Music Arcades: Barclay James Harvest: Once Again

Well we remember Barclay James Harvest, don't we? Hilary still sees L.A. from time to time, as they live not far apart, and I mentioned one time that there had been some embarrassment between us over my fluffed role in the match-making of you and Sarah. "I hope she's forgotten it a long time ago," I said. "She recounts the story in all its detail," replied Hilary. That was one ill-fated evening in 1984: first missing the train up to London from Woking, then hanging round outside the Hammersmith Odeon while BJH tended to their absurdly over-blown and malfunctioning lighting rig, and then missing the last train home. As we competed to roll a ten-pence piece a full 100 metres across the empty spaces of Waterloo Station, waiting for the first train of Easter Sunday morning at 4.30am, I suggested to you that we should not ignore the funny side. You gave me short shrift and a nasty look as you went to scrounge another cigarette from one of the station staff.

Unlike you, I had quite liked BJH at one stage, and didn't just go to the gig on the pull (just as well since I had no prospect). I probably already had this album by then: it's the original Harvest LP in a gatefold sleeve with no bonus tracks.

This brand of orchestral, mellotron-heavy rock is usually associated with public schoolboys, but a lot of the protaganists — The Moody Blues, Jon Anderson — were northern (or midlands) working class lads who would have been on the factory floor if they hadn't been making concept albums. I heard Justin Hayward being interviewed recently, and he said The Moody Blues' audience was still made up of people like them: they continue to play to good audiences in the rust belt of America, apparently. And BJH are very similar: mill boys ("stuck on the hill boys"!) as they said on another album. I tried to remember that as I listened again to the strings on Galadriel and Mocking Bird (the best song on the album by some distance).

Those orchestral arrangements were done by Robert John Godfrey, who went on to form the curious band called The Enid, and who always seemed to be complaining about something or other: the music industry, the audience, or both. Via a bit of googling just now I discovered that Godfrey had a chip on his shoulder about his fellow musicians as well. In 1995 he sued BJH for royalties for his contributions to the arrangements. Unlike the recent Whiter Shade of Pale case, his claim was thrown out. According to this article, the judge acknowledged that Godfrey had made a substantial contribution to Galadriel and Mocking Bird — I'd say his contribution is a big part of the signature sound of the album — but nevertheless ruled that the rest of the band had slogged their guts out in subsequent years to promote their records and make them a success, whereas Godfrey had just hung back in the shadows for over twenty years. So it was a bit rich for him to come back after all that time and claim a slice of the pie. Sounds like a good judge, that one.