1102 - Mojo 120. Harper's Bizarre - The Secret Life Of (1968)

Track Listing

1. Look To The Rainbow
2. Battle Of New Orleans
3. When I Was A Cowboy
4. Sentimental Journey
5. Las Mananitas
6. Bye Bye Bye/Vine Street
7. Me Japanese Boy
8. I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise
9. Green Apple Tree
10. Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat
11. I Love You Mama
12. Funny How Love Can Be
13. Mad
14. Look To The Rainbow
15. Drifter
16. Reprise

Review

Close harmony singing... not usually very edgy but Harper's Bizarre manage to give it a little something special. Particularly when it comes to arrangements which are often pretty unusual and sometimes just screw-ball.

There's a couple of great covers here and some great original material which is slightly weird and slightly endearing all at the same time. They manage somehow to be the cool face of close harmony singing... maybe together with Simon and Garfunkel who were active at about the same time.

While Simon & Garfunkel's influences are mainly in the folk genre, Harper's Bizarre are a lot more in the field of psych, with sound effects and weird musical sampling mixed in. A pretty good album indeed.

Track Highlights

1. Battle Of New Orleans
2. Me Japanese Boy
3. When I Was A Cowboy
4. Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Two bonus tracks were added to the 2001 Sundazed CD reissue of this title. They had previously been the two sides of a single: "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell and "Small Talk" by Bonner/Gordon.

Battle of New Orleans: