ROY HARPER BAND – WORK OF HEART LP – Nr MINT A1/B1 UK 1982

Roy Harper Band – Work Of Heart
(Public Records  1982  PUBLP5001)
Matrix No’s: A1/B1 – UK Pressing

Sleeve in nr MINT/Excellent+ condition
– scuff in the middle of the spine and another one near the top
Inner Sleeve in Nr MINT condition

Vinyl in Nr MINT condition

Roy Harper (born 12 June 1941) 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, a result of his love of jazz and 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.

In 2005, Harper was awarded the MOJO Hero Award, and in 2013 a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. His most recent album, Man and Myth, was released in 2013. In 2016, Harper celebrated his 75th birthday by performing concerts in Clonakilty, Birmingham, Manchester, London and Edinburgh.

Work of Heart is the eleventh studio album by English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Roy Harper and was first released in 1982.

The original album was released on Harper’s own label, Public Records, formed with Mark Thompson, (son of nuclear campaigner E.P. Thompson). Additionally, the album was chosen by Derek Jewell of The Sunday Times as “Album of the Year” in 1982.

The demo version of this album was later released (in 1984) on a limited edition (830 copies) vinyl release, titled Born in Captivity. The sound of Born in Captivity being more typical of previous Harper recordings; featuring him and guitar only.

Whilst Harper describes this period as his musical career nadir, it came at a time of the zenith for the United Kingdom hi-fi industry. Harper released a very limited number of so-called “Real-Time Mastered” compact audio cassette copies of the Work of Heart album. Unlike mass-market cassettes which at the time were produced at high speed from a multi-generational copy of the master, these issues were transcribed in real time from the original two track studio master tape. In order to eke maximum sound quality from this technique, the tape stock used was high quality Maxell Type I ferric oxide stock in conjunction with Dolby B Noise Reduction. The result was superb audio transcription which beautifully captured the aura and atmosphere of the ethereal tracks therein.

N.B. The songs “Jack of Hearts” and “No Woman is safe” are basically the same, containing identical lyrics.

Track listing

All tracks credited to Roy Harper

Side one

1. “Drawn To The Flames” – 6:34
2. “Jack Of Hearts”* – 4:14
3. “I Am A Child” – 3:09
4. “Woman” – 4:42
5. “I Still Care” – 4:50

Side two

1. “Work of Heart” – 21:32
   1. “No One Ever Gets Out Alive”
   2. “Two Lovers in the Moon”
   3. “We Are the People”
   4. “All Us Children (So Sadly Far Apart)”
   5. “We Are the People” (reprise)
   6. “No One Ever Gets Out Alive” (finale)

Personnel