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Nick Harper | |
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 Nick Harper performing at the De Montfort Hall Summer Sundae | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 22 June 1965 London, England |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instrument(s) |
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| Years active | 1985–present |
| Labels | Sangraal |
| Formerly of | Squeeze [1] |
| Website | www.harperspace.com |
Nick Harper (born 22 June 1965) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is the son of English folk musician Roy Harper. [2]
Harper was born in London, England, to the folk singer-songwriter Roy Harper. [2] Nick tells of how he remembers a continual procession through the Harper household of his father's famous friends, including not only 'folk/acoustic' artists such as Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Jackson C. Frank, Sandy Denny and Paul Simon but also rock musicians such as Keith Moon, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, David Gilmour and others. [3] Influenced by his upbringing in such company Nick himself started playing guitar at the age of 10. He made his recording debut on his father's 1985 Whatever Happened to Jugula? , [2] and subsequently toured with him for a few years before beginning a musical career of his own.
His first solo release was the 1994 EP Light at the End of the Kennel which he quickly succeeded with his 1995 album Seed. [2] In 1996, after this release, he had a chance meeting with Squeeze frontman and songwriter Glenn Tilbrook, which led to Harper being given the support slot for a Squeeze tour and being signed to Tilbrook's own Quixotic label.
Following tours in the UK, US and Japan, Harper recorded both the 1998 album Smithereens [2] and 2000's Harperspace with Tilbrook as producer. After moving to the Sangraal label in the early 2000s, a further EP (2001's Instrumental), live double album (2002's Double Life) and studio album ( Blood Songs in 2004) were released.
His 2005 album Treasure Island was a change of direction, seeing both a concerted shift to more overtly political themes (songs such as "Knuckledraggers", "Sleeper Cell" and "Intelligent Design" – spliced together from audio clips of George W. Bush's speeches on the War on Terror – were all highly critical of the Bush regime) and to more historical perspectives. According to Harper,"The album's title track is inspired by an obscure Liverpudlian philanthropist, Joseph Williamson, who employed destitute men returning from the Napoleonic Wars, to dig tunnels for no other reason than to give them something to do. This venture is referenced in Uk TV's Dr Who 'Flux' aired in November 2021.
May 2007 saw a special iTunes download release of his first single "Blue Sky Thinking", taken from his sixth studio album Miracles for Beginners on behalf of the Love Hope Strength foundation, a cancer charity founded to provide a global support network for cancer survivors. It received favourable reviews and radio airplay across the UK and Europe. All proceeds from the single went to the Foundation. Miracles for Beginners itself was released in June 2007.
After taking a three-year hiatus from recording to focus on touring and charity work, he announced that in February 2010 he would embark on a UK tour to promote his forthcoming album, The Last Guitar . The album was released the following month and features his then 13-year-old daughter taking a guest vocal slot on one of the songs, "Silly Daddy".
The tour and album served as a prelude to his gig on the Glastonbury Festival Avalon stage on 26 June 2010.
Harper's 2013 album Riven was perhaps his most ambitious work. 'Riven' contains 15 songs in 75 minutes of music. With guest appearances including Jakko Jakszyk of King Crimson, Dave Graney and jon Leveller. He quickly followed this in October 2014 with an all-acoustic album Nix, Harper's 9th studio album of 9 songs recorded in 9 days.
In 2016 Harper teamed up with west-country musicians Jacob and Reuben Tyghe of Port Erin and Isaac Phillips of Wasuremono to form 'Nick Harper and The Wilderness Kids'. The resulting album Lies! Lies! Lies! was recorded and produced by Tchad Blake at La Fabrique in France and toured in 2017. [4]
In 2017 Harper produced an epic paean to his home county of Wiltshire called 'A Wiltshire Tale'. The project was supported by Wiltshire Creative, based at Salisbury Playhouse and Harper toured a one man spoken word show with added music and effects in surround sound across the West country in 2018. The show was directed by Jo Newman.
2019 saw Harper tour the '58 Fordwych Road' show. Harper related tales and anecdotes of the folk luminaries who would drop by and jam with his father at the address where he spent the first 5 years of his life. The music was a selection of songs associated with each artist, set in a recreation of the flat with items still in Harper's possession.
In 2020, Harper released Phantastes, a crowdfunded album that was partly inspired by the 1858 book of the same name by George MacDonald. [5]
Harper frequently plays solo acoustic tours of the UK as well as European dates and festivals across the UK and Europe. In 2003, he was awarded a Herald Fringe Angel award for performance excellence at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where he has played many residencies in recent years.
He performed at the 2004 Cropredy Festival and Leicester's Summer Sundae. He has also played sets at the Glastonbury and Beautiful Days festivals numerous times, including both in summer 2005, then again in summer 2010.
