Harmony Row

{{Short description|Album by Jack Bruce}}

{{for|the film|Harmony Row (film)}}

{{Use British English|date=January 2014}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2014}}

{{Infobox album

| name = Harmony Row

| type = studio

| artist = Jack Bruce

| cover = HarmonyRow.jpg

| alt =

| released = July 1971

| recorded = January 1971 (except track #13 October 1969)

| venue =

| studio = Command Studios, London (except track #13 Morgan Studios, London)

| genre = Progressive rock, jazz-rock, blues-rock

| length = 42:39 (initial release),
57:01 (2003 reissue)

| label = Atco
(initial US release, SD 33-365)
Polydor
(initial UK release, 2310 107;
2003 reissue, 065 605-2)

| producer = Jack Bruce

| prev_title = Things We Like

| prev_year = 1970

| next_title = Out of the Storm

| next_year = 1974

}}

{{Album ratings

| rev1 = AllMusic

| rev1Score = {{Rating|3.5|5}}{{cite web |url= http://www.allmusic.com/album/harmony-row-r78139 |title=Harmony Row – Jack Bruce | AllMusic |first=Joe |last=Viglione |work=allmusic.com |year=2011 |access-date=3 December 2011}}

| rev3 = The Village Voice

| rev3Score = C+{{cite news|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|date=14 October 1971|url=http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/cg/cg20.php|title=Consumer Guide (19)|newspaper=The Village Voice|location=New York|access-date=14 April 2013}}

| rev2 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music

| rev2Score = {{Rating|4|5}}{{cite book|last=Larkin|first=Colin|author-link=Colin Larkin|title=The Encyclopedia of Popular Music|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|edition=4th|isbn=978-0195313734|title-link=The Encyclopedia of Popular Music}}

}}

Harmony Row is the third studio album by Scottish musician Jack Bruce, originally released in July 1971.

The album takes its title from a tenement street in Glasgow, near where Bruce grew up.Liner notes to the album's 2003 reissue, Polydor Records, catalog No. 065 605-2, page 10. The street, since demolished, was famous as the largest unbroken houserow in Europe, stretching for over a mile.{{cite web |title=Harmony Row (1971) |website=Jack Bruce's official Web site |url=http://www.jackbruce.com/2008/Music/Albums/harmony_row.htm |access-date=5 April 2009}} The album's cover photo was taken near the Harmony Row tenement in Govan.

Although since cited by Bruce as his favourite solo album,Liner notes to the album's 2003 reissue, page 7. Harmony Row did not chart upon its release. The album would be his last solo effort for over three years, as Bruce would join the power trio West, Bruce and Laing (with whom he would record three albums) in early 1972. The song "The Consul at Sunset", which was inspired by the Malcolm Lowry novel Under the Volcano, was released as a single in 1971 (Polydor 2058–153, b/w "A Letter of Thanks").

On its release, Tony Palmer wrote in the London Observer:

The musicality is polished and exact. The spontaneity of the performance suffers a little, but that is a small price to pay for the skill of the recording. The music flows precisely out of the nuances of the words; their meanings inexplicably linked with the kind of sound produced. It’s almost impossible to imagine the songs being performed in any other way by any other group of musicians.Tony Palmer, ‘Bruce comeback’, London Observer 1 August 1971 p. 24