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Hats Off to (Roy) Harper

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"Hats Off to (Roy) Harper"
Song

Hats Off to (Roy) Harper a song played by English rock band Led Zeppelin. It is the last track on the album Led Zeppelin III, released in 1970. The track features Jimmy Page playing slide guitar, and Robert Plant's vocals, processed through a tremolo. The song was listed on the album as "Arranged by Charles Obscure," which was a humorous pseudonym for Page.

The song is a medley of fragments of blues songs and lyrics, including "Shake 'Em on Down" by Bukka White and "Lone Wolf Blues" by Oscar Woods. The song is thus less a tribute to contemporary folk singer Roy Harper than it is a tribute to the influential American blues singers who recorded in the 1930s and 1940s.

Roy Harper is a folk singer from England whom Jimmy Page met at the Bath Festival in 1970. He became close friends of the band, who invited him to perform as the opening act on some later Led Zeppelin concert tours. In 1971, Page played on Harper's album Stormcock, appearing in the credits under the pseudonym "S. Flavius Mercurius." In 1985, Page recorded an album with Harper called Whatever Happened to Jugula?. Harper would go on to perform the lead vocals on Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar," from 1975's Wish You Were Here.

"Hats Off to (Roy) Harper" begins with a strange audio snippet from the sessions which is quickly introduced and then faded out again, featuring Plant's voice and Page's slide guitar in tandem.

An alternate studio outtake of the track in the same style and similar instrumentation is available on some Led Zeppelin bootleg recordings. Likely from the same recording session as the official release, it features lyrics from the songs "Feel So Bad," (recorded by Otis Rush and Elvis Presley), Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues" & "32-20 Blues", Sleepy John Estes' "Diving Duck Blues", Bukka White's "Fixin' To Die", and Elvis' "That Alright Mama." These songs were frequently performed in medley by the band at Led Zeppelin concerts during "How Many More Times" and, later, "Whole Lotta Love." Thus, this outtake perhaps gives insight into the inspiration for the track, a desire to lay down an acoustic, studio take of a staple of their live performances. However, Led Zeppelin never performed "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper" live in concert.

Sources

  • Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused: The Stories Behind Every Song, by Chris Welch, ISBN 1-56025-818-7
  • The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, by Dave Lewala
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