My 60s – From boyhood to the London Sixties Underground.

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From trees, tadpoles and dens to Les Cousins, Middle Earth and Abbey Road Studios. This is the story of my life in the sixties.

My 60s eBook : Goodwin, Opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Available in 3 candid forms – Paperback, Hardback and eBook. – Feel free to purchase the full story!

Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: books, biography, latest update

Another look at my books

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I’m not sure that these are all of them. Thought you might like to have a trawl through and every purchase a dozen or so? Who knows? They are all available in paperback with most as eBooks, some as hardbacks and many as audios!

Anyway, thanks for looking and I sure am grateful for all reviews on either Amazon or Goodreads!

Thank you!

These are my books – Why not take a look?

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Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: books, biography, latest update

Thank you!

My 60s – now in Hardback too!

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I thought it was about time that I wrote a candid recollection of the decade that has defined my life.

The sixties was a fabulously optimistic period to have lived through.

It was the decade in which I changed from a boy to a man. The Beatles altered history. Dylan altered our consciousness.

It was fun recounting my numerous adventures, the music, social changes, attitudes and times.

I was a young kid with principles and attitude.

Adventures with the counterculture in the London underground.

Meeting Roy Harper and going to Abbey Road Studios, hitch-hiking around America, love and life.

A memoir, an autobiography, anecdotes and insights.

I was there. I lived it – and I remember.

My 60s eBook : Goodwin, Opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: books, biography, latest update

Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: books, biography, latest update

The Sixties – My 60s – My story.

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My Sixties
The Spirit Lives
Not the sixties you’ve seen before.
This is the underground.
The real story.
Music, movement, philosophy.
A life lived through gigs, travel, friendships—and the edges of experience.
Part memoir, part autobiography, part raw collection of memories, this is a personal journey through a defining decade. Told through photographs, anecdotes, and reflections, it captures the spirit as it was lived—not as it’s been packaged since.
No Carnaby Street. No pop gloss.
Just the underground scene as I knew it.
From Kerouac to Zen, Kesey to Leary.
From IT and OZ to Dylan, Hendrix, and Pink Floyd.
From Hyde Park free festivals to Roy Harper and Abbey Road.
This is the sixties from the inside.

My 60s eBook : Goodwin, Opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

My 60s – A memoir of a life in the sixties London underground.

Posted on by Opher

I thought it would be fun to write a candid autobiography of my life in the sixties – the music, girls, drugs, love and anecdotes. Snakes, rats, travel, clubs, bands, festivals and friends. The whole London scene.

It wasn’t Carnaby Street or swinging London; it was Middle Earth, Les Cousins, Eel Pie Island and free festivals; the counterculture and underground..

My 60s eBook : Goodwin, Opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

It all came flooding back. They were wrong. I was there and I do remember!

Out now in paperback and kindle – the hardback follows shortly.

Roy Harper – Live at Les Cousins – 30th August 1969

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Roy Harper – Live at Les Cousins – 30th August 1969

It was the end of August in London. 1969 – at the height of the sixties Underground. These were the heady days of revolution. The world had changed for ever. The old world had been swept away by a wave of youthful rebellion. These were the days of new sensibilities and attitudes; the rebirth of individuality, spirituality and political awareness, coupled with a sexual revolution. The freaks were taking over and questioning everything.

It felt like we were caught up in the great tsunami of social upheaval and creative endeavour. It was sweeping all before it. We were making up new rules. I was twenty years old and living in London, the heart of what was going on. We were young, free and wanting to taste it all. There was a great feeling of optimism.

That’s how it felt.

It is a shame it proved so ephemeral.

On that summer day it was a hot in London. Allen Ginsberg had been spotted on Charring Cross Road. Bob Dylan was playing at the Isle of Wight but I was going to a much more important event – I was off to see Roy Harper play Les Cousins.

Roy had been signed to the prestigious EMI Harvest label. They were gathering up the best of the Sixties Underground – like Pink Floyd and Edgar Broughton, and giving them carte blanche to record.