In summer 2006, he again played a multitude of festivals, including the Moseley Folk Festival, Jersey Live, Beautiful Days and Clonakilty's second annual Guitar Festival, along with appearances at festivals in France and Catalonia. In November 2007, he performed at the International Guitar Festival of Great Britain for the fourth time.
In 2008 he performed at Trowbridge Village Pump Festival, Beautiful Days, Newquay's Rip Curl Beach Sessions and Tenby Folk Festival and appeared at London's Royal Albert Hall on 27 September 2008, where he brought his 12-year-old daughter Lily on stage at the end of the set to accompany him on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Our House". [6] This was of some historical note as he had done the same with his own father Roy Harper some 35 years before on the same stage.
During 2009, Harper played at Celtic Connections in Glasgow in January before starting 'The 38' tour, covering 38 dates across the UK. During the summer of that year he performed in Norway, France and Italy before a series of dates on America's East Coast in September, returning to the US in November for a coast-to-coast tour with Cy Curnin of The Fixx.
In January 2005, Harper played two shows in Thailand to raise money for Indian Ocean tsunami relief.
In 2007, 2008 and 2010, he climbed Snowdon with the Love Hope Strength foundation to play near the summit and then played at evening gigs, all in aid of cancer charities in the surrounding area.
In October 2007, he joined a 38-strong team of musicians including Glenn Tilbrook, Mike Peters and Cy Curnin, along with mountaineers and cancer survivors, who, again in aid of the Love Hope Strength Foundation. The group took part in a 14-day trek to 18,500 ft Mount Everest base camp, where they performed an acoustic concert. This Everest Rocks trek culminated with a grand finale concert in Kathmandu on 29 October and raised more than US$250,000 for the only charitable cancer hospital in Nepal, situated at Bhaktapur (approx. 10 miles east of Kathmandu). Alex Coletti (producer of MTV's Unplugged series) filmed the trek for a documentary, Everest Rocks, which premiered on the Palladia channel on 7 September 2008 and was also released on DVD.
In October 2008, the setting was Machu Picchu and the concert was Peru Rocks. Then, in September 2009, he again joined Love Hope Strength trekkers to undertake another charity trek called Kilimanjaro Rocks. The musicians, supporters and cancer survivors scaled the 19,341 feet (5,895 m) peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The trek raised funds for bone marrow drives and the main cancer centre in Nairobi, Kenya.
Harper hosted his own Love Hope Strength fundraiser, Avebury Rocks, which first took place on 9 July 2011 and ran until 2019. Funds were also raised for The Prospect Hospice in Wroughton, Wiltshire where Harper's mother died. The events included 20-mile walks starting and ending at Avebury Stone Circle, in the day and a concert in the evening. Headliners at the concerts included Newton Faulkner, Mike Peters of The Alarm, Cy Curnin and Jamie West-Oram of The Fixx, Levellers, Gabby Young and Other Animals, The Correspondents and Harper himself.
While not having reached the levels of popularity – or notoriety – of his father, Harper has received critical and popular acclaim as a live performer, especially for his acoustic guitar playing. [2] The Times stated that he "does things to his [guitar] that would have had Segovia weeping into his Rioja", [7] and a critic said that he could count "at least eight fingers on the neck of [Harper's] guitar". [8] Harper uses tuning pegs as an integral part of his playing style, turning them mid-song to intentionally cause a pitch bend. [9] His unique style of playing has also been called "nothing short of genius". [10]
Though he has received more plaudits for his live work than for his recordings, his albums have also received significant critical acclaim. Speaking of his album Miracles for Beginners , Mojo called it "his most focused, warm and triumphant album to date" (4 stars), The Herald (Glasgow) said the album is "borne on masterful acoustic guitar patterns... ten minor miracles." (4 stars) and The Sun stated that "like his dad, he's a fine folk troubadour and a great guitarist... this is a witty, vibrant affair... a rewarding listen." (3.5 stars). Charles De Ledesma for BBC Online took a less enthusiastic viewpoint, saying that "this Harper set is a little patchy, especially if compared alongside 1995's Seed and 2004's Blood Songs which updated brilliantly the folk confessional", [11] but the author still admits that "Harper though must be applauded for trying be a politically inclined sort of modern troubadour".
Tom Robinson declared Harper "My musical discovery of 2016!" on his BBC6 radio show.
Some of the major musical influences on him include his father Roy Harper, Killing Joke, Public Enemy, Stephen Stills, Gang of Four, Frank Zappa, Eric Idle of Monty Python, Django Reinhardt, Jeff Buckley and Led Zeppelin. He has covered songs by many of these artists in concert.
Harper's first recordings and major live exposure were with his father Roy Harper.
He was a touring member of British pop/rock band Squeeze from 1996–97 and played on one track on their 1998 Domino album. Glenn Tilbrook of the band produced Nick's Smithereens and Harperspace albums, which were released on Tilbrook's Quixotic record label. The pair often work together, with Harper most recently appearing on Tilbrook's 2004 solo album Transatlantic Ping-Pong.
