BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

Barclay James Harvest And Other Short Stories

AN OFTEN-OVERLOOKED GEM IN THE PANTHEON OF EARLY BRITISH PROG.

Dusting off a slab of symphonic prog.

Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, Barclay James Harvest And Other Short Stories was the second of two albums that the band released in 1971. Picking up from their eponymous debut and Once Again, BJH paint their musical pictures by dipping into symphonic rock, folk, progressive rock, and just a hint of psychedelia left over from the 1960s, all filled out with an orchestra conducted by Martyn Ford.

The album feels like part of a continuum begat by The Beatles’ A Day In The Life and The Moody Blues’ Days Of Future Passed. Little Lapwing, written by bassist Les Holroyd, offers a neat encapsulation of the album, starting with a gentle, pastoral vibe before blossoming into a lush, symphonic arrangement. The mellow, uplifting mood of Song With No Meaning evokes warm summer days, while Blue

John’s Blues most distinctly channels The Beatles’ influence with Woolly Wolstenholme’s rock’n’roll piano and a stomping beat from drummer Mel Pritchard, whose kit has that deadened, muffled sound typical of the early 70s. The drama of The Poet flows seamlessly into the yearning of After The Day, showing the maturation of guitarist John Lees’ writing, married to Ford’s gorgeous orchestral arrangements.

This remastered, expanded three-disc edition contains multiple mixes of the album, a handful of performances from BBC sessions and two demos. There’s the original UK stereo mix remastered from the original tapes, a new stereo mix on a second CD, and a DVD that features both versions in addition to a high-res 5.1 stereo surround mix. Then there are the US album mixes of three tracks, and mono mixes of Medicine Man, Ursula, and Someone There You Know. It’s impressively thorough but only the keenest of listeners with high-end sound systems will likely appreciate the differences contained therein.

The BBC Sessions are more revealing as they lack the orchestration and polish of the album takes. There’s a punchy performance of She Said, from Once Again, that’s drenched in Mellotron with some sharp lead work from Lees. The demos of Brave New World and Hymn To A White Lady are strippedback performances from an unaccompanied Lees on acoustic guitar that possess a pleasing directness and sparsity. Neither of those songs appeared on …And Other Short Stories in their finished forms but, as the demos date from July 1971, they don’t feel out of place.

While the multiple mixes seem intended for hardcore completists, this edition is a perfect opportunity to reconnect with or discover an often-overlooked gem in the pantheon of early British prog.