ROY HARPER & JIMMY PAGE: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO JUGULA ?

While not every artiste sunk ti unsuspected depth during that horrid 80's decade, it was the majority of 60's and 70's artiste that struggled to survive while staying "actual" in terms of sound, hype and technology , and let's face it most did not fare well. iOf coursse the was the odd exception to confirm what I call in broad terms a rule. And Roy Harper was one of them, although the man has stood in his own category or bubble alone for most of his career, even during his heydays (70's), even though he had always the gracious help of his many (and often returning) friends. This album is under-titled "An Ordinary Man Writing Songs For Ordinary People", but Harper was never ordinary and I can assure you his songs rarely were (ordinary), and certainly not here.

When I first picked this ugly orange cardboard cover upon its release, the last I had heard of Roy Harper was his rockier side (HQ and Bullysumthin' and his vocals in Have A Cigar, and didn't really know what he was up to. Bringing this back home, it took me several listens before understanding that one day, I'd find this album a masterpiece, but busy foraying into jazz and jazz-rock, I set it aside and forgot about for a small decade, by which I had just turned to Cds, and the turntable was unconnected (we're all humans, right???). So one day around the turn of the century, I finally was able to re-listen to this album, but in the Cd format, but soon after I modernized my installations and have been enjoying this unsettling 80's album ever since.

Musically speaking, HQ and the rock group are rather far, but not completely absent, but we're closer to Lifemask (where Page also plays), playing mostly folkier material and the odd songs (Elizabeth a tear-jerking sing-along track overstaying its welcome) not following that pattern are generally well below the average of the rest of the album. Most of the other tracks are superb pure folk, something that Jansch or Renborn could've written, even if at times the typical Hackett arpeggios appear (the gorgeous Frozen Moment, where Harper tries to emulate Wyatt or Buckley). Page plays much guitar and in every track, and shines, and the alchemy between the two is simply jaw-dropping (as in 20th Century Man, where Roy tries to keep what he had going in the previous Moment track).

One of the few qualms I have is the way the album is riddled with unnecessary spoken passage separating the songs, most notably around the closing track Advertisement, where he claims to be really stoned and page scrambles to pull a later-Zep guitar solo (Circa Presence or ITTOD) and a weird dying end. But the album had started so wekllwith Harper's 1é strings and Page's electric in 1948-ish, where it gets stop by sci-fi cosmic wails before resuming with a solemn organ by Nick Green and finishing on an absolutely marvellous acoustic duo between our two compadres. After a weird but short Bad Speech (aptly-titled) serving for an intro to Hope, a rockier track that provides much prog twists. Hangman is probably my fave on then album (with Frozen Moment)

Although even for Harper, Jugula is a bit of out-of-the-ordinary, just imagine compared to the then-actual music scene. Even with the prestige of Page, this album quickly disappeared from attention, only gaining the esteem of connoisseurs and Zep aficionados. But behind its reputation, we've got a real good album of Harper (the best since Lifemask IMHO) and certainly Jimmy Page's best works of the 80's (I'm probably not making friends here), but Jugula probably has its rights to be featured among the top 50 prog folk albums... BTW, did I write the review with the Cd or the vinyl???

"We're not just spirits disappearing."

Whatever Happened to Jugula?, or just Jugula, as Roy Harper has now retitled the album for the 21st century, is one of those rare alchemical albums that's the result of odd circumstances putting desperate musicians together.

To say that Roy Harper has heady friends is almost an understatement with David Gilmour, Jimmy Page, Ian Anderson, and even Pete Townsend, as contributors to Harper's albums over the years, as well as being sincere fans of Harper and his work.

This particular album features the reunion of Jimmy Page as a guest artist in an expanded roll as collaborator, as Page was recovering from heroin addiction at the time, as well as trying to get his bum in gear and move on from the demise of Led Zeppelin. Harper was in a slump after leaving EMI records and found himself with a deal on the Beggar's Banquet label. With both Harper and Page rejuvenated, Jugula is assisted by Harper's long time studio contributors, the great Tony Franklin on fretless bass and Steve Broughton on drums, with studio engineer Nik Green contributing deft keyboards to the record as well.

The album's first track Nineteen Eighty Fourish (actually listed on the album sleeve as Nineteen Forty Eightish as an inside joke from Harper) is a mighty opener as subtle but unmistakable Dooms Day sounding synths swirl around Harper's brash sounding Ovation acoustic strums as Roy delivers the first of many heartfelt of the album's great vocal deliveries. The song is now a period piece about the never ending nuclear arms threat of the 1980's but still seems to ring clear as a metaphor for the current world's dire situations. The song is punctuated by caustic electric guitar phrases and shapes from Page (that are not imitative of David Gilmour but would be quite at home on both Pink Floyd's Animals and The Wall albums) before the both Harper and Page do their now familiar acoustic guitar interplay near the song's coda. Page is back in top form and is now experimenting with the harrowing electric guitar tones and styles that would dominate the songs of his group The Firm that was shorty to come.

The spoken word poem Bad Speech is just what the name implies, and would have sounded ostentatious if the piece did not segue into the album's, and perhaps Harper's, best ever song titled Hope. With a hypnotic guitar riff written by none other than David Gilmour, and played by Harper's talented son Nick (with guitar effects lent to him by Gilmour), the song is nothing short of Harper's own album crowner like Comfortably Numb is for Floyd's The Wall album. Hope is not even remotely similar to Comfortably Numb, but every bit as emotive and evocative due a wonderfully powerful vocal by Harper, along with a stellar musical delivery by all those previously mentioned. It's one of Harper's must profound moments on record as well as being one of his best progressive rock songs ever recorded.

Hangman and Elizabeth return to the acoustic/electric guitar formula of Nineteen Eighty Fourish without sounding derivative. More spurts of Page electric guitar pyrotechnics dot both songs as Nik Green continues to add subtle but atmospheric synths to both songs. Dealing with both capital punishment and the need for universal understanding, both songs succeed due to harper's sincere vocal delivery.

Both songs are followed by the acoustic guitar dominated song titled Frozen Moment in which Harper poetically states the feeling that over comes someone when they realize, in the second, that a love relationship has ended. Page and Harper's chilling arpeggios combined with icy synths from Green easily nail the song. It's another of the album's and Harper's recorded highlights.

Twentieth Century Man-Beast is a straight acoustic song played by both Harper and Page and is highlighted by Harper's great vocal range that never wavers into shrill extremes.

As is his his want, and modus operandi, Harper ends the album anticlimactically with the throwaway singsong Advertisement, which, I suppose, is Harper's answer to Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women Numbers 12 And 35, as the song's chorus is a corny refrain of 'Man, I'm really stoned, yes I'm really stoned" and the cliched drink/drug bravado that goes along with such a tune. The song's music is actually quite catchy despite it's trite subject matter.

Jugula maintains Harper's string of meticulous studio recordings that commenced with his tenure as an Abby Road Studio's recorded EMI artist, and is quite detailed and dynamic for an album recorded in the eighties.

Owing to the album's silly closing track and the feeling of sameness that pervades three of the album's songs, despite the song's numerous time changes and guitar breaks, four stars is a reasonable rating for Jugula.

Whenever I hear the age old gripe that there's not any good Prog Rock music around and the person is unfamiliar with Roy Harper's work, I always play Jugula for them. And I'm still amazed when the person exclaims "Why didn't I know about this?", which is usually followed by a deep laugh and broad smile from yours truly.