He has played lead guitar and sang backing vocals, as well as playing support, at a number of Cy Curnin solo gigs in the USA and elsewhere since the pair met in 2007.
Harper has written and played with Brighton-based political indie group The Levellers. He guested on the band's Top 40 UK single 'Make U Happy' – he co-wrote and played and sang on B-side 'Not in My Name'.
In 2014 Harper worked with Lana Del Rey on her cover of 'Chelsea Hotel No. 2' by Leonard Cohen.
Squeeze are an English rock band that came to prominence in the United Kingdom during the new wave period of the late 1970s, and continued recording in the 1980s, 1990s and 2010s. In the UK, their singles "Cool for Cats", "Up the Junction", and "Labelled with Love" were top-ten chart hits. Though not as commercially successful in the United States, Squeeze had American hits with "Tempted", "Black Coffee in Bed", and "Hourglass", and were considered a part of the Second British Invasion.
Benjamin Chase Harper is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live performances, and activism. He has released twelve studio albums, mostly through Virgin Records, and has toured internationally.
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 also 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).
The Levellers are an English folk rock and Anarcho-punk band formed in Brighton, England in 1988, consisting of Mark Chadwick, Jeremy Cunningham, Charlie Heather (drums), Jon Sevink (violin), Simon Friend, Matt Savage (keyboards) and Dan Donnelly. Taking their name from the Levellers political movement, the band released their first EP in 1989 and LP in 1990, with international success following upon signing to China Records and the release of their second album Levelling the Land. The band were among the most popular indie bands in Britain in the early 1990s, and headlined at the Glastonbury Festival, first in 1992, then in 1994, where they performed on The Pyramid Stage to a record crowd of 300,000 people. They continue to record and tour.
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.
Glenn Martin Tilbrook is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the English new wave band Squeeze, a band formed in the mid-1970s who broke through in the new wave era at the decade's end. He generally wrote the music for Squeeze's songs, while his writing partner, Chris Difford, wrote the lyrics. In addition to his songwriting skills, Tilbrook is respected both as a singer and an accomplished guitarist. He was born in Woolwich, London.
Domino is a 1998 album by the British new wave group Squeeze. It was the band's twelfth studio album. After a career struggling with various major record labels, the band decided to record and release Domino independently, on Glenn Tilbrook's own Quixotic Records. Core members Tilbrook and Chris Difford were joined by three brand new Squeeze members for this album: drummer Ashley Soan, bassist Hilaire Penda, and keyboardist Christopher Holland.
The Alarm are a Welsh rock band that formed in Rhyl, Wales, in 1981. Initially formed as a punk band, the Toilets, in 1977, under lead vocalist Mike Peters, the band soon embraced arena rock and included marked influences from Welsh language and culture. By opening for acts such as U2 and Bob Dylan, they became a popular new wave pop band of the 1980s.
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.
Whatever Happened to Jugula? is the thirteenth studio album by English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Roy Harper. It was first released on March 4, 1985 through Beggars Banquet Records. Jimmy Page contributes.
Edward James "Ed" Hamell, performing as Hamell on Trial, is an American punk rock, anti-folk, spoken word musician, described by Righteous Babe Records as "loud, fast music informed by politics, passion, energy and intelligence, played by a guy with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of humor".
Jim Moray is an English folk singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer.
Michael Leslie Peters is a Welsh musician, best known as the lead singer of The Alarm. After the band split up in 1991, Peters wrote and released solo work, before reconstituting The Alarm in 2000. Additionally, he is co-founder of the Love Hope Strength Foundation. Between 2011 and 2013, Peters was the vocalist for Big Country as well as The Alarm.
Cyril John Curnin is a singer/songwriter and musician and is the lead vocalist for the new wave music group, the Fixx. As a songwriter, he has co-written over a dozen songs that have appeared on the Billboard charts. He is also known for his solo career, with five albums to date, Mayfly in 2005, The Returning Sun in 2007, Solar Minimum in 2009, The Horse's Mouth in 2013 and Lockdown in 2020. He also released an EP of ambient music with no vocals called Cinema for the Blind in 2012.
"Saved by Zero" is a song by English new wave band the Fixx. Released in 1983, it was the lead single off their second studio album, Reach the Beach, and is one of the group's best known hits. Their signature song is the follow-up single "One Thing Leads to Another".
Simon Hanson is an English drummer, songwriter and producer. He was the former drummer of Death in Vegas and is the current drummer of British band Squeeze.
Harperspace is a 2000 album from UK singer-songwriter Nick Harper. It was produced by Glenn Tilbrook and released on Tilbrook's own Quixotic label.
Nick Driver is an American rock and Americana singer-songwriter, based in North Carolina.
Stripped to the Bare Bones is a 1999 live acoustic album by English musician and songwriter Steve Harley. The album was produced by Harley and features Nick Pynn.
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