Roy Harper
Roy Harper
Roy Harper is an English folk rock singer, songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since 1964. Harper has released 32 albumsacross his 50-year career...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth12 June 1941
burning carefully definitely forms intensity listened lyrical melodies music quite reckon records seems studied sustain
I've listened to a lot of music, and I reckon that my records are definitely better, more stimulating, and more carefully constructed than any others. I've studied the melodies and lyrical forms of many artists, but no-one else quite seems to sustain the burning intensity of my own work.
english-musician felt ignorant records social thirteen turning
Remember, this was a world that was still ethnically separated. I was thirteen and ignorant of the social situation in America, but I felt these records were better than what my own culture was turning out.
alienation certain experience people walk work
In cities, people go to work and all walk there together, like some arterial flow. And there's a certain desolation about it, an alienation that we all experience.
aim anyone arnold bryan hard madonna mind thinking
In a lot of the things I write, I aim for timelessness. It's not really that hard to do. When you've got something in your mind you have to impart, you're not thinking about Madonna or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bryan Adams or anyone who inhabits the popularized world.
attitudes life music towards
I wanted to modernize music, but more than that, to completely modernize people's attitudes towards life in general.
bound
What is our destiny? Does it matter? Is it bound up with 'our' planet? In my opinion, yes.
ethic fashion move original parcel shift
Don't shift because fashion has shifted. Don't move from the original ethic you had, the original reasons. They're part and parcel of you.
music
Every song has a bouquet, which is the music. If you can put words with something that is really apt, then you've done it.
knew
As soon as I heard skiffle, I loved it and I knew that I wanted to play it.
I've seen such things as you would not believe. I've seen motorbikes driven down hotel corridors - and had a go myself.
against religion stand taken
I've taken a stand against religion for as long I've been able to write and think.
emotional english-musician known wait
I've never known anything but emotional turmoil... I go from day to day in a kind of frenzied state. I can't wait to do this, that and the other.
album burden handed hell led saw song zeppelin
They showed me this album sleeve, the new Led Zeppelin album, and I said 'very nice' and handed it back. 'No, go on - look again' they said, and then I saw this song 'Hats off to Harper'. It was very, uh... to be honest, it's been more of a burden than anything. A hell of a thing to live up to.
age bits classical echoes hall listening music stuff
As a really young child, I was listening to the echoes of the age before, music hall and stuff like that, as well as classical bits on the radio.