Whilst we endure the never ending wait for new material from Jo Harman, I'm feeding the Spotify monster with 'legacy' recordings; this time 'Move Over' from Jo's very first commercial recording 'Live At Hideaway', released as a 'holding' album (now available on both CD and Vinyl) while she wrote for her debut (and 'official') studio album 'Dirt On My Tongue' which launched her career proper, a year or so later.
It's a pretty explosive live performance, so much so that I have even been asked 'was everyone on cocaine?'. Not to my knowledge, more youthful energy and nervous adrenalin from playing a noted London venue without rehearsal, I think! Drummer Martin 'Magic' Johnson certainly takes the band through the gears; it was actually Magic's first ever gig with the band, and here he is, some 13 years and best part of a thousand shows with Jo, later, still running the engine room to remarkable effect.
The rest of the band comprises Jo's long time musical partner in crime, a young Mike Mayfield on guitar who, as we know then went on to be guitarist of choice of dozens of household name artist (whilst still being a close associate of Jo's), the incendiary Stevie Watts on Hammond and the much missed John McKenzie (RIP) on bass, who before working and championing Jo, was bass player to the likes of Bowie, Dylan, Tina Turner and hundreds of other noted artists.
Joplin was, of course, just one of many influences on Jo (Ella, Amy, Eva, Lauryn, being a few others) and in those early days, Jo would record other peoples material simply to fill the set times while she developed her own songwriting...which, like I say, emerged a year or so later where 10 of the 11 tracks were either written by Jo alone or by her and Mike Mayfield or, in the case of 'Better Woman' her and the aforementioned John McKenzie. As such. 'Move Over' is a 'moment in time' recording..but a good one I think and, like I say, the collective energy is nothing short of electric. From the moment you can hear Jo say 'everybody ready?' over the blistering intent already established by Magic's initial tribal drumbeat, everybody just steps on the gas, finds a nice part suitable to the collective good, and they then continue to push the accelerator further and further with every verse before leaving an exhausted Jo, band and audience to finally catch their breath some 5 minutes down the line. Still far and away the least experienced person on stage, Jo is still running the show, calling off the solos, imploring the band to take things up a step, and generally driving the bus, even back then.
Take a listen, it's quite a remarkable slice of early 'Jo Harman and Company' from at the very outset of an illustrious career, a remarkable career subsequently run, successfully, very much on the singer's own terms.
- Management/Agency/Artist Services
- JO HARMAN (Management) | joharman.com
- BiGiAM Agency
- markedeconsultancy.com | BiGiAM.co.uk
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