PJ Harvey

Biography from PJHarvey.net

'Uh Huh Her' is the seventh album from PJ Harvey and the follow-up to the hugely successful 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea' which won the 2001 Mercury Music Prize. After a summer of live dates - including appearances at the V Festival, the Eden Project and the first rock concert at Tate Modern - Harvey finished work on the new record in the autumn of 2003. The album was written, performed, recorded, mixed & produced by Harvey, who chose Head to assist in additional recording and mixing and Rob Ellis, long time collaborator, to play drums and percussion on the album. Multi-instrumentalist, Harvey, played everything else.

From the outset, PJ Harvey has commanded attention. Polly Jean Harvey formed the bass / drums / guitar trio in 1991 in Dorset and by autumn had released the debut single, 'Dress', on indie label Too Pure. With a second single, 'Sheela-Na-Gig', in February 1992, Harvey had begun an impressive critical climb, which set the stage for a highly anticipated album release the following month. 'Dry' was hailed as an astonishing debut, not just in the UK but worldwide and especially in the United States, where Rolling Stone named Harvey Best Songwriter and Best New Female Singer.

In 1993, PJ Harvey signed to Island Records and began work on a follow-up album. The band went into the studio with Steve Albini in Minneapolis and the resulting album, 'Rid Of Me', was released in early '93. The album was supported by a lengthy world tour, drawing increasingly wide audiences and Harvey's first Mercury Prize nomination. However, by the end of the tour, Polly made the decision to dissolve the original trio and explore working with other musicians. The album '4-Track Demos' was released in the autumn of 1993, which comprised of 14 songs, a mixture of unreleased material and Harvey's own demos for 'Rid Of Me'.

'To Bring You My Love' followed in 1995, an eclectic and starkly original album. She enlisted a variety of musicians to play on the album, including John Parish (who co-produced along with Flood and Harvey), keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman and guitarist Joe Gore. The tour which followed saw Harvey explore a theatrical edge to her live performance. She received her second nomination for the Mercury Music Prize and was nominated for two Grammies, received '1995 Artist Of The Year' awards from Rolling Stone and Spin and gained album of the year acknowledgements across the board.

Recording her fifth album, 'Is This Desire?' in London and Dorset, Harvey once again co-produced the album with Flood and once again worked with Rob Ellis from the original P J Harvey line-up. It was released in September '98 and featured 12 new tracks. It attracted plaudits on both sides of the Atlantic and gained nominations for The Brits and The Grammy Awards.

'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea', the much anticipated follow-up to 'Is This Desire?' was released in October 2000. The album, produced and performed by

P J Harvey, Rob Ellis and Mick Harvey, picked up the Mercury Music Prize in 2001, the first album by a female artist to win the award. Described by the NME as "a magnificent, life-affirming opus" 'Stories...' was supported by a lengthy world-wide sellout tour.

Extra-curricular projects include soundtrack work on 'Basquiat', 'Stella Does Tricks', 'The Cradle Will Rock' & 'Six Feet Under' and an appearance as Mary Magdalene in Hal Hartley movie 'The Book Of Life'. In 1996 she worked with John Parish on the album 'Dance Hall At Louse Point' where her words accompanied the music of John Parish for both the album and a live accompaniment to the Mark Bruce Dance Company production of the same name. She has collaborated with an extraordinary range of musicians, duetting with Nick Cave, Tricky, How Gelb of Giant Sand, Pascal Comelade, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes and appearing on Sparklehorse album 'It's A Wonderful Life'. Most recently, she joined Queen's of the Stoneage's Josh Homme on his critically acclaimed 'Desert Sessions' project - released last year - and worked with Mark Lanegan (also of QOSTA) on his forthcoming solo album. Harvey produced the debut album by American artist Tiffany Anders and has most recently written, recorded & produced material for Marianne Faithfull's next album, due for release later this year. In addition to her musical career Harvey has exhibited sculpture in galleries across the country and has had poetry published.

Discography

Dry

Released: March 1992

01. O My Lover

02. O Stella

03. Dress

04. Happy And Bleeding

05. Sheela-Na-Gig

06. Hair

07. Joe

08. Plants & Rags

09. Fountain

10. Water

Rid of Me

Released: April 1993

01. Rid Of Me

02. Missed

03. Legs

04. Rub Til' It Bleeds

05. Hook

06. Man-Size Sextet

07. Highway 61 Revisited

08. 50Ft Queenie

09. Yuri-G

10. Man-Size

11. Dry

12. Me Jane

13. Snake

14. Ecstasy

4 Tracl Demos

Released: October 1993

01. Rid Of Me (Demo)

02. Legs (Demo)

03. Reeling (Demo)

04. Snake (Demo)

05. Hook (Demo)

06. 50Ft Queenie (Demo)

07. Driving (Demo)

08. Ecstasy (Demo)

09. Hardly Wait (Demo)

10. Rub Til' It Bleeds (Demo)

11. Easy (Demo)

12. M-Bike (Demo)

13. Yuri G (Demo)

14. Goodnight (Demo)

To Bring You My Love

Released: February 1995

01. To Bring You My Love

02. Meet Ze Monsta

03. Working For The Man

04. C'mon Billy

05. Teclo

06. Long Snake Moan

07. Down By The Water

08. I Think I'm A Mother

09. Send His Love To Me

10. The Dancer

Dance Hall at Louse Point

Released: September 1996

01. Girl

02. Rope Bridge Crossing

03. City Of No Sun

04. That Was My Veil

05. Urn With Dead Flowers In A Drained Pool

06. Civil War Correspondent

07. Taut

08. Un Cercle Autour Du Soleil

09. Heela

10. Is That All There Is?

11. Dance Hall At Louse Point

12. Lost Fun Zone

Is This Desire?

Released: September 1998

01. Angelene

02. The Sky Lit Up

03. The Wind

04. My Beautiful Leah

05. A Perfect Day Elise

06. Catherine

07. Electric Light

08. The Garden

09. Joy

10. The River

11. No Girl So Sweet

12. Is This Desire?

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

Released: October 2000

01. Big Exit

02. Good Fortune

03. A Place Called Home

04. One Line

05. Beautiful Feeling

06. The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore

07. The Mess We're In

08. You Said Something

09. Kamikaze

10. This Is Love

11. Horses In My Dreams

12. We Float

13. This Wicked Tongue

Uh Huh Her

Released: May 2004

01. The Life And Death Of Mr. Badmouth

02. Shame

03. Who The Fuck?

04. The Pocket Knife

05. The Letter

06. The Slow Drug

07. No Child Of Mine

08. Cat On The Wall

09. You Come Through

10. It's You

11. The End

12. The Desperate Kingdom Of Love

13. Seagulls

14. The Darker Days Of Me & Him

well, she's got the "musicians" part of "babe musicians" covered. I don't know about the other part, though.

I like her very much

Thanks Sanja for the pictures. I love PJ Harvey and haven't seen many before

Early, Dry album era:

Rid Of Me / 4-Track Album / Reeling:

Live in Moscow:

Turn your head, Rhett...this could be traumatic...

Just one more time...hang in there with me...

Seriously, PJ's great..."Stories of the City, Stories of the Sea" is one of my favorites, it won 2 Grammy nominations.