I have been listening to Roy since the early 70’s. At the time, I was very interested in anything that came out on the Harvest label. Many greats were recording for that label at the time, among them: Pink Floyd & Deep Purple. After buying “Flat Baroque & Berserk” and being very impressed, I proceeded to buy every single thing of Roy Harper’s and I’ve only slowed down a little in the 90’s. I have been listening to HQ again lately after a few years of not hearing it and it just reminded me why I love this guy so much. Which is why I have just ordered 6 CD’s of his that I did not own. In any case, this is a guy that has the admiration of a lot of his peers.
The musicians that backed him up through his career read like a Who’s Who of British R’n’R. On HQ we find Bill Bruford on drums (YES) David Gilmore (PINK FLOYD) & Chris Spedding (great session man) on guitars, John Paul Jones (LED ZEPPELIN) on bass and others that are well known to me but perhaps not to others. HQ contains two of Roy’s all-time best rock songs: “Hallucinating Light” & “The Game parts 1-5.” His albums span the entire range of the folk/rock gamut ranging from acoustic / folky to rocking electric and his sound palette is very rich. It is easy to see why his albums are so different from each other when you consider that some of them have Jimmy Page in the music section while on others you may find Paul McCartney, Jon Anderson and so on. Give HQ A listen and you will see why Led Zeppelin has a song called “Hats Off to Roy Harper” on “III”.