MiDoyle's Full Review: Be Headed by Chris Harford & The First Rays Of The...
Sensitive Male is not an oxymoron when associated with the likes of singer-songwriter Chris Harford, Jersey born and raised, but almost other worldly in his ability to write about the inner turmoil and emotional nuances found in everyman.
Harford wears his heart on his sleeve in his songs, but always in a meaningful way. His characters, fueled with autobiographical shadings, bleed, cry, and suffer in his songs and that’s a good thing. His ability to write three-dimensional portraits of the human condition is a saving grace for song subjects that skirt the edges of melancholia. Other writers would drone and drown in a syrupy mess, but probably sell more records in the age of Britney.
His other great strength are arrangements that focus and blend the musical muscle behind the word. Harford’s voice is a husky, sometimes lightly evocative listener’s voice. He uses vocal shadings and musical colorings to power and embellish his words. An inventive use of acoustic instrumentation coupled with the rock n’ roll mainstay of electric power chords illuminates his first solo record.
Released in 1992, on Elektra Be Headed by Chris Harford and the First Rays of the New Rising Sun was rightly praised by Rolling Stone, Spin, CMJ, even People as something special and unique in the music world. A record of intelligence, wit and heart, Be Headed was a critical success if not a top forty hit.
It’s notable the company Harford’s keeps on Be Headed. Not every debut record is able to conjure the diverse talents and rankings of musicians such as Richard Thompson, Sim Cain, Toshi Reagon, David Mansfield, Loudon Wainright III, Kevin Salem, the Proclaimers and Ween, all on one record.
Songs: Raise the Roof/Unsaid Things/Swinging Bridge/You Know Me Best/Living End/My Little Sadness/Road with You/Blanket of Snow/Take Me (For All I’m Worth)/ You Brains/If You Forget Me/Sing, Breathe and Be Merry
My Impressions:
There’s much to like here. Raise the Roof opens with a gurgling opening bridge with some inventive voicing by Harford and a guitar buildup just this side of greatness. If you’re not moving, bobbing and weaving, and playing air guitar, go see a doctor. Unsaid Things is a surprisingly effective and resolutely vulnerable emotional paean to love. It’s just a terrific little love song.
Swinging Bridge melds some country rock influences in a nostalgic mood tale of brotherly adventures. You Know Me Best is another gem of emotional writing, a song exploring the human condition and the realization that one is never alone, unless by choice.
Richard Thompon’s imitable guitar shadings hold You Know Me the Best together and the song has a real English feel to it, even with Harford’s quietly effective vocal.
My Little Sadness has a simple arrangement disguising the confessional feel to the lyrics of how one’s problems/moods effects the innocent party. Other heaviness invades Take Me For All I’m Worth and If You Forget Me are seemingly two complimentary pieces about the weight and worth of the love impulse.
That’s not to say this an all-sensitive album. Harford can write the ear candy rockers like Road With You but even then, he colors the moment with some lyrical allusions to a deeper context.
Sing, Breathe and Be Merry works for me as a personal theme song and a call to no longer live at an emotional arms length.
Life Goes On
Unfortunately, Harford’s major label time was short but he’s persevered. He founded a record company (Black Shepherd Records, later Soul Selects Records) and busied himself with his songwriting, paintings and production work. Look for former bandmate's (Three Colors) Hub Moore’s hard to find 1998 gem Hub on London/Slash Records which Harford produced.
Harford followed up Be Headed with 1997’s Comet, a collection of some undiscovered gems including Raise the White Flag and Kiss You. The 2 disc Band of Changes (1998) is further evidence of his talent and prolific songwriting: Be My Eyes, How I Wanted To, Caroline, For the Last Time, Word for Word, and 30 other gems of insight into the human condition.
1998 also saw the release of Live @CBGB’s Gallery with Sim Cain featuring such under performed wonders as Leaf of Fall and Dragonfly.
In 2000, Harford released Wake featuring some of his most focused writing and inventive arrangements of Sound of You, Love is Lies, Dragonfly, Leaf of Fall, and the powerhouse Ouch.
Be Headed cannot be found in its original Elektra glory unless you hunt. Harford released it on his own in the short-term as Be Headed 99+1 in 1999. The extra track is a cover of Prince’s Pop Life. Currently, he plans to redo it again as Alien Expanse with some additional tracks.
For information about Harford and other independent artists of note, see his web site www.chrisharford.com.
Cat Rating Scale
With one or two exceptions, a positive response from Freddie and Chester.Freddie enjoyed the album from his vantage point of the catnapper with nary a whimper at the guitar riffs. Chester, an observer from afar cracked a chesire smile. Two paws up.
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