This 2-CD/DVD consists of Barclay James Harvest’s fifth
album released in 1974 entitled Everyone
Is Everybody Else. Originally released in the summer of that year on the
Polydor label and reissued by Esoteric Recordings, the group parted with their
previous label Harvest Records after putting out four orchestrated and
symphonic albums and received word-of-mouth. The band were signed to Polydor as
they had to pay off their debt to their old label due to using an orchestra on
tour.
Recorded for only a month from March to April at Olympic
Studios with Rodger Bain who’s best known for his work with Budgie, Black
Sabbath, and Judas Priest, wanted the band to give it a strong and powerful
sound and move away from their orchestral roots that was shown from their EMI
days. You can imagine both Bain and the group didn’t get along and never saw
eye to eye with one another. And while there was tension between the two of
them, the album is a real gem.
You have their own take of the Bee Gees psychedelic-era with
The Great 1974 Mining Disaster. You
could tell John Lees has amazing ideas of constructing the melodies of New York Mining Disaster 1941 and going
into a mainstream approach and dealing with the political commitment of the
1974 UK Miners’ Strike. The Rhodes riff gets down and dirty as Woolly lays down
the rhythm for a dramatic and haunting take before the mellotron swings in to
soar of take of the disastrous mission of the Apollo 13 on Negative Earth.
It reminded me at times of a band called Jonesy and their
song Mind of the Century and it has
these riffs that I can imagine BJH took that as an homage on the riff and take
it into the voyage of Space and the crew members decided to head on home. Then,
Barclay head into a hard rock approach with power riffs between organ and
guitar followed by ascending ‘trons and folk-rock acoustic melodies as it deals
with being in with the people that were pretty now are nuts in this Crazy City.
The soaring guitar lines up into the heavens gives me chills
with their touch of the Beatles as an homage featuring Woolly’s Mellotron
taking the angelic sounds with the harmonic wonders. Lees takes a bit of the
Harrison and Lennon-sque guitar styles of the Abbey Road sessions followed by Pritchard’s drumming following to
reach the climatic end on See Me, See
You.
Barclay James Harvest take into the styles of Jackson Browne
as Les takes over on vocals on the deals of the working-class man with the
acoustic country rock that would have given the Eagles a bowing down moment
with Poor Boy Blues while the closer For No One is chilling and filled with
emotions and the deal for peace. Lees’ sings “Then lay down your bullshit and your protests/then lay down your
governments of greed/take a look of what lies all around you/then pray God we
can live in peace.”
It hits you hard in the gut because the lyrics are true and
powerful of not of what happening, but happening right now and the struggle for
peace is still out there and there’s no hope, but the fight will live on. Lees
and Woolly take you share hands and raise up to sing-along this amazing
composition and its closes the album off with a powerful chorus and hypnotic
wah-wah solo that Lees’ does that will make you just be in amazement.
The new stereo mixes which are on Disc 2 and on the DVD for
the 5.1 mix, which are done by Craig Fletcher and the authoring of the DVD done by Ray
Shulman of Gentle Giant, is very interesting to hear. Now the multi-tracks on For No One, are missing, which is a
bummer, so what we have are 8 tracks of the new mixes including the bonus ones. It's almost very much as if a piece of the puzzle is missing on here.
I can hear some parts on the opener, Child of the Universe that I never heard before including the
swooshing Moog, Bells, and the crashing of the cymbals from what I’m hearing
and while it didn’t make it on the original mix, it still is powerful and gives
it a moving melody on the loss of a violent ways of man. The Mellotron comes in
front and Lees’ guitar in the rhythm for Negative
Earth as Mel’s drums gives it a real punch of the dramatic pulse of the
rhythm.
The acoustic guitars are coming left and right for Les’
rhythm picked guitar on Poor Boy Blues and
the same thing with on the situation of the local mining and cotton industries
with a dosage of Pink Floyd’s Fat Old Sun
homage on Mill Boys. The bonus
tracks on here contains the U.S. single versions along with a new mix and a
remake of Child of the Universe, the
original mixes of The Great 1974 Mining
Disaster and Negative Earth.
But one of the bonus tracks which features the late great
Stuart “Woolly” Wolstenholme to take over. Maestoso
(A Hymn in the Roof of the World) which was recorded at Olympic and mixed
at Trident Studios, is a powerful and symphonic rock with an epic sound as Woolly
himself takes a shining and roaring beauty that just sends chills down the
spine.
When the album was released, it was the first album not to
include any songwriting from Woolly himself so that’s why when he wrote this, Producer Rodger Bain felt it was “out of place”. Woolly would later do an expanded version of
the song after he left Barclay to pursue a solo career with his 1980 album, Maestoso. The group went on tour on May
31st to promote the album along with Rare Bird from Newcastle City
Hall and right into June where they recorded the Live album at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane on June 30, 1974.
The late great radio DJ John Peel was very impressed of what
he heard and he would mark each track of the album as a standout. Listening to
both the original and new stereo mixes of Everyone
is Everybody Else is one of Barclay James Harvest’s masterpiece. The
20-page booklet contains photos of the band, promos, and sleeve notes by Keith
and Monika Domone who have done other liner notes for the Esoteric reissues of
the Barclay catalog.
It also includes a poster of the upcoming album that the back cover includes the lyrics also
Here, listening to this album again shows why they were
overlooked and ahead of their time in the history of the genre of the
Progressive Rock movement.
No comments:
Post a Comment