If there was any justice Nick would be a superstar!! He not only is the best acoustic guitarist I have ever seen but has a great voice and writes incredible songs.
There are many reasons why Nick is not a massive commercial success. The main reason is that he is simply too good for the mindless music business and vacuous audience that supports it. He does not play that game.
This then is Nick’s ninth album aptly titled Nix. (If you haven’t fathomed out the reason for the title then this is probably not the album for you).
If you like your Nick Harper raw and unadorned then this might be just up your street. This is Nick with his guitar and a batch of great new songs. They are, as usual, full of intelligence, insight, lyrical ingenuity and melodic beauty.
The album contains a range of styles but all are adorned with the distinctive crispness of that wonderful guitar-work. Nobody can play a guitar like that! The voice soars. The stories unfold. The melodies unfurl.
The mind becomes engaged on many levels as the appreciation of such talent mesmerises you. This is Nick unencumbered by production. His imagination continues to invent on a level rarely achieved by others.
Nick is one of England’s gems. Support him and buy this great album. you won’t regret it! This is another wonderful album!
If you like this you might be interested in my books:
Woody Guthrie was the first singer/songwriter to use music as a vehicle for his social and political stances. He set out to use his music to bring about progressive change and in so doing inspired generations of other singers.
Woody opened up a world of possibility, a lodestone of gems to be mined by all who came after.
Whenever there were singers harnessing poetic honesty with heartfelt convictions one could follow a line that harked back to Woody.
Woody stood for equality and justice and put his body where his mouth was. He lived the life, made the friends, stood on the picket lines and fought for what he believed. He put his heart and soul into supporting the unions, racial harmony and social justice. In so doing he set himself against the capitalist system that produce the small number of winners and large bulk of losers. He was for the oppressed, downtrodden, destitute and disenfranchised.
The hundreds of songs that Woody wrote in the 1940s and 1950s still echo down the decades with undiminished power to inspire.
Without Woody there would have been no Dylan and my mind would have been all the poorer.
Where are the people of Woody’s stature, passion and talent to stand up against the monolithic establishment that is presently destroying the planet?
It is not beyond the wit of man to create a fair system whereby we do not have the terrible deprivation in the third world, the poverty, disease and pollution. We have the Technology, Science and Economic power to create a world of greater equality without such overpopulation, environmental destruction and ravaging of wild-life.
If Woody was alive today his songs would be full of the greed and selfishness that is leading to our demise. He would not have sat quietly by while the bankers, businessmen and politicians sell our future for a quick buck. He would have been singing it from the rooftops!
Help produce a positive zeitgeist! Build on Woody’s legacy and let’s start putting it right!
There has to be more to Rock Music than trite Pop anthems about teenage love. There is. It is because Bob Dylan single-handedly propelled Rock towards a mature phase with intellectual integrity.
In the early years of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the fifties we had a visceral rebellion driven by the raucous swaggering performances of such as Little Richard, Bo Diddley, the Elvis of Sun Records and Chuck Berry. It was fast loud and explosive. It was the sound of a new post-war generation who wanted something different to the bland lives of their parents. Those early Rock ‘n’ Rollers belted out their brash new philosophy to blow the cobwebs out of the establishment.
A knife came down and cut off the connection. A whole generation was adrift from its roots with a new home-grown philosophy summed up by the Lee Marvin line in response to the question:
‘What are you rebelling against?’
‘What you got?’
That post-war generation wanted excitement, fun and adventure. The idea of following their parents into the blandness of suburbia with its neatly trimmed lawns and the American Dream was death by boredom. They wanted life in the fast lane with all its sex, fast cars and violence. The risk gave it an alluring edge. The colours were brighter; the feelings stronger and the pace full of adrenaline.
It was a revolution for a new age and though short-lived provided the basis for the Beatles and Stones to carry it forward.
There it would probably have been incorporated into the capitalist ethos of the Music Industry and decayed into Pop trivia if Bob Dylan hadn’t crashed into the scene with the force of an H-Bomb. The debris was flung into the air to be imbued with his poetic imagery, social and political content and a world of possibility. Bob had taken the song structure by the scruff and shaken it to pieces. The two and a half minute Rock song, with it’s theme of love and standard middle eight, was blown to bits. Anything was possible. You could tell stories. It could be twenty minutes long. You could have real meaning, real passion and something beyond mere teenage love and angst. It could deal with real issues.
Bob Dylan revived and transformed the rebellious impetus of the youth rebellion and provided it with substance.
Rock Music gained complexity, scope and social importance. It was no longer confined to teenage angst and sexuality. Bob had married its energy to a cerebral dimension that was allied to social and political sensibilities. Grown-up issues such as Civil Rights and the anti-war movement were central to the themes of Rock Music. The words were now of greater importance and value. There was a poetic eloquence that demanded to be taken seriously.
The awareness and sensibilities of an entire generation were stimulated and that led to the birth of an idealistic counter-culture that was to dominate the latter part of the sixties and give rise to a wealth of liberalising elements in the Women’s Movement, Peace groups, Environmental groups and Civil Rights Movements.
The establishment called him ‘The Voice of a Generation’. It was a label and pressure that Bob despised. He was not the voice of a generation. He was much more than that. He did not mirror the thoughts and ideals of sixties youth so much as awaken them and propagate their growth. He planted the seeds into the grey fertile soil of the cortex and fed them with the nutrients of wisdom so that they exploded to illuminate the skulls of a receptive generation. He gave them all freedom beyond his own dreams.
A million minds were awakened and imbued with the freedom of all possibility.
