BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST are the featured artist this time around, as we ONCE AGAIN list our favourite songs and delve into the history of BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST & OTHER SHORT STORIES. Who can forget the cute picture of  BABY JAMES HARVEST poking his head out of a plant pot on their fourth album cover. Here at ProgArchives, EVERYONE IS EVERYBODY ELSE in the progosphere, where the classic albums of BJH appear like TIME HONOURED GHOSTS from time to time. The eighth month of the year was OCTOBER ON the ancient Roman calendar, making it the perfect name for the eighth Barclay James Harvest album. The band took a short break, but weren't GONE TO EARTH for long though before returning  with their best-selling album of all time in 1977. In the XII Kingdoms of Prog, Barclay James Harvest reigned supreme and the EYES OF THE UNIVERSE were upon them in 1982 for their CONCERT FOR THE PEOPLE IN BERLIN. This landmark gig for BJH preceded a TURN OF THE TIDE in the Cold War when a RING OF CHANGES were on the way and the old Soviet leaders became VICTIMS OF CIRCUMSTANCE, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The world became a safer place with no more FACE TO FACE Cold War confrontations between East and West with the ever-present threat of nuclear Armageddon hanging over the world. History didn't end in 1991 though, and in the prophetic words of Messrs Emerson, Lake & Palmer, WELCOME TO THE SHOW that never ends, because there were new threats on the way in a new century. CAUGHT IN THE LIGHT of a beautifully clear morning on 11th September 2001, an airliner flew low over New York City..... The RIVER OF DREAMS would soon be shattered forever!

The only problem with your statement is that Barclay James Harvest never played at Nearfest. They did play at Rosfest around 08 or 09 though. I'll have to double check on that.

Oh yes you're right.  One PA locale is much like another...but NEARFEST had folded by 2009.  I saw Strawbs at Nearfest in 2004 I believe

Well no, not quite. Nearfest only had the original guys hand it over around that time to the guys who did the NJ proghouse. NF actually went from 1999 to 2010 and then one more year for Nearfest apocalypse(in 2012) to wrap it up. In 2011 they apparently didn't sell enough tickets for them to justify having it. They were in limbo with it for a while until they (the original two guys Rob and Chad) decided to go out with a bang instead of a wimper. I went to about half of them including the first and last. 

while they were superstars in Germany in the late 70s/early 80s, they were never much more than a popular "cult" band in their native UK.  yet somehow "Berlin" managed to be their biggest chart success in the UK at the late date of 1982, 12 years after their debut.  While I prefer the first 2 live albums, that has mostly to do with the non stop tron attack of the first and the better material and cleaner production of the 2nd.  That Berlin is as good as it is given the weaker early 80s material is so impressive that I think I gave it the same 4 star rating I gave the previous 2  

Hi,

I think they had a song called something like poor man's moody blues ... but I have to look.

All in all, a GREAT band for me, and I have like 9 or 10 albums (from the start), and one or two DVD's.

I, originally, got the first album because the band was one of the "ingredients" in the inner sleeve breakfast box side for HIPGNOSIS ... you'll have to get the book to see it ... I'm too lazy to scan it, and I think I lost that sleeve a long time ago, as I have not seen it for years, but I remember it fondly ... specially, as I ended up going after almost everything that was listed in those "ingredients", and I don't think that there was a bad band listed in it at all ... right off the bat I recall Kevin Ayers, Roy Harper, Edgar Broughton Band, The Third Ear Band, Capability Brown, Pete Brown and his Battered Ornaments, Tea and Symphony, Quatermass, Lol Coxhill, and East of Eden ... I'm sure I missed some of them ...

Pete Brown, of course, was the writer for many of Cream's songs. Sadly he never really lived up to it on his own. Tea and Symphony is the only one I do not have at all for some reason. Lol Coxhill did not click with me then, and I never got anything else.

The amazing thing is how many of these bands survived a long time ... BJH, EBB, Kevin, Roy, TEB lived on quite far.

btw...I accidentally hit option 3 so the 2nd option should have another vote.

 

Maybe someone who thinks they are ok will hit the good button. 

I'd call Barclay James Harvest "great", but I have another adjective that I reserve for King Crimson.

Thanks for helping to balance things out. 

I agree. I prefer their live albums too and two of my favourites are Glasnost and The Ultimate Anthology.

An interviewer called them the poor man's Moody Blues in an interview with John Lees. He then wrote a song with that title and put it on the Gone to Earth album. Very much like Nights in White Satin, deliberately. Let none say he has no sense of humor.

 

Great Band

very neat, and that's a really good song, one of two collaborations between Holroyd and Pritchard on that album, both of which are very good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N1qwATHKkI" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N1qwATHKkI

Hi,

Wow ... and their first live double album is magnificent with an amazing double of Summer Soldier and Medicine Man, that is designed to blast your ears inside out.

I think that we have to get off the "impress me" kind of thing that many bands go for, as a juke to catch your attention, and BJH is not for "attention" as it is for solid music and a specially well delivered show.

That they did not make it as "big" as others should not be an issue either ... they did just fine, thank you ... and were not in it to be the number one band in the show. It was all about the members and the quality of their work, and it's really hard to find/look for something wrong ... and sometimes, just mean stuff, that many folks can not relate because their lyrics are not that my schlong is bigger than yours and all the groupies like it! Eat your heart out! And that she's a bitch and all that!

This is one of the main reasons why I do not go for "top 5" or "top ten" or "top bsandcrap" ... because the over rating of their material ends up hiding the really good stuff that deserves attention but never gets it ... and if it were up to me, things like "punk" would not have made one third of the attention they got ... attention to what? It was all media, not music!