The Harvesters

Here are some samples of our lyrics:

Between The Rose And Thistle © The Harvesters 2002

He rode out with the Foxhunt and the stalkers,
Or slaughtered grouse and pheasant on the moors.
His family closed the rights of way to walkers,
Then tried to mow them down in four-by-fours.
From this great divide, from this social chasm wide
Love blossomed where they never said it should.
By the banks of Tweed was undying love decreed,
And consummated in a nearby wood.

To The Ends Of The Earth. © The Harvesters 2002

Each morning our number grows fewer
Another soul borne on its way,
A grateful demise in the merciless heat of the day.
No wind moves the canvas, no waves move the sea,
No sails on horizons, no land to the lee,
We pray for delivery from Hell and this strange purgatory.

Lavender and Lilac © The Harvesters 1998

They say he marched out bravely, to meet his final dawn
To die to please superiors who treated him with scorn.
And the last humiliation, these words of witness borne,
Upon the cross that marked his rest saying simply: "Died at Dawn"

Lavender and Lilac
Sepia and lace.
I would trade in all my memories,
To see once more his face,
Lavender and Lilac.

One Step Forward. © The Harvesters 1998

Now everyone is famous for a short time so they say
And your fifteen minutes glory might even come today.
But first impressions mean the most and you have to make your mark
And it's no use bowing to the crowd when you're acting in the dark.
If you stand up to be shot down then it's confidence you lack,
And you'll be going one step forward and going two steps back.

The Country Set. © The Harvesters 1999

We came to change our lifestyle and gain the upper hand,
And find our rural heaven in this green and pleasant land.
We learned to love the Aga, green wellies and the latch,
The bull-bars and the spaniel, the pot-pourri and thatch.
We mixed with all the right sorts, the hyphenated names,
And anyone called Henry, Blanche, Lucinda, Kate or James.

We haunt the barn conversions and the bijou residence,
And keep the common world at bay behind a six-foot fence.
We have The Times delivered and subscribe to Country Life,
And Harrods send the hampers and the headscarves for the wife.
We go to all the country fayres we love the antique stalls,
We like to hold our craft days and we like to hold our balls.

Twenty-three weeks we travelled, 'til we heard that the land was then in view. Nobody cheered though the journey's end was near, For our sentence was all that we knew. They counted us all, and every name did call, though four dozen would not answer now They forced us to toil on the unforgiving soil, of a land that had never known the plough.

INSTRUMENTS

We pride ourselves on the quality and tone of our instruments, which is why
we recently moved away from using built-in pickups to using studio-quality
condenser microphones, which allow us ample room for movement on stage
while still providing sound quality unmatched by transducers. Or at least,
that's our opinion........! Better still, we are freed from trailing
cables all over our dancing space.

Most of the stringed instruments we use on stage were made for us by Stefan Sobell during the past twenty five years. We love everything he has ever made and his Web site address can be found on our Contacts page.

Guitars:
Stefan Sobell flat-top. We own the second one he ever made and wouldn't part with it for any amount of money.
Tanglewood TG-10 A cutaway with built-in pickup with a lovely sound and usually tuned to DADGAD to save us having to retune the Sobell between songs.

Bouzouki                Stefan Sobell 8-string large-bodied with cedar top. Octave strings on bottom pair and tuned DADA or DADG.
Cittern               Stefan Sobell 10-string large-bodied with cedar top. Tuned GDGDG
Guittern             Stefan Sobell 12-string large-bodied cittern with spruce top. Tuned like a conventional 12-string guitar but in F# pitch due to smaller neck length.
Mandolin             Stefan Sobell 8-string large-bodied with cedar top. Tuned EADG.
Dulcimer            Stefan Sobell 6-string. A rare beastie as Stefan doesn't list these and told us that he has made very few. Tuned DAD, which is also unusual but works for us.

Fiddle            Labelled "Stainer". Ian's grandfather bought it for his father to learn on. Ian hated playing fiddle at school but rediscovered it playing for Morris dances. Also has a Skylark model bought by Sue for a Christmas present.
Bodhran             A Gremlin instrument with a range of beaters.
Concertina            Sue plays two Lachenal 48-key treble models. The wooden-ended model has a sweet tone but the metal-ended Ideophone model makes the most impressive sound.
Whistles            Although we rarely play these on stage, Ian loves to record with them. We have four models (C, D, Low F, Low G) by the excellent skills of Bernard Overton and a handful of Generation models in most available keys.

PERIOD INSTRUMENTS.
Hurdy-Gurdy             Built by Ian from Early Music Shop kit, this is a replica of a medieval instrument and is very loud.
Bagpipes    Also built by Ian from EMS kit, these are the "Praetorius" style mouth-blown pipes with two drones on a common stock and a rather large chanter. Loud!
Medieval Fiddle   Also built by Ian it has five strings and is fretted.
Cornameuse Built by Ian and has a soft and sweet tone for a reed instrument.
Crumhorns   Made by the French firm Ramsa, we have a Soprano and Tenor
model.
Bombarde    Also known as a Breton Shawm, this is probably the loudest
instrument we own and has been known to set peacocks calling up to a mile away!
Recorders   Like almost all Renaissance and Elizabethan musicians, we have
a set of these, ranging from the Sopranino by Yamaha (twin exhausts) through our favourite Moeck descant (or Soprano) to a Treble by Aulos and a Tenor by Dolmetsch.