Barclay James Harvest - 4 Live Albums (1974-2007)

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Barclay James Harvest - 4 Live Albums (1974-2007)

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Live (1974). Though it seems odd that a live album could serve as a band's breakthrough release, Live shows the band clearly building upon the strengths of their previous studio albums while avoiding their excesses. Without a string section to back them up - or to smother them, depending on your thinking - the band draws more heavily on its rhythm section and on the tonal colorings of Wolstenholme's Mellotron, the latter most clearly on "The Great 1974 Mining Disaster." The rich harmonies, political content, and poignant twang of John Lees songs like "For No One" come across here with the same kind of ragged majesty as Neil Young's live work. And an epic-length "Medicine Man," unburdened of its heavy orchestral arrangement and beefed up with a newly emphasized guitar and drum parts, reveals the brawn lurking beneath the lassitude of the studio version. Overall, it's a solid live collection, and a fine starting point for those new to the band's body of work.

Live Tapes (1978). This double-live CD, made on BJH's last tour with Wooly Wolstenholme, is one of the better live albums to come out of the progressive rock genre. Though not as exciting as Genesis Live or as majestic as Yessongs, it shows the group in excellent form, playing and harmonizing beautifully and doing many of their best songs, among them "Child of the Universe," "Rock and Roll Star," "Poor Man's Moody Blues," "For No One," and "Mockingbird" (the latter never sounded more beautiful). All of the tracks work significantly better as live cuts than they do in their original studio form. Lees' guitar and Wolstenholme's keyboards work together very well on-stage and within the songs.

A Concert For The People (Berlin) (1982). Cut live at the Reichstag in the German city, Berlin is very different from The Live Tapes, with a rather leaner, harder-rocking sound, and more of a dance-rock feel as well, and is also miked much closer for a more intimate sound. "Mockingbird," "Child of the Universe," and "Hymn" are all performed rather more tightly than earlier live renditions, and with more flamboyant electronic effects. "Sip of Wine" represents the group's harder, post-progressive-era sound, while "Nova Lepidoptera" is a pretty piece of space rock, and "Life Is for Living" is so upbeat with its disco-dance sound that it could almost pass for an ABBA cut. Except on the latter, where the keyboards rule, John Lees' and Colin Browne's guitars are the most prominent component of the group's sound, and it's easy to see why this album, covering so many bases so well, took British audiences by storm - the Moody Blues in their post-psychedelic era have wanted to make a live record this tight and bracing for ages.

Legacy: Live at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, 2006 (2007). November 2006 saw a highly successful UK tour by John Lees' Barclay James Harvest. Featuring founder BJH members John Lees & Woolly Wolstenholme, the tour featured some of the finest music from the BJH canon. Perennial classics such as "Mockingbird", "Poor Man's Moody Blues", "Child of the Universe" & "Hymn" were joined by definitive versions of "The Great 1974 Mining Disaster", "The Poet" / "After the Day" and "Poor Wages", none of which had been performed live for over 30 years. A film crew & mobile recording unit for a DVD & CD release captured the London concert on November 5th. Cited by John Lees as "The best live album I've ever made", "Legacy" is a superb audio document of a legendary band.

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Barclay James Harvest - 4 Live Albums (1974-2007)

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Barclay James Harvest - 4 Live Albums (1974-2007)

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Barclay James Harvest - 4 Live Albums (1974-2007)

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Barclay James Harvest - 4 Live Albums (1974-2007)

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