Who am I to think I could do such a thing, just some upstart! Ultimately, it's about us all getting together and celebrating the man and his music. I am not Roy Harper, I'm just a fan. I'm glad you had a good time.
I've been a Roy Harper fan for many years and saw him live loads of times. Only just discovered your covers but what i've seen so far is brilliant. Would love to hear this stuff live again so i'm going to try to get to your gig in May. I always loved seeing Roy doing One man.. and Burn the World back in the day when Jacqui was doing the sound and the noise from just one guitar was unbelievable.
Thank you for your kind words. You have hit the nail on the head, it was that sound that really got me when I first saw him live around the early 90s. I've been trying to recreate those sounds and I'm getting pretty close I think. It needs to be loud! I don't think there are any recordings that really do it justice, or maybe I haven't heard them in the right state of mind! I hope you can make it to the May gig - and you can see how close I get!
Hi Jon, thanks for the reply. Looking at your website today I see the date of the next gig is 27th April, not May as I thought yesterday. If that's the case I unfortunately can't make that one :-( Hope it goes well though and that you will be doing more in the future. If so, I'll try to get to the next one.
Thank you for your lovely comment. I've been singing Roy Harper songs for many years now but only recently started to find an audience of Roy fans out there. Check out my website for gig details jonpollard.co.uk
Boy Harper, that's not bad! It's a tricky thing to get right, I'm currently using "Jon Pollard sings Roy Harper", which is accurate but not very snappy. I might be a bit old to be a 'boy' though!
It's an epic song - but then most of Roy's songs are epic! They have such a depth and breadth that they make most songs seem shallow and insubstantial. It is such a pleasure to play these phenomenal songs to people who appreciate them.
I saw Harper in the 70s in Bristiol. He sang Me and my woman with a more rock side to it, brilliant. We can we expect One For All? @@hatsofftoroyharper
It's tricky to plan a set of Roy Harper songs when they are all so long! 4 or 5 songs can take an hour to play, so it's generally a question of which songs do I cut.
Thanks for the lovely feedback, this is one of my all time favourite songs to sing, maybe THE favourite. I sang it yesterday, doing a run through of my set for three next gig coming up in October. It's such a great song and it pushes me right to the edge of what I can do. Great fun!
Fast just like Les Cousins, I love your voice, I hope you have conversations with Bad Speech, you concentrated on the vocal....the multi tracking at the end...fair play,Jon, si, er, I mean Billy,, er, x.
I did go at it a bit quick, didn't I? At that point in the day I really didn't know if my voice was going to function at all, so it was a bit of a panic. I've spent a lot of time watching bad speech's videos, they are a great resource. My next job is to see if I can get more echo on the vocals and more effects on everything, really go to town!
Wouldn't it be great if more people heard these great songs? I have a Roy Harper tribute gig booked in for October 28th near Milton Keynes - jonpollard.co.uk/news/roy-harper-tribute-gig I will be playing 2 x 45 minute sets of Roys music including all the songs on Stormcock.
Thanks - that's a shame you were here and didn't know about it. Mostly I publicise stuff on Facebook, which seems to be where the local music news lives. This is my music page facebook.com/jonpollardmusic
The refrain, and rising vocals to, "Far across the universe...The goblins of the night..." never fails to make the hairs on my arm rise! Edit: Sorry, went back for a second listen! Just a beautiful song!
I had to tune the guitar down a couple of frets and change the key, I think I just about managed to pull out off. It's all about that "far across the universe" bit, what an amazing song
@@hatsofftoroyharper OMG, this has always been a privilege to see performed live. One of my officially favourite versions is the one recorded by I think Dave Burnham, when he set up a live gig in Brighton, circa 1992? I'd have to look in my library, but Nick played second guitar / lead - the crescendo at the end, amazing!
Wow! It might be a shorter version but it really does capture all the spirit of the very great, and in some ways, flawed uncut diamond, of a song! The effort you must put into learning these songs must be immense!
Thanks Adrian, I just love singing Roy Harper songs. There is nothing else like them and Burn the World is one of my absolute favourites. It really gets a lot out of an acoustic guitar.
Luckily I bought the wrong harmonica years ago, couldn't use it for anything because it was in the wrong key. And then, hey presto, it works for sledgehammer!
That must have been a great gig - I've seen some of the video footage. Once people have seen Roy play live, they seem to become fans for life. It's an experience that stays with you!
I've more or less got "commune" worked out. The singing is really hard - remembering the words is hard! There should be more videos to come at some point in the future, I'm currently recording some of my own songs and it's taking a long time...
