(Science Friction/KOCH Entertainment)

www.kochrecords.com

Somewhere between the mad hatted prose of Syd Barrett and the cranky toned folk of Bert Jansch sat Roy Harper. Harper's still sitting, you know. He's not dead. Had he died - or become acid-fried beyond belief - we'd really be talking about the reedy voiced Harper. While his acclaim during the best of years came from the hero worship of his pals in Led Zep - they wrote "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper" in his honor - and Pink Floyd Harper sang on Wish You Were Here's "Have A Cigar" - the legend of Harper has loomed shockingly small. Sure, he was in prison and went through the British mental health system in a series of institutional stays. And indeed he made bigger stabs than the ones mentioned above at stardom - a super-group named Trigger with Chris Spedding and Bill Bruford; songs with vocals from Paul McCartney.

But maybe the name of his 1966 debut The Sophisticated Beggar was shockingly prescient. Harper's glory always was seen to be wanting. It hasn't helped that a majority of his many albums have been flawed by too many fillers and too little sharp teethed wonders.

1985s Whatever Happened to Jugula (aka Jugula, if you go strictly by sleeve art) is one best example. And how it wound up in this first of Harper's label reissue program with Koch is telling on several levels. Only someone batting a suicide squeeze would lead with something at-all lame. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is behind Harper throughout. And it's a good thing. Page's interplanetary interplay is the only thing that distinguishes Harper's looming nihilism and thin voice from being a tedious masturbatory exercise in tepid folksy Anglo-rock better served hot fifteen years before this date. Oy. Steve Marriot must've rolled in his grave right over the body of Nick Drake on that one.

1970's Flat Baroque and Berserk is prettier in every way. When it hits as an acoustic folk effort, it does such with tenderness and mordant melody. A song like "Another Day" with their shoe-lacing harmony vocals and richly urbane orchestration simply purrs. But if the dreadfully ironic or ironically dreaded track "I Hate the White Man" doesn't throw you off Harper's almost-totally-gorgeous track, the chunkily sluggish "Hell's Angels," will. These two tunes are so out of place on an epically delicious record, you can't help but wonder why Harper didn't stay in the institutions a little longer.

Then 1971's Stormcock comes along and all you can think is... I get it. Suddenly all of the promise and all of the hype from his pals comes swooping through Harper's reedy tenor and musky melodies and prog-folk adventures in a fashion that Woody Allen called a pristine rush. Whoossh. Aided and abetted by David Bedford's plush green orchestration on several takes, the sleepy "Hors d'Oeuvres" is a stoned Floyd-like dream drone-r with "One Man Rock and Roll Band" breathing in the same rarified air. But those are only the misty mountain book ends of a groovy folksy trip strummed and plucked by Harper with un-necessary but appreciated help by Page. "Me and My Woman" is elegant, sexual, rootsy and fueled by everything great the latter ‘60s/early ‘70s Brit folk mien had to offer: it's FairPentLed-agle. And Harper's rant/tone poem/suite against organized religion "The Same Old Rock" is the best Zep song they couldn't muster - bluesy, blazing and stewing with poetry on all sides in a manner Plant only wished he could muster.

Have a cigar Roy. And keep issuing these CDs. Even when they blow, they blow hot.

Standout Tracks: "Nineteen Forty-Eightish" (Whatever Happened to Jugula); "Another Day" (Flat Baroque and Berserk); "The Same Old Rock" (Stormcock) A.D. AMOROSI