Come Out Fighting Ghengis Smith | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | January 1968 | |||
Recorded | England | |||
Genre | Folk rock, progressive folk, folk baroque | |||
Length | 45:40 | |||
Label | CBS BPG 63184 Awareness AWCD 1035 Science Friction HUCD006 Science Friction SFLP004 | |||
Producer | Shel Talmy | |||
Roy Harper chronology | ||||
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Alternative Cover | ||||
Reissue Covers | ||||
Alternative cover | ||||
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | link |
Come Out Fighting Ghengis Smith is English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Roy Harper's second album and was released in 1968 [1] . The album was re-issued in 1977 as The Early Years,re-issued once more on Compact disc in 1991,and was re-released again in December 2017 in both Remastered,180 Gram Vinyl and CD formats.
Columbia Records,recognising Harper's potential,hired American producer Shel Talmy to produce the album. Talmy later claimed that 'Harper was difficult... truculent... we battled. But we got round to it'. [2] The album was orchestrated by Keith Mansfield.
Musically,the album was notable for the 11-minute track "Circle" comprising several movements,"a soundscape of Harper's difficult youth" that,according to Harper,was "totally unlike anything anyone else was doing. The Beatles weren’t doing anything like that at the time. The Stones weren’t doing anything like it,either. No-one was" [3]
Career-wise,the album was notable for establishing a broadening in Harper's musical style away from the more traditional side of contemporary folk music then played. Harper had an interest in traditional folk but did not consider himself a bona fide member of the folk scene. He later explained:-
I was too much of a modernist, really. Just too modern for what was going on in the folk clubs. I wanted to modernise music, but more than that to completely modernise people's attitudes towards life in general. I was involved in trying to bring (more) meat to the (contemporary) folk music...(of the time). [4]
Harper's record company had different expectations. "They wanted me to write commercial pop songs and when they heard the album... they didn’t have a clue. They wanted hits. And I gave them "Circle"". [3] Bert Jansch contributed sleeve notes for the album. The first song on the album is called "Freak Street" on the back cover of the Science Friction CD and but "Freak Sweet" in the liner notes; elsewhere it is referred to as "Freak Suite". During this period, Harper was managed by American music entrepreneur Jo Lustig; manager of The Pentangle and former agent to Julie Felix.
The same sessions produced a non-album single (CBS 3371 [5] ), "Life Goes By", with "You Don't Need Money" on the B-side. The A-side, also produced by Talmy and orchestrated by Mansfield, [5] has never been reissued.
In 1977 the album was re-issued by CBS with different cover art under the title The Early Years. In 1991 the album was re-released again by Awareness Records with new artwork and additional content. The 2017 remastered album removed those 1991 bonus tracks, reverting to the original 1968 tracklist.
The track "You Don't Need Money" appeared on the first bargain priced sampler album, The Rock Machine Turns You On , as "Nobody's Got Any Money In The Summer".
All tracks are written by Roy Harper
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Freak Street" | 3:06 |
2. | "You Don't Need Money" | 2:27 |
3. | "Ageing Raver" | 4:11 |
4. | "In a Beautiful Rambling Mess" | 2:51 |
5. | "All You Need Is" | 5:49 |
6. | "What You Have" | 5:16 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
7. | "Circle" | 10:40 |
8. | "Highgate Cemetery" | 2:22 |
9. | "Come Out Fighting Ghengis Smith" | 8:58 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
10. | "Zaney Janey" (from the US release of Folkjokeopus ) | 3:31 |
11. | "Ballad of Songwriter" (from the US release of Folkjokeopus ) | 3:10 |
12. | "Midspring Dithering" (A-side from the 1967 single) | 2:49 |
13. | "Zengem" (A-side from the 1967 single) | 1:37 |
14. | "It's Tomorrow And Today Is Yesterday" (John Peel — BBC Radio Show 1970) | 4:11 |
15. | "Francesca" (recorded for "Top Gear" at the BBC, 3 June 1969) | 1:32 |
16. | "She's the One" (recorded "Top Gear" at the BBC, 3 June 1969) | 4:45 |
Roy Harper is an English folk rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has released 22 studio albums across a career that stretches back to 1966. As a musician, Harper is known for his distinctive fingerstyle playing and lengthy, lyrical, complex compositions, reflecting his love of jazz and the poet John Keats. He was the lead vocalist on Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar.”
Pentangle are a British folk band, formed in London in 1967. The original band was active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and a later version has been active since the early 1980s. The original line-up, which was unchanged throughout the band's first incarnation (1967–1973), was Jacqui McShee (vocals); John Renbourn ; Bert Jansch ; Danny Thompson ; and Terry Cox (drums).
Herbert Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s as an acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter. He recorded more than 28 albums and toured extensively from the 1960s to the 21st century.
Sheldon Talmy is an American record producer, songwriter and arranger, best known for his work in the UK in the 1960s with the Who, the Kinks and many others.
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David Michael Gordon "Davey" Graham was a British guitarist and one of the most influential figures in the 1960s British folk revival. He inspired many famous practitioners of the fingerstyle acoustic guitar such as Bert Jansch, Wizz Jones, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, John Martyn, Paul Simon and Jimmy Page, who based his solo "White Summer" on Graham's "She Moved Through the Fair". Graham is probably best known for his acoustic instrumental "Anji" and for popularizing DADGAD tuning, later widely adopted by acoustic guitarists.
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Basket of Light is a 1969 album by the folk rock group Pentangle. It reached no. 5 on the UK Albums Chart. A single from the album, "Light Flight", the theme from BBC1's first colour drama series Take Three Girls, reached no. 43 on the UK Singles Chart. Another single from the album, "Once I Had a Sweetheart", reached no. 46 in the charts.
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The Pentangle is the 1968 debut album of the band Pentangle: Terry Cox, Bert Jansch, Jacqui McShee, John Renbourn and Danny Thompson. It brought together their separate influences of folk, jazz, blues, early music and contemporary songwriting. One of the band's most commercially successful albums, it reached number 21 in the British charts.
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It Don't Bother Me is the second album by Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch, released in November 1965. The album was produced by Nathan Joseph and Bill Leader, although Leader was left uncredited.
From the Outside is the 15th studio album by Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch. This album was released as a limited edition of 500 copies in Belgium in 1985. From The Outside was available in the UK as well, but was released by an unknown label.
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