At last Roy was being recognised as a major force. He was being given the best recording facilities in the world – at Abbey Road Studio – as well as a sympathetic producer. The deal had energised Roy. He had virtually unlimited studio time, the best facilities and a great production team. Not only that but he had a collection of songs that were the equal of anything he’d written before. It felt like the bits of the jig-saw puzzle were finally coming together and Roy would at last be able to do justice to his material.

Work had begun on what was to become Flat Baroque and Berserk. Roy and Pete Jenner had hit it off, became buddies and shared musical views. There was synergy in the studio.

Roy saw ‘I Hate the Whiteman’ as the centre-piece to the album. It was a song that was full of social observation and vitriol for the plastic lifestyle of western civilisation. It epitomised Roy’s attitude at that time (and up to the present). Roy had been singing it live with great gusto and passion. It had massive impact on audiences.

When it came to recording the song for the album Roy wanted it to have all the immediacy and power of a live recording. He did not want it watered down. He felt that it was an important statement. Somehow he managed to persuade the powers that be at EMI that it was worth recording live.

Roy selected Les Cousins as the venue – the place he had started out, a warm, intimate place that felt like home to him, and arranged for EMI’s portable recording machine to be set up. This gig was to be professionally recorded on the best equipment available.

I knew in advance what was going down, so it was with a great deal of excitement that I found myself descending those steep stairs into the cellar that was Les Cousins.

The club was small; a room with a little stage in the corner with small tables and chairs scattered around. It was always dimly lit and created quite an atmosphere, particularly when filled with a lot of smoke and packed with people. I secured a place to the side and at the front and waited nervously.

Roy seemed a bit uptight to me. He was eager to get this right. I think it is one of those times when the more you try to be normal and relaxed the more you’re not. Roy launched into his set and I could see he was pouring everything into it. I lived every moment, willing it to be brilliant. The passion was electric. It was so intense that he broke a string from the sheer force he was pushing through the guitar.

When it came to Whiteman I was on edge, wanting it to be perfect, wanting Roy not to fluff a note or forget a line. It sounded pretty good to me. I thought they’d got it.

I’m not sure what happened. I heard that Roy did not think that the live recording was quite good enough and merely used the spoken introduction on the album. In any case, the track used on the album was superb.

The rest of the concert (not quite in its entirety) lay on the shelf for thirty years. Darren Crisp resurrected it and persuaded Roy to put it out as a CD.

It is quite a unique performance – capturing Roy in full flood at the height of his youthful energies. It gives a rare insight into what those early gigs were like. Roy was on fire. The songs soared and the less cynical Harper laid into the establishment with real venom. Then there was the banter in between the songs – often as interesting and important as the songs themselves.

Darren asked me to write the liner notes and I was more than happy to oblige.

Live at Les Cousins is part of history and a superb relic of an era – as well as being a musical gem.

The Great James Varda

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James Varda – I first met James Varda back in 1987. Roy had taken him on tour with him. That’s a rarity. Roy hardly ever did that. He tended not to use support. This was an exception – and what an exception.

At a number of Harper gigs I had the privilege to see James perform and sit and chat to him before and after his set.

What a contrast. On stage I saw a fiery performer who was full of angst delivering a blistering set of poetic songs that I can only describe as Folk Punk. He had that same vibe as early Harper and early Dylan. Off stage he was quiet, softly spoken and unassuming – very friendly and pleasant.

In 1988 he brought out the most fabulous album – Hunger – on the Awareness label that Roy was on (run by the great Andy Ware). I loved it – it captured that energy and unique English style.

I spoke with Roy about this nascent force and he was very enthusiastic. James was destined for great heights.

Then it went pear-shaped. James toured all the small clubs, did a lot of radio and plugged Hunger like mad. For some reason it failed to take off.

James started recording his follow-up but it wasn’t all smooth running. He had some great new songs but Andy was struggling with the label and James was becoming discouraged with his lack of recognition. The label went bust and Andy offered James the tapes they had recorded. A disillusioned James told him to bin them and walked away. That was it. He’d had enough.