I wonder where the world would now be without him? Would we have had those years of protest through which so many of our civil liberties and liberalised society were wrested from the establishment’s reactionary grasp? For Bob not only reinvigorated Rock Music and propelled it to new dimensions he also fundamentally changed the society we all live in.
Thanks Bob – you were always so much more than a ‘Song and Dance’ man. You opened my mind and horizons.
If you enjoyed reading this why not purchase my books on Rock Music – you might enjoy them.
Or check out all my other books on Amazon
What is quite clear is that it is not all about talent or ability. Some of the best Rock songs have been very basic, not requiring any great virtuosity, such as ‘Louie Louie’ by the Kingsmen.
Some artists, like Joe Satriani, are so incredibly talented and so technically proficient on the guitar that you can marvel at their skill in much the same way as you would any classical musician yet I find them uninspiring.
The best Rock guitarist I have ever seen (and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Jimmy Page, Peter Green, Keith Cross, Pete Townsend, Eric Clapton, Rory Gallagher, Paul Kossof, Dave Gilmour and Jack White up close) without a doubt is Jimi Hendrix. Nobody come close. The sounds and melody that Jimi could squeeze out of a guitar were extraordinary. He could make it talk with his elbow better than most good guitarists could with their hands. Jimi would weave in feedback, distortion and effects to create new complex melody that was never boring.
Jimi was the consummate Rock guitarist. His limitations were the extent of his imagination. He could conjure up any sound, feeling or rhythm.
An important element of Rock music is the showmanship and ability to create excitement through the power of performance. When a band like Cream, Free, early Pink Floyd, Stiff Little Fingers, Hendrix, Lee Scratch Perry, The Who, Elvis Costello, Led Zeppelin or White Stripes let rip there was a pulse of energy that surged through the audience and created a synergy of excitement.
Some bands did not rely so much on power as the creation of a mesmerising sound that melted you away to get lost in its complexity and melody such as Traffic, Neil Young and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
Sometimes that power of performance is melded with complexity to create something powerful and mesmeric. The best gigs I have ever experienced were Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band and Jimi Hendrix. Both of them merged the power and drive with complexity and skill into an unbeatable magic.
For me the words have always been an important element. When a truly gifted poet, such as Roy Harper, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, entwine their poetry to music it creates something far greater than the parts. It provides another dimension that engages the intellect as well. That propels the music to greater heights that stimulates the cerebral cortex in a more consuming, and satisfying manner.
I like my Rock having content that makes me think, a social or political thread, a spiritual element, a comment or purpose.
The best acoustic guitarist I have ever seen, from a large field including Davey Graham, Leo Kottke, Bert Jansch, John Fahey, Stefan Grossman and John Renbourn, is undoubtedly Nick Harper. He crafts his incredible guitar skills to varied brilliant songs full of imagery, meaning and love.
Then there are the giants like the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Love who were simply majestic. Or the sheer exuberance of the early Blues of Robert Johnson, Son House, Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and Rock ‘n’ Rollers such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis.
I can take my Rock basic and raw or intellectual and profound, depending on my mood, but I like it real, not over-sanitised by the record labels, not reduced to satisfy the lowest common denominator, not processed for mass public consumption, not devoid of content for fear of offending. I want my Rock to challenge. It is not the music of the establishment. It is always the stuff of rebellion. As soon as it is adopted, clichéd or restricted it is dead!
Find out what I think the most essential 537 albums are in my book available on Amazon:
Or read about the story of my life in music:
Or the times when Rock was at its peak in the counter-culture of the sixties:
Rock music has been the backdrop to my life. It has informed my views and philosophy. I am who I am because of it!
Yes. The ideal solstice present that will make your family fume and think – why not get them an Opher Goodwin book?
It is something special, something different, something unique. It’ll get the brain cells firing.
The ideal present for everyone!
Help change the zeitgeist. Make the world positive. THINK.
Available from Amazon in kindle form or paperback!!
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Stiff Little Fingers with the original line-up, played a storming set at the Welly in Hull. The power and intensity of their songs was spot on.
The lyrics are the most powerful of any punk band!!
The guys were great – really friendly!!
Loved it! They haven’t lost anything in all those years!
Here’s a few photos:-
Some more in Blog!!
I’m playing the new album by James Varda – Chance and Time. It is beautiful but so incredibly poignant.
I hope James is taking an artistic stance but this sounds like his valedatory last offering.
Life may be just one thing after another but it is so full of wonder and awe. It means so much to me as well, James. That’s what hurts so much. It could be so wonderful. I live in England’s civilised Eden, complete with wild birds, blue and green, and I see the fanatics reducing it to brown dirt and red blood.
I want to pass the idyll on – not the disaster we are creating.
This album is so atmospheric and emotionally charged. It is surely Jame’s best album.
It’s not quite too late. That sun may still shine on us. I hope it shines on you James. You’re a source of light and warmth. We need your sensitivity to build a new zeitgeist!
What a talent. What a delight.
What a wonderful album that takes you on that life journey.
It’s been a busy musical time with lots of good gigs. There I was right at the front!
Stiff Little Fingers did a glorious gig at the Welly in Hull this week. Back to their original line-up and searingly powerful. We all flew the flag. The best Punk band in the world.
After the gig I was fortunate enough to meet them all and have a chat in the dressing room though my ears were ringing so much it was hard to hear what they said. They were a really friendly bunch and signed all my albums!! Great guys!! I’ll put some photos up as soon as I’ve sorted them!!
Last night was Rich and Lou’s Loudhailer in Cottingham – another great night with loads of talented people. The Backroom is a brilliant venue! I look forward to a lot more.