Recorded in Abbey Road Studio 2 on Earth Day 2024, ‘Earth Day Blue’ is the 14th studio album release from Nick Harper, the wildly talented and much loved singer-songwriter. With John Leckie in the producer’s chair (Stone Roses, Radiohead, Muse etc.) and Tchad Blake mixing (Tom Waits, Crowded House, Peter Gabriel etc.), the album is a flash mob of high calibre talent assembled for a few hours’ collaboration in a very special space.
But this was not the first time Nick and John had been in session together in Studio 2. It was way back in 1973, in the very same room, that Nick was given his ‘big break’ in the world of music. The duo first ‘worked’ together when Nick, aged 8, recorded his first ever songs with John whilst Nick’s father Roy was recording his own seminal album ‘Lifemask’ with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. So the circle has been squared off and the journey is complete!
‘Earth Day Blue’ is peppered with acoustic ear-worms written with a Studio 2 Beatlesque approach of short, immediate songs, but with the added brio of a group of studio attendees sometimes driven to sing along to Nick’s guitar and voice, adding a party atmosphere to the day. Along the way, Nick displays all his (un)usual talents, from his trademark virtuoso string-bending guitar playing and references to the time of his previous session with John on the paean to Joni Mitchell ‘Joni If Only ..’ to his penchant for prose poems when describing the scene at Abbey Road in the 70s in ‘The Lady In The Fur Coat’.
The recording captures what John says is the magic of a live performance in a controlled recording environment, though, in a space such as this, dripping with portent and legacy (on a personal level for the two as well as to a worldwide community of Abbey Road fanatics) there is a tangible, added depth of poignancy and emotion underlying the album. For Nick Harper fans and for new fans alike, it is all here in unadorned beauty, a recording that witnesses a solo artist without dilution or compromise, nor studio trickery or production prop, having a great day performing in one of the most hallowed rooms on the planet.
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