The story behind the Gary Higgins album Red Hash has been told many times before. This was an album written in 1973 and heard by many for the first time some thirty years later. There was a romantic, touchingly sad, and almost mystical quality to this gem of an album that made it a joy to finally ‘discover’.

Now Gary has released another album, appropriately called Seconds. The difference is that this is an album presumably written for now and not one destined to sit on a dust covered shelf for years before seeing the light of day. What I don’t know is how long these songs have existed in his mind. What I can say, however, is that because of their backgrounds I have to approach the two albums in entirely different ways.

Back in 1973 Gary was facing a lengthy jail term for possession of marijuana. By his own admission his ‘very good lawyer’ got him a ‘reduced’ jail term of two years. At the time Gary was a struggling musician who had written an album’s worth of material. Knowing he was about to lose his freedom he self-released it and, sure enough, both the artist and his album all but disappeared. The legend of Red Hash was born.

Now we have Seconds, an album of seven tracks, his first new recording in over thirty-five years. Staggered by the success of the 2005 Red Hash re- release Gary found himself the subject of numerous interviews. One question that understandably kept being posed was why he hadn’t written or released anything else.

The answer to that question has arrived in the shape of Seconds. Now this is where it gets tricky. Anyone, myself included, who came to Red Hash for the first time in 2005, were probably attracted to it by the romantic and semi-tragic tale of a musician jailed for an offense that has all but been decriminalized subsequently.

It was the hippy versus the State scenario wrapped into a gorgeous and moving collection of songs. With this new album that romanticism is diminished and what you are left with is an album which, despite the artist’s fascinating story, has to be judged from a different perspective.

Article Author: Jeff Perkins

Jeff is a writer who lives in France. He writes CD/DVD box sets, music reviews and has had a book published about David Byron of Uriah Heep. He is 'busy' exploring the music of Europe with his wife Debbie and dog Dylan. It's Dylan that does the writing of course. …

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