Interesting Interview: Joshua Harvey
There's a good chance you've heard the name Josh Harvey lately. He's popped up on podcasts, presented about music at conferences, joined a Sherlockian group overseas, and possibly let you know about a Sherlockian play happening in your area. But many folks have opened up their inboxes to find a message from Josh saying he's made a gift for their scion. Sketches of Scions is a project where Josh creates a theme song and video for Sherlockian societies that everyone loves. (My favorite is The Parallel Case of St. Louis but I may be a bit biased.)
It goes without saying how nice Josh is, but I'm always taken aback by how smart this guy is! I learn half a dozen new things every time I talk to him, and God bless him for not getting annoyed every time I ask, "what does that mean?" So get ready to be entertained and enlightened with this week's Interesting Interview, Joshua Harvey:
How do you define theword “Sherlockian”?
Simply put: I think anyone that is interested or invested in any iteration ofthe master detective is a Sherlockian. It can be the canon, mass mediaversions, radio plays, pastiches—even music or dance or visual art. Engagementwith the characters and legacy of Holmes and Watson is the only qualifier forme. Different levels of study and hobby follow beyond that, from amateur toconsulting to professional, but the core seed is simply enjoying the charactersand the stories derived from them.
How did you become a Sherlockian?
I began, like many people, by watching the Granada series starring JeremyBrett. I watched them as a child on PBS Mystery in their original broadcast. Ithen began reading the canon and sort of fell in love with mysteries in general(Philip Marlowe, Perry Mason, Nero Wolfe). There’s obviously enough of thatcontent to keep you going for pretty much forever. When the RDJ movies and BBC Sherlockcame out, it got me reinterested and I bought and watched the Brett films allover again. This led me back to the stories and my first society, The SherlockHolmes Society of Scotland. A few years later I presented at 221BCon where Ifirst encountered some of the national Sherlockians. Once Covid hit and thefloodgates of scion meetings were accessible via Zoom I was able to makeconnections worldwide and learn from so many wonderful folks.
What is your profession and does thataffect how you enjoy being a Sherlockian?
During most of my life Ihave been a professional musician (pianist, music director/conductor) who worksin collegiate musical theatre, with side work in church music and all sorts ofother gigs. Of course this really leads me to be interested in the musicalaspects of Holmes, musical references in the canon, and the musics representingHolmes in other media.
What is your favorite canonical story?
Equally: "The Musgrave Ritual" and "The Second Stain." I know that’s cheating, but here we are.
Who is a specific Sherlockian that you think others would find interesting?
Dang, there are so many! I would like to give a shout out to LynneStephens, who was the first Sherlockian to spend impactful time with me at 221BConmy first year there. We were able to reconnect this year at Dayton’s Holmes,Doyle and Friends conference. I love her work on food and restaurants inthe time of the canon—and she is going to know more about marketing and the TVindustry than anyone, which I something know absolutely nothing about. She alsoshares my love of travel and is quite an Anglophile! I also wish that more peopleknew Barry Young, The Scotland Yard Jack-in-Office of the Sherlock HolmesSociety of Scotland, owner of Young’s Interesting Books in Glasgow, anall-around great human and kind-hearted bloke! We communicate at leastquarterly or so on some book or other that he is trying to acquire in the U.S.,or I via eBay from the U.K. A great man and a lifelong friend.
What subset ofSherlockiana really interests you?
Obviously as a musician I love the musical aspects, whetherthey are parody songs written for meetings, soundtracks, or new works withmusic, bad rap songs written for YouTube, whatever—I want to hear everything.Of those I quite like when people make their own musical medleys of variousfamous soundtrack themes.
As the curator of Patrick Gower's Granada musical what interesting tidbits have you come across?
Of all the many thingsthat are striking, my favorite is that the soundtrack album has bits that werenever in the actual TV show. That is: he wrote new musical material for thealbum, mostly so that he could hide the main melody in places that hadn’t beenavailable to him prior.
How did Sketches of Scions come about?
Randomly I was given permission by the heads of The Legion of Zoom to writesomething as start-up music for their first online conference. Later on thenext fall I had a fair amount of time in my academic schedule to be creativeand people had commented on the improbable possibility that the original piecehad been the first theme song for a scion. That sort of spurred me to considerother groups in other cities with other canonical connections.
It's an ongoing project,so when I next have time and energy, there will be more forthcoming!
What book would you recommend to other Sherlockians?
Option #1 will always be the BSI Press’ Referring to My Notes (ed.Katz/Wilson), which is chock full of excellent essays on many of the variousmusical references in the canon. Each article is just a delight in reading andlearning. The blurb on the BSI Press website says something similar to what Ithought when I began reading it—these essays are far more scholarly andadvanced past the first seminal, but incomplete, monograph by Guy Warrack.
Where do you see Sherlockiana in 5 or 10 years from now?
Fortunately, I have seen the streams of the differentcommunities grown closer together via the pandemic and Zoom meetings. I alsofeel like the traditional holder of canonical studies, the BSI, has opened upto so many younger and different Sherlockians who come from other forums, like221BCon. There is room for them all and we need to keep making room for themall! I also hope that in the next decade we have new media adaptations ofHolmes and Watson to keep younger generations gatewayed (but not gatekept) intothe canon stories that we all know and love.
