The three musicians PJ Harvey considers her greatest influences
English singer-songwriter PJ Harvey is known for her experimental sound. Drawing on folk, punk, and blues influences, she has released a slew of critically acclaimed albums such as Dry and To Bring You My Love. Known for her music’s earthy, raw qualities, she leans on eery melodies and poetic verses, having published scores of her own poetry, and her genre-defying music has endeared her to alternative fans across the world.
While Harvey’s influences are fittingly wide-reaching, she isolated three major inspirations throughout the PJ Harvey: In Their Own Words documentary. After spending years leafing through her parent’s record collection, 1960s rock became a vital touchstone for Harvey, with Bob Dylan providing ample inspiration.
She has often covered his material, initially with folk duo The Polekats and eventually on her second album, 1993’s Rid Of Me, when she drove Dylan’s ‘Highway ’61 Revisited’ to newly punk heights. Lyrically, Dylan is a clear influence, with Harvey touting his writing as “beyond music“. She shares his ability to drift from deeply thematic albums to portrayals of real-world events, heartbreak, and love. John Parish was as important a musician to Harvey as Dylan was.
After recruiting her to his band Automatic Dlamini, he gave Harvey constant guidance and music recommendations, solidifying them as lifelong friends and collaborators. The band’s ever-changing line-up also led Harvey to her first backing band, made up of Ian Olliver and Rob Ellis. Parish has produced and played on many of Harvey’s albums, including their joint albums, Dance Hall At Louse Point and A Woman a Man Walked By – and is a constant presence in Harvey’s live band.
It was Parish who sold her on the wild sounds of Captain Beefheart, who a young Harvey didn’t make much of. “I’d heard Beefheart when I was really young through my father and my mother, they had all of Beefheart’s work, but when I was a child it just used to make me feel ill,” she admitted.
But Parish reintroduced her to Don Van Vliet’s bizarre work again as a teenager, and her tastes had changed dramatically. So much so that they became firm friends, and Harvey played bass for his former Magic Band member Morris Tepper. “Captain Beefheart phoned up because he just wanted to say he liked what I was doing,” she once explained of their friendship.
“And we just talked about everything for about two hours,” she added. “I just sort of followed his dislocated line of conversation, and I learnt an enormous amount from him. He was just full of enthusiasm to tell me about things I should listen to, things that he thought I would like to see and wanted to know what artists I liked.”
