Haves And Haves
Haves And Haves
© Copyright-Janis And Geoff Haves
(634479696626)
Record Label: Way Out West
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"Mr & Mrs Haves were an unknown quantity to me. What an eye opener it proved to be. Great, great songs, an exceptional voice (Janis), perfectly blended harmonies & really nifty guitar playing (Geoff). All this and....they're British ?? Very few English people can really effectively capture the feel of this kind of music, let alone write songs like these as well."
.........Bob Harris's (Radio 2) Whispers Website - May 2002
'In the two and a half years I've been running this club - that was one of the best songwriter sets I've heard - brilliant'
......... Dave Sedley (promoter) on a live set at Psychos at The Monkey Cafe , Swansea - Oct 2002
Janis and Geoff Haves are based near Kingston-upon-Thames, a lively suburb of south west London. Both are extremely experienced performers and musicians in their own right.
Janis has toured most of Britain with her band the Ice Garden and later as one half of the infamous Nott Sisters an upfront 'girlpower' country influenced singer/songwriter project. Janis also appeared on Sky T.V.'s 'Where It's At' programme and was a featured artist on Radio 4a. Geoff has been a professional guitarist playing sessions and doing gigs for over 25 years. He has played on most of London's large stages including the Shepherds Bush Empire and Wembley Arena.
After the Nott Sisters parted company, Janis and Geoff decided it was time to pool their resources and with Janis providing the songwriting and lead vocals and Geoff producing and playing all the guitars 'Haves & Haves' was born!
Two years hard work followed, with the help of some great musician friends especially Graham Walker (Gary Moore band) on drums, Paul Westwood (Elton John band, author of 'The Bass Bible' and one of London's most top session musicians) on bass guitar, and talented producer/engineer Dave Dix (Black's hit single- 'It's a wonderful Life', Alison Moyet etc.) applying his expertise to the final mixing and mastering .
The resulting album truly does what it was intended to do. Geoff's guitar work is layered and beautiful providing a perfect backdrop for Janis's crafted hook laden songs, and the whole album has an overiding sense of calm, warmth and confidence.
There are powerful influences clearly evident from the American side of the pond, both in the songwrting and the guitar playing, but this album is absolutely not another American re-make, far from it, from the opening mysterious drama of 'Mississippi In The Spring' through the acoustic simplicity of 'Shameless' to the guitar driven 'cow- punk' energy of 'Gone' this is an album that truly has it's own voice - soft and sweet - loud and clear!
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A superb debut all told, difficult to prise away from the CD player!
author: david Kidman
Listening to this album blind, for much of its length I could have sworn I
was listening to a quality product from the Nashville fringe. It's classy
and accessible pop-flavoured country-styled contemporary songwriting, and
the majority of the songs hooked me straightaway. Imagine my surprise then,
when I read the press handout to find that Haves And Haves are Janis and
Geoff Haves, a husband-and-wife duo based in Kingston, Surrey. Both have a
healthy pedigree within the music business already - Janis with the band
Ice Garden and Geoff as a professional session guitarist for over 25 years
- but have up to now deliberately resisted working together; this step was
taken following a growing realisation that Janis was building up a hefty
catalogue of songs. Hence this album, on which Janis writes all the
material and sings while Geoff plays all the guitars and does some backing
vocals, underpinned by the solid rhythm section of Paul Westwood (bass) and
Graham Walker (drums) on most of the cuts and with one or two other guests
on a handful of cuts. Geoff has a fine grasp of the art of subtle yet
characterful accompaniment, some might say inspired by Buddy Miller. As
well as a mighty fine songwriter, Janis is a pretty exceptional singer (a
bit in the Emmylou Harris mould perhaps, with shades here and there of
Maura Kennedy), possessing both delicacy and a great range, and an innate
ability to get right inside the idiom, whether on the sublime, rippling
Shameless or the soaring torch-ballads Turn Your Love Around and If That
Were Me or the gutsy power-jangle of the tongue-in-cheek Car and An Evening
Spent Alone (Dar Williams meets Lucy Kaplansky?) or the ache of Miss You. A
superb début all told, which has been difficult to prise away from the CD
player!
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