February 9, 1964, The Ed Sullivan Show - The Beatles; The moment that marked the beginning of the British music invasion also inspired millions of young people to become musicians.
TF Harper’s debut solo EP Vintage UK is a tribute to the British invasion and its influence on popular music. “Pictures of Matchstick Men” (Status Quo), “Walking Through My Dreams” (The Pretty Things), “See Emily Play” (Pink Floyd), and “Paper Sun” (Traffic) are the four songs featured.
As a young teen, the music of this era inspired Harper to become a multi instrumentalist and pursue a career in music. He learned to play bass in 1965, and spent the better part of his teen years playing at school dances, discotheques, and opening for the likes of Johnny Winter And, Spirit, Mountain, and Ten Wheel Drive at concerts in his native Connecticut before joining Capitol Recording artists “Bux” in 1975.
Bux, which began life in Boston as Daddy Warbux, had a large regional following on the Eastern seaboard and toured constantly, playing sold out club concerts from Boston to DC supporting their album, “We Come To Play”.
After the demise of Bux and upon relocating to Manhattan in 1976, Harper found an assortment of recording projects and live gigs in the bourgeoning NY rock scene, playing frequently at famed Bowery night spots Great Gildersleeves and CBGB and uptown at Trax (in a dimly lit basement at 72nd and Columbus).
The late seventies found Harper earning a reputation in the city as a skilled guitar/amp technician. After restoring a couple of Ace Frehley’s Vox amps to good working order, he was asked to join the KISS crew for their 1979 Dynasty Tour. He rose through the ranks in the KISS organization as he went from a road weary guitar tech to paid session musician when he was asked to play bass on the KISS hit “Shandi” from their 1980 album, “Unmasked”. In 1980, KISS manager Bill Aucoin asked Harper to assemble and lead a band to back Peter Criss on promotional dates to support his first post-KISS album, “Out of Control”.
In late 1980, Harper found himself in a vocal booth at The Power Station, sharing a mic with Paul Simon as they worked together on harmonies for “Nuns With Guns”, a track from GE Smith’s solo album, “In The World”. “Harmonymeister” Jerry Marotta (Orleans, Hall and Oates, Peter Gabriel) and Harper handled backing vocals for the rest of the album. In 1981, GE asked Harper to join his band on bass and vocals for the subsequent US tour which featured GE and the self named “El Fabulero” band opening for Squeeze. El Fabulero featured GE, Ricky Byrd (Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, Roger Daltrey, Ian Hunter) on guitar and vocals, with Mickey Curry (Bryan Adams, Hall and Oates) holding court on drums.
Vintage UK showcases Harper’s formidable talent not only as a musician, but as a master producer and sound technician. His aim was to recreate an authentic “60s-sounding” version of these songs. The renditions sound extraordinarily accurate when compared to the original versions, yet still maintain a sense of originality. In addition to engineering, producing, and mastering, Harper is the only artist on the EP, playing 6 & 12 string acoustic and electric guitars, lap steel, 4 & 8 string bass, organ, Mellotron, piano, drum sequencing/programming, and performing all of the vocals.
Reflecting on the creation of the album, Harper says: “I can easily recall the exhilaration of hearing these songs for the first time as a kid with big rock and roll dreams. Planning and recording them again brought back that same heady feeling, with so many cool memories of that powerful, electrifying era.”
Vintage UK is being released digitally worldwide on January 11, 2011 and will be available via iTunes, Amazon, and other various online stores.
Samples of Vintage UK can be heard by visiting
http://vintage-uk.com.
You can also watch an animated sample of “See Emily Play” at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7PQP4Sb7OQ
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