This sums up the scene back then pretty well.
http://theleopardcoat.blogspot.com/2...-groupies.html
Hats off to Roy. I remember having Led III back in 1971 or 72. I always wondered who Roy Harper was, that Led F'ing Zeppelin would right a song about him. I thought he must've been some old, obscure, Delta Blues man.
The saddest thing about all of this is the fact that Harper was never compensated for his Have A Cigar vocals until fairly recently. And not by either Gilmour (surprisingly!) or Waters (no surprise there as Roger hated Roy's vocal on the track) but by drummer Nick Mason, all of all people. Harper finally gets a nest egg for himself and has to spend it all on lawyers and legal bills. That's why he's so POed about all this nonsense.
Last edited by StevegSr; 11-23-2015 at 07:48 PM.
"Good news everyone! Work of Heart kicks ass!"
It's true, there really are no bad Roy Harper albums, and I have them all. One of my favorites is kind of obscure: "Loony on the Bus." In fact the title song is one of my favorite Roy Harper songs. He did release a live video in the late 80s that was of pretty poor quality (not the material, the audio and video) and he spends like 20 minutes at the beginning of the tape apologizing for how bad it is. But that's so funny that it makes the release good.
I always wondered how Jimmy Page never got in trouble for that 13-yo groupie (or Bowie, FTM >> didn't know he actually deflowered her - always assumed Jimmy did)...
At least JL Lewis married his 13-YO cousin (and he's still with her from what I gather), but was still given hell about it
Not so sure he didn't get paid.... it's like that chick singing in Great Gig In The Sky.... she got paid for the session alright (so most likely Roy did too), but she thought that given the success of the song, she wanted a bigger slice of the cake, pretending that she improvised therefore she "composed" as well
Generally all session players (even "buddies") got paid directly (most often in cash)
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
AFAIK, unless there is a specific contract stating otherwise, you only get royalties if you're a registered author (lyrics), a composer (music) or the producer (in the wider sense of the term).
Now, based on that, if Mason gave him (Roy) money, I suspect that it's actually because he wanted to help him out ...
Or else, he fears another Doris Troy court case...
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Harper was a friend of the band, and more importantly, a label mate on EMI Harvest. He was not a paid session musician as was the case of women singing lead and backup on TDSotM album. And Harper, as other's pointed out, had no legal contract with the band or the record company for album royalties, he simply expected to be compensated. One can say that Gilmour paid him back by appearing as an unpaid guest on many Harper albums, so perhaps Gilmour felt that his obligation to Harper was squared. We will never know unless Gilmour makes a statement and I don't see that as forthcoming.
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