PAUL HARRIS
Manassas and Nick Drake keyboardist (1944–2023)
PAUL Harris is one of those names found scattered liberally in the small print throughout any good record collection. His most high-prole gig was with Stephen Stills’ Manassas: his piano, organ and clavinet can be heard all over the group’s eponymous 1972 masterpiece, and he also played on the follow-up, 1973’s Down The Road. When the band broke up and Stills returned to the CSNY fold, Manassas refugee and ex-byrd Chris Hillman took Harris and pedal-steel player Al Perkins with him to join the Souther-hillman-furay Band, who recorded two country-tinged canyon rock albums before dissolving in 1976.
Born in Queens and classically trained, Harris had only to make a short trip across New York to immerse himself in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s, and was soon playing on albums by the likes of David Blue, Tom Paxton, Tom Rush and Richie Havens. In the Village he was also befriended by Joe Boyd, an upcoming young producer who would soon relocate to London. When Boyd discovered a shy English singer-songwriter named Nick Drake, Harris was summoned to play on Drake’s 1969 debut Five Leaves Le. His sensitive playing on the glorious “Time Has Told Me” was particularly notable, and he returned to play on Drake’s second album, 1971’s Bryter Layter. Boyd gave him an even bigger role on John and Beverley Martyn’s 1970 album Stormbringer, on which he not only played keyboards but acted as arranger and musical director.
If much of Harris’s best work was done at the crossroads where folk, rock and country meet, he was also in demand with acts of a heavier persuasion, particularly when subtler textures were required. When producer Paul Rothschild wanted to add strings and brass to The Doors’ fourth album
The So Parade, Harris was recruited to write the arrangements for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the horn section. His keyboards were also heard on albums by BB King and Joe Walsh among others.
“Paul Harris was a lovely, lovely guy,” wrote Stills, on the news of his death. “Immensely talented and creative, he was a really sweet person that we all loved. He shares our legacy.”