Word Magazine - 2004
Word’s Verdict – Will there be times, or books, like this ever again?

ROY HARPER: THE PASSIONS OF GREAT FORTUNE

When I was 14, I fondly imaged the charismatic folk-prophet roy Harper was living a charmed life in some rose-filled cottage surrounded by flaxen-haired offspring and a succession of permanently naked Pre-Raphaelite women, pausing occasionally to jot down the seeds of another apocalyptic anthem that would end all war. And now I discover it was true. This book of lyrics and photographs isn’t just a solid testament to the old boy’s sterling back catalogue but an extraordinary chronicle of a time when people did anything they wanted and didn’t care who photographed it _ hence Roy in the studio with the Pink Floyd, building a cabin on Big Sur beach (naked), with QPR’s Rodney Marsh, With Jimmy Page, at scores of rock festivals, and caught thrashing about on a hotel bed with a ‘special friend’ by paparazzi smudger Robert Plant. I suspect he had a better time than Radiohead. And there’s even a foreward by Kate Bush.

–Mark Ellen