Jenny Parsons took this photo of me signing CD’s at Cropredy 2004
I can’t believe it’s three years since I wrote all this stuff for my website. So it really is time to bring it up to date. 2004 and 2005 found me working, again with Marc and Astralasia, on quite a lot of new songs plus two old ones. With fantastic contributions from, amongst others, Dave ‘Doc’ Russell on banjo, James Asher (hammer dulcimer), Simon House (stunning violin and arrangements) and the uniquely fab Robert Fripp (guitar and Soundscape) two more albums were created, ‘Spindle’ released in April 2006 and ‘The Whorl’ released in July 2006.
Each album contained one nod to the past, ‘See Emily Play’ on ‘Spindle’ very loosely based on a version that I had recorded with Adrian Wagner in 198something, and a version of ‘I Talk To the Wind’ on ‘The Whorl’. The rest of the songs were all newly written and surprising.
At this stage of my life I was busy trying not to fall apart with some fairly rotten health issues. rheumatoid arthritis, emphysema and just for fun, really bad sciatica. This last meant I had to have surgery to remove bits of squished disc from my spine, on top of all the very fierce drugs to combat the rheumatoid. The emphysema is quite mild but means I have problems walking and talking at the same time. Tsk!
2007 Chris Harvey
But all of them are now under some sort of control, but I did lose quite a bit of time just hiding under the pillows until everything stopped hurting. The operation meant that I had to pull out of one of my very rare gigs, a small concert in Japan, that I had been going to do with Jack McAuley, my partner in Trader Horne. In the end Jack had to do it on his own, as I wasn’t allowed to fly. I will sing with Jack again though, I am determined to. Just for a giggle. And I have been writing with Simon House.
In less than a month I shall be on stage with my early Fairporters again, at the Fairport’s Cropredy Convention to celebrate 40 years of Fairport. Who’d have thought all those years ago..?
And Tiggy the dog?
She is still with me, 13 and a half years old now (95!) That’s very old for a greyhound, and she is very grey. But she still follows me around and sleeps most of the time. She likes to spend time sitting in the pond in the wood. The fish think she’s edible.