Fifteen years flashed by and James re-emerged, this time on the Small Things Record label. This reincarnation was not as fiery; he’d settled into a pastoral poetic style that I found very captivating. Different but every bit as good. First In The Valley in 2003 and then, ten years later, in 2013 the River and the Stars, were delightful. I was so pleased to have James back with his beautiful craftsmanship (and Nick Harper helping out with some guitar!).

I didn’t have to wait too long for the next album – Chance and Time came out a year later and I eagerly purchased it. That was a shock. Death is not an easy subject to deal with and this album seemed to be telling the story of a terminal illness. Could that be true? I put up a review on my blog and asked the question – was James just using this as a muse for his songs or was it real? Was James dying? James contacted me and told me that yes, sadly, it was true. He had terminal cancer.

When faced with a terminal diagnosis people respond in many different ways. James’s response (after the shock) was to pour it into his songs. The album was stark – the consultation – the progress of the disease and prognosis – but above all a celebration of life and love. The album was an epitaph of joy and wonder in such beautiful poetry and music.

Roy had discovered, promoted and nurtured this incredible talent. The shame is that he had so many lost years and should have been so big. But the good side is that he left us with four fabulous albums and a lot of great memories of memorable gigs.

Check out his great albums. I love them all.

Hunger by James Varda: Amazon.co.uk: CDs & Vinyl

In The Valley: Amazon.co.uk: CDs & Vinyl

The River And The Stars by James Varda by : Amazon.co.uk: CDs & Vinyl

CHANCE AND TIME [VINYL]: Amazon.co.uk: CDs & Vinyl

The Sixties

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I can only speak for myself and my experience of the sixties.

The sixties were a revolution. Not a violent overthrowing of the establishment but a revolution that took place in the head. At the time I believed it was shared by many of us. We were rebelling against an establishment that represented values that we could not accept. There was an inbuilt hypocrisy and hierarchical acceptance that I grew to despise. Society was steeped in a puritanical cloud that sucked the joy out of life. The class system pervaded to keep us in our place – fodder for the machine – workers to be exploited – fodder for the guns. The puritanical rules applied to us but not them. The upper classes were awash with licence. We were controlled. Religion was nothing to do with spirituality but used as a moral straitjacket for us, paid lip service to, by them, and was nothing less than a mechanism of power and control. We were being put through the sausage machine of an education system that was designed to discourage questioning and mind expansion and used for control and to grade us for entry into the further machine of careers and employment. The promise was that if you kept your nose clean and worked hard you could earn money, buy a house and car and bring up a family in suburban comfort (while those at the top exploited, cavorted and lived a very different life with mansions, yachts and orgies).

It started with the Beats. Kerouac and Ginsberg pointed the way to a different kind of life. We didn’t have to be consumed by the war-mongering, exploiting, hierarchical machine with its inbuilt racism and misogyny. We weren’t pegs to be placed in holes. Life could be more exciting, colourful and meaningful. Racism, misogyny, exploitation and warmongering were evil. We could build a better world based on sharing, equality, love and spirituality. Life wasn’t about making money and owning things. Friendship, experience and understanding were more important. Life was an adventure.

Music was the unifying force for all of us young, naïve revolutionaries. Music expressed the emotions that we were feeling.  The poetic lyrics, with their defiant anti-war, anti-racist sentiments and positive spirituality and love represented the equality and peaceful we were seeking.  People like Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, Donovan, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Country Joe and the Fish were creating music and expressing values that resonated with what I was thinking and feeling. We were a movement. There was a battlefield of ideals to be fought over.

We, the sixties freaks, were existing in a parallel universe, apart from the ‘straight’ society with a different set of values and aspirations. Naively we believed that our culture of sharing, equality, freedom and non-profit cohabitation would blossom and flourish and might even eventually become mainstream. Little did we know? The wily establishment was already infiltrating its profit-making fingers into the fabric of freakdom. There was money to be made, bands to be bought, fashions to be sold, images to be exploited, music to be made into product. Rebellion became big business before you could blink. As a seventeen/eighteen-year-old rebel, clashing with authorities and parents, living in a bubble of like-minded friends, already immersed in the music scene and Beats, Roy Harper loomed like the epitome of all we were espousing. To suddenly be exposed to the full power of ‘Circle’ and then ‘McGoohan’s Blues’

DPRP Mark Hughes Review – Roy Harper On Track… Every Album, Every Song

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Opher Goodwin — Roy Harper: On Track… Every Album, Every Song [Book (157 pages)]

Opher Goodwin - Roy Harper: On Track... Every Album, Every Song

info:

 sonicbondpublishing.co.uk

9

Mark Hughes

Another title in the rapidly growing list of books published by SonicBond, this time featuring original maverick and friend to a guitar rock god or two, Roy Harper.

As a long-standing Harper fan I know that tackling his discography is not a task for the faint-hearted. With albums going in and out of print, reissues, alternative versions and limited editions, there is a lot to get to grips with. Thankfully Goodwin handles everything with aplomb, clarifying where extra tracks on various re-releases originally stemmed from and where they fit into Harper’s recording chronology. It makes it easy to disentangle the frequently messy and confusing slew of releases from a prolific writer.

Of course, it helps that Goodwin has been friends with Harper since 1967, just after the release of Harper’s surprising debut album Sophisticated Beggar; surprising in that it eschewed the folk and blues numbers that Harper had gained a reputation for from his busking and folk club performances and comprised all-original material. Perhaps more startling was that it also featured a full band in places, not what the folk crowd that had primarily been his audience up to that point had been expecting. These were the first signs that Harper would stick to his own plans and not be pushed into doing what others necessarily wanted or expected.

What will be alien to modern bands is the fact that Harper’s first two albums, released on different labels, were both commercial failures. Yet the musical environment of the time meant that it was the music that mattered and the lack of commercial appeal was not considered a black mark against the artist. He found a longer-lasting home on Harvest Records for his third album, Flat Baroque And Berserk, the first of seven essential albums he recorded for the label over the next decade.

Goodwin’s personal memories and analysis of the songs and albums adds a lot to the book and offer insights that keep things interesting, more than some other titles in the series in being a sterile list of songs. Harper was never an artist that was likely to trouble the singles chart but he did consistently release such items. Although a lot of the songs unique to the format, particularly from the earliest years, have been compiled and re-issued, his b-sides remain some of the hardest items to locate for the collector. In that respect this book is a valuable guide to what was released, and in some cases what has not been released, both of which can be quite frustrating for the searching completist!

I would have liked to have seen a bit more on the live Roy Harper as, despite the brilliance of the studio output, it was on stage that Harper excelled. As at least a couple of the official live albums were assembled from a multitude of recorded concerts, there is potentially a lot of recorded material that remains locked in the vaults. However, considering that recording details and locations were omitted from Inbetween Every Line as all the tapes were mixed up and it wasn’t deemed necessary to sort them out, it could be a major task sorting them out if, indeed, they still exist.

Despite his long recording career, there doesn’t appear to be much studio material left languishing in the vaults and it seems increasingly unlikely that Harper will return to the studio to record a new album, despite how well his last album, 2013’s Man And Myth was received. So it is from these putative live archives that any future releases will presumably be drawn.

As such, this volume can be assumed to be as complete a record of the musical legacy of one of Britain’s finest and most idiosyncratic singer-songwriters as you are likely to find. Written in a relaxed and enjoyable style, it is an easy-to-read volume that will introduce, and re-introduce, the reader to the delights of the Harper catalogue. I certainly dug out a few of his lesser-played albums from my collection and listened to them in a new light after reading the book. And if that is not recommendation enough, I don’t know what is.

Now, back to searching for the missing items. Anyone know where I can find Goodbye Ladybird?

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Roy Harper: Every Album, Every Song (On Track): Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789521306: Books