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Singer Songwriter

Harvest, Peter Jenner

Roy Harper

Peter Jenner signed Roy Harper to Harvest, EMI's underground label, and the relationship was often a fight. Stormcock was recorded at Abbey Road between July and December 1970: four long pieces, with orchestral arrangements by David Bedford. Jimmy Page played on it under the name S. Flavius Mercurius for contract reasons, and Harper said the label hated the record because it had no singles. Johnny Marr later called it a secret weapon of a record, and Joanna Newsom and Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold named it as an influence. In 1968 Harper compered the first free concert in Hyde Park. Kate Bush called him one of the greatest English songwriters. He set up his own label, Science Friction, in 1993, and Page presented him with a Mojo award in 2005.

Asylum's first signing, 1971

Judee Sill

Judee Sill was born in Studio City, Los Angeles, in 1944 and spent part of her childhood in Oakland, where her father ran a bar and she learned piano. She was the first artist David Geffen signed to his new label, Asylum, and her first album came out in 1971. For Heart Food in 1973 she wrote the orchestral arrangements herself. She called her music country-cult-baroque: she loved Bach, and her lyrics mixed Christian theology with the occult. The records sold poorly and Asylum let her go. Sessions for a third album in 1974, recorded at Mike Nesmith's studio, stayed unfinished until Jim O'Rourke mixed them for release in 2005. She died in 1979, aged 35. The New York Times gave her an obituary in 2020, and a documentary about her followed.

Fort Macleod to Saskatoon

Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort Macleod, Alberta, in 1943 and grew up in Saskatoon. Reprise signed her, and David Crosby is credited as producer of her first album in 1968. She has written in around fifty open and unusual guitar tunings, and she painted most of her own album covers, calling herself a painter derailed by circumstance. Her 1974 album, her best seller, moved toward jazz, and Jaco Pastorius played fretless bass on her 1976 record. Mingus, in 1979, began as a collaboration with Charles Mingus, who died before it was finished. She joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. After a brain aneurysm in 2015 she spent years recovering, and in July 2022 she made a surprise return at the Newport Folk Festival.

Levy's studio, London, 1965

Jackson C. Frank

Jackson C. Frank made his only album at Levy's Recording Studio on New Bond Street in London, with Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel and Al Stewart in the room. He was so shy that he asked for screens to be put up so they couldn't watch him. Columbia released it in 1965, and it came out again in 1978 with a new cover. As a teenager he had a letter from Elvis Presley, and in 1957 Vernon Presley met him at the gate of Graceland and took him in to meet Elvis. Sandy Denny recorded two of his songs, and Nick Drake recorded four that came out after Drake's death. In the early 1990s a fan, Jim Abbott, tracked him down and moved him to Woodstock. A collection of unreleased demos came out in 2013.

Sound Techniques, 1969

Vashti Bunyan

Vashti Bunyan's wagon journey of the late 1960s covered about 650 miles, and she had quit a job at a vet's to go. She ended up on Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. Joe Boyd introduced her to the Incredible String Band, and her album was recorded at Sound Techniques in late 1969 with Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Robin Williamson and Nick Drake's arranger Robert Kirby. Only a few hundred copies were pressed, and she didn't record again for about thirty years. Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective brought her in to sing on their records. Max Richter produced Lookaftering in 2005, with Joanna Newsom on harp. She produced her 2014 album herself and said it would be her last, and her memoir came out in 2022.

The Collection