SOPHISTICATED BEGGAR

Unfortunately I just lost my entire review of SB! How frustrating. Needless to say this album is Harper doing his debut and what is noticeable is how good he sounds from the offset. From the quirky ' Goldfish', the trendy ' China Girl'. The selfless ( joke) self titled 'Sophisticated Beggar' to the uneasy ' Committed'. Delusions of grandeur? I think not! Harper manages to sound as fresh 42 years ago as he does even in 1998's Dream Society. What stands out here is that this is a strong beginning for Harper and yet there was such an abundance of great collaborative work ahead with the likes of Peter Jenner, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour and Ian Anderson just to name a few. A solid three stars for Roy Harper's first studio release.

Have a cigar

This is where it all started for Roy in terms of his recording career. Having given up a residency at Les Cousins folk club in Soho, London, Harper teamed up with Peter Richards' Strike Records and with engineer Pierre Tubbs. Tubbs and Harper recorded the album in what Harper describes as an outhouse in Tubbs' garden where Tubbs has a primitive recording studio. Recorded in 1966, the album was actually first released in early '67, but Harper would have to wait for a re-release in 1994 before he actually started to receive royalties.

Having been asked to leave the army on grounds of "insanity", Harper turned his attention to his musical and poetic talents. This initial set is very much about the poetry side, with Harper setting his words to acoustic guitar accompaniment. The way Harper (and Tubbs) recorded the acoustic guitar was pioneering for the time, the sound being captured and electronically processed through a reverb machine.

Bert Jansch and John Renbourn of Pentangle both contribute supporting guitars to selected tracks, but this is very much a solo effort by Harper. The overall sound is not complex by any means, indeed a superficial listen misleadingly gives the impression of a simple folk album. Listen more closely to the guitar arrangements though, and the disguised beauty of the detailed attention given to the recordings starts to come through.

At times, such as on tracks like "Goldfish", Harper plays it straight, while on others such as the title track he drifts towards Dylan territories. The oddly named "Blackpool" offers the best example of Harper's guitar dexterity, there must be fair chance the great Al Stewart drew influences from pieces such as this.

Overall, an album which is more significant for its place in Harper's development than it is in the development of (folk) prog. The songs here are generally straightforward, essentially being poems set to acoustic accompaniment. The results are pleasing and enjoyable, but the true nature of the sophisticated beggar's talents have yet to be revealed.

Incidentally, some more recent releases are titled "The return of the sophisticated beggar". Do not be misled though, they are simply remasters of the same album, with even the bonus track "Legend" having appeared on some earlier versions of the album.

This is the debut of the guy I adore so much. The singer-songwriters are not so popular here on PA, and that's for a reason. And this album is not something you could call progressive anyway. But Roy Harper is on this site for a good reason too! His songwriting is so strong, he tries some new stuff on every album and he is known for his experimenting. Or I'm just makig that up. Welcome to the internet where anyone can say things like they are the expert!

His acoustic guitar playing is superb. He really puts his soul on the way he present his melodies and strumming and all with a great guitar technic. A truly talented man and he's crazy! So we "easily considering people" can easily consider him as a genious.

This album is full of eastern influences. His song-writing and lyrics are so powerful. You wouldn't even believe. I mean till you listen to it. Then you would become a believer and thank Mr Harper for his musicianship and poetry.

Roy Haper is truly an inspirational man. I recommend this album to any fellow who loves acoustic guitar and singer-songwriter business.

"Time is a flat circle."

So said the Nietzsche inspired cop on the first brilliant series of the HBO serial True Detective, referring to Nietzsche's theory that time repeats itself. If that's true, then Roy Harper's albums would form a perfect circle of his work.

Harper is one of the few recording artists that I know of that has an readily identifiable style and an almost unwavering commitment to quality that has never been commercially compromised. At least not intentionally.

Harper's debut album, Sophisticated Beggar, shows Harper armed with an arsenal of well composed songs and a couple of guest spots from His Les Cousins' club buddies John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. Or so it's rumored as Harper never states it clearly due to record label hassles, which was common place in that era.

The lead off track China Girl starts off with the familiar opening riff heard on David Bowie's hit song of the same name. A brief homage perhaps, as Harper's tune turns immediately into an acoustic folk song with strange disembodied backwards tape sounds bracketing the choruses. A wonderful start before heading into the folkie reflective Goldfish, before the great title track that sounds exactly like the great Renbourn tossing some incendiary blues based acoustic leads from the speaker's left channel.

Big Fat Silver Aeroplane is Harper at his most cynical and comical self before the awesome Jansch (ahem, rumored) dominated song Blackpool springs forth with spiraling guitar chords and Jansch's abrasive leads and familiar string snaps. More of a mesmerizing instrumental than a song sung by Harper, it's a high point of the album and gives this album the instrumental gravitas that be absent in Harper's next three albums, until Roy teamed up with Page on Stormcock in 1971.

Legend, Girlie, My Friend, and Black Clouds are folk based songs that work given their contrasting emotional tones, music and lyrics.The album falls flat with Mr. Station Master and Committed, which showcase period style rock instrumentation and musically go no where. Both songs are briefly interrupted with Harper's first ever recording of Forever, that was recorded for the Valentine album. Both versions are stellar and it's easy to see that Harper had an emotional connection to this song about enduring love.

Rumored (again) to be recorded in a shed instead of a proper studio, the album is clear as a bell and has wonderful mastering, that much to Harper's chagrin, has a healthy dose of bass EQed into the master, giving this predominantly acoustic album a denser sound than that found on the albums that immediately followed.

Sophisticated Beggar is not as ornate as the following 'Genghis Smith' album, or as progressive as Jokefolkopus , or as good as Flat, Baroque, and Berserk. But its a great starting point to an impressive recording career by the eccentric Mr. H.