Lifemask
Harvest SHVL 808 (1973)
Album available as:-
(Science Friction HUCD005)
Lifemask'
was made at the height of the 'flower power' expression/boom. I never
considered myself a part of all that. I'd been an impressionable little
'beatnik' in the early sixties and by the seventies I tended to ignore
the more outrageous vagaries of fashion, even though I was a very
young person with an eye for fashion. However, I think that I'd become
jaded by media fashion manipulation by the seventies.
I rarely wore flares. I always thought that you had to be over six
feet to get away with that, and I was a vane boy. Still am. Considerably
more central to my existence though, was my poetry, and how I was
relating to the world with it. How I could make the world relate to
me with it.
I had always regarded Tim Leary as half a charlatan, Allen Ginsberg
as a quarter, and Byron as a smidgin or two. My heros were Shelley,
Kerouac, Miles Davis and Keats. Latterly I see reflections of Hunter
Thomson and Blake in the disturbed mirror.
In the light of these admissions, it may not be too difficult to see
where the major work on Lifemask, 'The Lords Prayer' is coming from.
All that would be needed perhaps would be to be given the appropriate
stimuli at the appropriate time of day.
The song catalogues spontaneous interpretations of how we are inter-acting
with the planet. It was never aimed at mass market and is just a poem
for friends and kindred spirits. The poem was inspired by a collage
of Geronimo in an eighteenth century English landscape drawing given
to me by my friend, artist James Edgar, whilst I was in the mind altering
substances period of my life. Jimmy Page plays throughout.
The rest of the album is more
conventional in structure, with two songs that are still regularly
featured in my live set list. As a live song Highway Blues is a different
song now than the song David Bowie once tried to record. And 'South
Africa' is a dream come true. A love song to calm the fears and wash
away the horror and stain of apartheid.
Some of the songs comprised the soundtrack for the movie 'Made' which
was on general release at the time. I co-starred with Carol White.
There was a bath scene in which everyone got to see my bum. Unfortunately
the film is no longer available, but I'm sure that there are some
long memories out there able to recall other bum excursions.
- Roy Harper
Lifemask
is an album of music recorded for the film Made, in which Harper starred
with Carole White. It was reissued on Harper's Science Friction imprint
in 1997. Highlights include "Highway Blues," "South
Africa," and the five-part, 23-minute epic "The Lord's Prayer,"
which features a guest appearance by Jimmy Page on guitar.
- Steve Huey (AMG)
Track Listing:
1. Highway Blues (Harper)
2. All Ireland (Harper)
3. Little Lady (Harper)
4. Bank of the Dead (Harper)
5. South Africa (Harper)
6. The Lords Prayer (Harper)
Roy Harper - Guitar & Vocals
Jimmy Page - Lead Guitar (Track 1,4)
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