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A rising star

James Harries is making waves worldwide
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By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
October 24th, 2007 issue

 

COURTESY PHOTO
A familiar face in Prague, Harries is in increasing demand on the global circuit.
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James Harries

When: Saturday, Oct. 27 at 8
Where: Meet Factory (Ke Sklárně 15, Prague 5)
Tickets: 165 Kč, available at the venue

What London’s Sunday Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and Observer have finally caught on to this year is something Prague has known for over a decade: James Harries is a world-class musical talent. With nearly a decade of road work behind him, including a U.S. tour this past summer, and a new CD on U.K.’s Dekkor label, singer-songwriter Harries is poised for an international breakout.
Basing a musical career from Prague is a tough card that Harries played right from the beginning. Juggling independent CD releases, session work and an intensive tour schedule, he worked clubs from Prague to nearby Slovakia, Austria and Germany. It may have been a slow-growth promotional strategy, but it turned out to be an effective and organic method well-suited to Harries’ persistent and peripatetic approach.
For those who have seen Harries perform, the current international buzz may seem long overdue, but it’s no surprise. Part of the attraction may be in how the Manchester-born Harries brings native English musical expression to regional venues that usually have to settle for less-than-convincing imitators. Harries has also built universal appeal in the way he stirs Greenwich Village-style folk-rock, jazz and Britpop into a fresh and satisfying mix. And locally, it certainly doesn’t hurt that Harries can joke between songs in fluent Czech.
From Harries’ point of view, living in Prague has helped him keep his originality on track. “I think it helped my music not being in the U.K.,” he says. “I’m not that influenced by what’s going on there. In Prague, I’ve had the good fortune to meet and play with a lot of people from all over the world with different musical backgrounds, which has probably left a mark on my sound.”
This slightly off-the-beaten-track stylistic bent has critics groping to place him, while simultaneously unable to deny the spell of his music. Rolling Stone has called Harries “the missing link between Jeff Buckley and Oasis,” while the Daily Mirror more stiffly describes his new CD as “catchy and unthreatening.”
If there is a catchy, pop-like quality in Harries’ work, it is more of the heartfelt than calculated variety, a clear result of responding to years of live audiences rather than from a robotic deconstructing of the hit charts. For instance, on Harries’ Days Like These CD released this past April, the opening song “Best Intent” blends guitar, vocals, mellotron and string arrangements into an intense bliss reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins. The sound diverts to the power trio vamps of “Goodbye,” only to flow smoothly into Jimmy Bozeman’s Latin/Orleans romp “Ghost Town.”
On the songs where Harries is stripped down to minimal arrangements, it’s easier to hear the intensity of his voice, smoothed by a jazzy touch of folk-pop. Add to this some rock ’n’ roll comic relief, and it amounts to a sound that is clearly Harries’ own. Nowhere is this more evident than when Harries is onstage, where he sometimes mixes compelling originals with straight-from-the-hip covers of the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” or the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”
As U.K. demand and return invitations to North America shape Harries’ future plans, he is becoming more of a luxury item locally. Not that his ticket prices are anything near what Roger Waters demands — it’s just that these days, Harries is understandably busy elsewhere. His concert this weekend offers a chance to hear quality music in what promises to be one of Prague’s more interesting arts and music venues. Helping Harries make full use of the Meet Factory’s new sound system will be a backup band of San Francisco-based electric guitarist Gawain Matthews and Prague’s New Orchestra of Dreams mastermind, Štěpán Smetáček.

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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