‘You can’t manage me,’ says Cockney Rebel’s Steve Harley
Steve his acoustic Harley is band bringing to Harrogate next month. Graham Chalmers talks to the singer about the town’s good vibe and his new music.
STEVE HARLEY may have been coming up to make people smile with that song for 45 years now.
But, like a growing number of famous 70s rock stars such as Neil Young and Ian Anderson, he keeps shaking up his career and seems to get busier, rather than quieter.
Since he was last at Harrogate Theatre, the London-born 68-year-old has released a new album under the
Cockney Rebel moniker, another one as a solo star and is now touring in two different guises almost at the same time.
And then there’s his occasional collaborations with classical orchestras.
Fans in Yorkshire will see his newlylaunched Steve Harley Acoustic Band bringing his new album and some classic tracks to Harrogate Theatre next month.
“I do it for the love of it now,” he says.
“I totally love playing live. It’s what I do. Harrogate is a beautiful town with beautiful venues. I’ve played both the Royal Hall and the theatre before. There’s a really good vibe.” Harley’s forthcoming album
Uncovered sees him bring a fresh acoustic approach to not only a few of his own songs but deep cuts by the likes of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Cat Stevens, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones and Richard Hawley.
“We went to Abbey Road and recorded it with the best acoustic instruments money can buy,” he says.
“It’s totally organic. There’s no EQ on it. It’s totally natural. It got’s an astonishing sound.
“It’s not a covers album. I don’t see the point of most covers. They usually sound the same as the originals.
“We like to call them interpretations. They’re nothing like the originals.
“Once I’d recorded it, I got the loveliest message back from Cat Stevens or Yusuf Islam saying I’d performed it from the heart and had made his song my own.”
Although he says he’s “fine with the digital world”, Harley says he’s thrilled by the vinyl revival and was delighted when his son in his mid-30s asked for a Dansette record player.
Due to a childhood illness, Harley spent almost four years in hospital between the ages of three and 16 and whilst recovering from surgery at 12, he was first introduced to the poetry of Eliot and Lawrence, the prose of Steinbeck, Woolf and Hemingway, and the music of Bob Dylan.
His life, he realised, was to be preoccupied with words and music.
Life now seems to have gone full circle for the songwriter who started as a journalist before playing in the folk club circuit in the early 1970s, finding fame with hits like Judy Teen, Sebastian, Mr Soft and, of course, Make
Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) in the middle ground between glam rock and prog rock.
Well, except in one way.
“I live in rural Suffolk with my wife Dorothy, who was from Glasgow originally,” he says.
“I do everything myself these days through my own company Comeuppance. I haven’t got an agent. I haven’t got a manager. I haven’t got a record label. I’m past that stage. I know what I’m doing.
“I’ve got control. You can’t manage me. The emails coming into my company never stop.
“I’ve already got 40 shows this year lined up in Britain and Europe.”
Once regarded as a bit of a prickly character by music papers such as
NME and Sounds in the golden era of the music press, it’s more likely as an intelligent songwriter and former journalist himself, Harley simply knew his own mind.
And he still does.
Steve Harley brings his acoustic band featuring guitarist/violinist Barry Wickens, double bassist Oli Heyhurst and lead acoustic guitarist Dave Delarre to Harrogate Theatre on Friday, February 21.