Psychedelic Relics: Red Hash by Gary Higgins
Psychedelic Relics: Red Hash by Gary Higgins
Tracking down Gary Higgins nowadays is not overly difficult; no manhunts or “missing persons” fliers required. A couple of emails and voila, I was connected.
I interviewed Gary about his 1973 psych-folk album Red Hash, diving into each track plus other points throughout his career and life in general. It was an interesting interview about an artist whose work finally began to get noticed almost 40 years after it was recorded.
He was convicted of his crime and sentenced to the Connecticut State Penitentiary where he traded his guitar for an orange jumpsuit.
Gary grew up in New England and as a young lad he had the typical musical awakenings – initially enthralled by Elvis, then intrigued by folk and bluegrass music until, as he put it, “all bets were off”. Like every other teenager in America, Gary saw the Fab Four on Sullivan and started a band. By the late ’60s, he was in two separate bands: Random Concept, his “rock” band, and Wooden Wheel, a more folk-oriented outfit.
Primarily a guitar player, Gary began writing songs and in the late 60’s/early 70’s he started messing around with alternate tunings. Different chord structures and voicings allowed him to compose in ways you could not do on a guitar in standard tuning.
By ‘72, Gary had amassed a backlog of material.
Music was his passion and then, well, everything changed. He was arrested on a drug charge and faced serious prison time. He told me “I wasn’t sure if I was going to see the light of day for many years”.
He was convicted of his crime and sentenced to the Connecticut State Penitentiary where he traded his guitar for an orange jumpsuit, becoming prisoner #J1016. If there’s a positive to the story Gary said, it’s that his incarceration pushed him to get into the studio and record an album while he had the time to do so. See, he had a few weeks between his trial and the start of his sentence, and he used that time to corral his friends from both of the bands he was in, booked the studio, and got down to making the album. “We certainly didn’t do a lot of rehearsal before the session. We did a lot of it right there on the spot. We did it all in a short period, around 40 hours all told”.
Red Hash opens with Gary’s best-known tune, “Thicker Than a Smokey” and sets the stage for what the listener is in for. It’s quiet and moody and features Gary’s familiar hushed vocals. This track, among others on Red Hash, sprung from Gary’s dive into open tunings.
There are several other highlights on the album, including a spellbinding organ solo by Paul Fenton on the track “It Didn’t Take Too Long”, in which he somehow makes it sound like a pedal steel guitar. I’ve never heard anything like it. Gary described it as a Farfisa organ with echo and tape delay and “to this day is the best keyboard lead anyone ever did”.
Pretty songs deserve pretty titles, and “I Pick Notes from the Sky” checks off both. With its quiet dual-acoustic guitar opening, it builds to a crescendo not by adding drums or simply increasing volume, but by bringing in subtle piano and cello which creates a striking tension as Gary repeats the refrain “Why don’t you sing?/we’ve got to sing it, i-i”
By the time Red Hash was finished recording, Gary had to report to prison. He didn’t have a chance to mix the album, design the cover, or even name it. All of this was done by his musical pals, friends, and wives/girlfriends of the musicians involved. Together, they got 2500 copies privately pressed. Gary recalled that at the time, the pressing plant was on strike and his buddies had to go there themselves to physically package the album.
On the back cover, it reads “Our personal thanks to Francis M. McDonald, States Attorney, City of Waterbury, County of New Haven Connecticut, without whose cooperation this album may have never been possible”. Quite possibly the only album ever dedicated to the prosecutor who put the artist behind bars. But as Gary said, it was the arrest and short time available that prompted him into action.
Red Hash was released and immediately sank into obscurity. Not surprising, given the fact it was a small private pressing and it’s creator had no means of promoting it or playing live.
A couple of years later, Gary was released from prison. Still on probation, he focused on rebuilding his life – family and employment took precedence over music, and over time Red Hash just became a distant memory.
Decades later, while working as a nurse it was brought to his attention that his album was listed in record-collecting magazines commanding big bucks. Gary’s little album recorded with a few friends was becoming known as a cult classic. He told me “I had no idea that it was as sought after as it apparently turned out to be”.
Musician Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance was a fan. So much so in fact that not only did he include a cover of “Thicker Than a Smokey” on their 2005 album School Of Flower, but also included a “missing persons” style flyer asking anyone who knew of Gary’s whereabouts to get in contact. Ben had a buddy at Drag City records who upon hearing Red Hash made it his mission to find Gary, eventually succeeding. Gary said, “I got a letter from Zach Cowie at Drag City…if it was a phone call I would have hung up on the guy, only because it didn’t seem real”.
Drag City reissued Red Hash on CD in 2005 and LP in 2008 with an additional 7″ that included a couple of bonus tracks. It received universally strong reviews from every major music publication. Red Hash finally found an audience.
This led Drag City to green-light a new project and in 2009, 36 years after his debut, Gary finally got a chance to record a follow-up. Appropriately titled Seconds, it shows that over the years he still had his songwriting chops. Strong lyrics have always been one of Gary’s trademarks, and the first words you hear on Seconds are “I’ve got demons upon my back/they don’t travel nice”. Songwriting chops indeed.
Gary still plays today. And those musicians who helped him record Red Hash? They are still his bandmates, all those years later.
Red Hash is one of those albums that unfolds a little more every time you play it. It has a relaxed vibe, with excellent lyrical references and fantastic musicianship throughout. My guest commentator for the show Uncle Herff describes it as a “very stone-y David Crosby” and also compares it to the great Oar album by Skip Spence. I give Red Hash a Farmer John rating of 8.5 hay bails out of 10.
It’s great to see an artist with this amount of talent finally getting the attention he so richly deserves, even if it is a few decades late.
Farmer John is a musician and host of the audio podcast “Psychedelic Relics & Other Vinyl Treasures”. Each epysode (the “y” is on purpose) of the show features an under-the-radar album and includes interviews with artists and musicians connected with the project. You can listen on any podcast platform. Gary’s full interview, story, and Red Hash track analysis can be heard on the most recent Epysode of the show.
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