Roy Harper – Bullinamingvase(1977)

Biography
Roy Harper is an English folk rock singer, songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since 1964. Harper has released 32 albums (including 10 live albums) across his 50-year career. 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. His influence upon other musicians has been acknowledged by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Pete Townshend, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, who said Harper was his “…primary influence as an acoustic guitarist and songwriter.” Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph described him as “one of Britain’s most complex and eloquent lyricists and genuinely original songwriters… much admired by his peers”. Across the Atlantic his influence has been acknowledged by Seattle-based acoustic band Fleet Foxes, American musician and producer Jonathan Wilson and Californian harpist Joanna Newsom with whom he has also toured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Harper

Album & Cover
This is the ninth studio album by Roy Harper. Taken from his website www.royharper.co.uk , he describes the album as follows: The major event on the record, One of ‘Those Days In England’, is a collection of reminiscences. The legend of Excalibur in the first line. The last of the willow leaves at the top of the tree hanging on into January. ‘Alfred had me made’, the words written in anglo-saxon around the Alfred Jewel. More precisely ‘AElfred mec heht gewyrcan’ Alfred ordered me to be made. The Alfred Jewel is housed in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford (England) and I visit it regularly when I can for emotional sustenance. In the light of the events of his lifetime, Alfred must not only be considered as the founder of the British Navy, but more importantly as the founder of the English language. Had it not been for Alfred’s victory over the Danes in the late ninth century, it would perhaps be conceivable that one fifth of the world’s population would now be speaking some kind of Danish dialect. I really love this album. It’s always been one of my real favourites. I’ve always thought that the long version of ‘One Of Those Days In England’ is a touchstone of my long affair with my own culture. All in all, the album has the pastoral feel of the nature of my life at the time.

Cover Location: Hipgnosis Studio, London, UK
Who Did What: Photography – A. Powell. Hand Tinting – R. Manning
Label: Chrysalis CHR-1138(US), Harvest SHSP4060(UK)
Source: Vinyl. Album. Cover. Art, The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue: Aubrey Powell