A Second Harvest Playlist

Introduction

This is a follow on from my lats Harvest playlist, hopefully managing to pick some less obvious, to me, songs from the label.

To me when I thought Harvest I thought Pink Floyd and Hypgnosis/Storm Thorgerson, all incredible talents, but there is a lot more than that and hopefully, this will expand on my initial playlist.

Would love to know what you think in the comments on here and on the Facebook posts.

There will be no Pink Floyd or Pink Floyd related music in this playlist because lots of people know them and they are covered in many self-contained articles on Vocal and elsewhere.

So on with this playlist.

Roy Harper - "Bank of the Dead" from "Lifemask"

I found this information online about the song. I chose this as the opener because it features on the album "Lifemask" which I purchased on vinyl recently. It might be the first song I ever heard from Roy Harper, on a single that I bought for some reason.

Although this is a no Pink Floyd playlist (not because I dislike the band, I love them) Roy did sing "Have A Cigar" on Floyd's "Wish You Were Here".

The song was written for the movie "Made", which featured Harper in a co-starring role. It was originally titled "The Social Casualty", and featured lyrics that referenced the main character in the film (named Valerie). A year later Harper re-worked the song and it was released as "Bank Of The Dead (Valerie's Song)". Features Jimmy Page on electric guitar.

The Move - "California Man/Do Ya"

I don't usually do this but this is a perfect rock and roll single. Roy Wood's "California Man" is proper greaser rock and roll that takes no prisoner, backed with, in my opinion, Jeff Lynne's finest moment "Do Ya", those massive bloc chords just steamroller you into submission.

"Do Ya" shared the "B" side with Roy Wood's "Ella James".

In the US the it proved to be more popular than the "A "and so the song became The Move's only hit in the US albeit a minor one (number 93 on the Hot 100 chart).

Edgar Broughton Band - "Apache Dropout" from the album "Sing, Brother, Sing"

Merging a Captain Beefheart song ("Dropout Boogie") with a Shadows classic instrumental ("Apache"), what could possibly go wrong? It made 33 on the UK Singles Charts in 1970 staying in the charts for 5 weeks.

I do love this because it merges two completely disparate pieces of music, and you really do have to check this out if you have never used it.

Deep Purple - "Speed King" - "B" Side of "Black Night" and opener to "In Rock"

This was a song I always wanted to sing live but couldn't get the bands I played with interested. It was a single my estranged brother bought and when I flipped it I loved it and went out and bought "In Rock" which is in my vinyl collection now.

Barclay James Harvest - "Mockingbird" from "Once Again"

This is the song to close this playlist.

I heard a rumour that the Harvest label took their name from the band but that may be just an urban legend.

They had a song called 'Poor Man's Moody Blues" which seemed to put themselves down unnecessarily. While they were not huge they made a lot of good records, but maybe saw themselves as First Division rather than Premiership.

Seriously though they are worth investigating, even just on YouTube. I have a couple of vinyl albums and a few CDs so they are always welcome on my player.

Thank you for reading and listening.