The strange case of Harumi: The 1960s masterpiece written by the man who didn’t exist
There aren’t many mysteries in the music world in the day of the internet. If a fly farts in a live studio these days, then it will likely be logged down in the credits list of a record. Hell, sleuths were even able to track down the location of a mystery recording recently because the unique mating call of a rare endemic bird was picked up in the background. However, I have sat for many tranquil hours listening to the psychedelic pop sounds of Harumi and his self-titled album and I have neither hide nor hair of evidence that such a man ever even existed. Who the hell is Harumi?
There are quite a lot of so-called mysterious songs out there but most of them follow the same pattern: All you need to do is find an old song from the past that never became a hit but was once played on the radio and ask where the hell did this track come from? Well, the chances are, it came from a local act trying to make it big, booking a studio, failing to do the due diligence of filling out forms, handing the demo to a radio station, moving on with their lives, and then suddenly 40 years later someone on the internet says it didn’t get the credit it deserved, and a mystery is afoot.
What separates Harumi from this slew of sleuth-baiting efforts is, firstly, a very notable name on the sleeve. There isn’t much information available at all on the record, but one name stands out like a superstar playing Sunday League: Tom Wilson. The record producer was a world-renowned talent. Before working with the mythic Harumi, he had produced records for Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, The Velvet Underground and Simon & Garfunkel. In short, no punk wandering in off the street could simply request his services.
Aside from the production credit of Tom Wilson, the rest of the album is pretty much blank. It doesn’t have any musicians listed or even a date (although it is believed to have been recorded between 1967-1968). The implication, therefore, is that Harumi is the sole artist responsible for the work. This makes the record a remarkable feat. This is not the work of an outsider artist or a young garage band, this is a virtuoso in the midst of New York’s counterculture revolution with a keen eye for pop melodies and poetry.
And then, somehow, after the release of the record, Harumi disappeared into the ether from whence he came. This undoubtedly imbues its undeniable ethereal feel with an even deeper sense of spiritualism. Even without the mystery surrounding it, mystic and enigmatic are certainly adjectives that might pop up in any review. “Let me create my world, a symphony, my heart, a comedy, my love,” he sings on the album’s opus ‘Fire By The River’ as though he has woven it all into place from afar.
However, it wasn’t as though Harumi was setting up this mystery all along. He didn’t merely want to lay down his album and be done with it. He appeared on The Music Factory radio show for an interview hosted by Wilson and spoke of the spiritual inspirations behind the tracks, a planned tour that seemingly never came to fruition and the various merits of certain songs. Specific details, however, remain frustratingly sparse.
Alongside Harumi’s tracks and conversation, Wilson played other artists like the Velvet Underground, Richie Havens and Dave Van Ronk—none of these people have ever mentioned Harumi. Even Wilson seemed to say shtum about him after the record flopped. The closest you can get to any public recognition for the would-be star is Zappa calling his record a “flower-power anthem”.
Sadly, both Wilson and Rosko (the other collaborator on the record) are no longer with us, and the Verve label claims that the data on the record is essentially a dead end. So, I ask the question: How can a masterful musician emerge from the close-knit counterculture scene of the time, create a masterpiece with an eminent producer, and then disappear from the face of the earth without leaving a trace beyond the album itself? How can nobody know a thing about him? And where is he now? Harumi, if you’re out there, then please do get in touch.
