Author: David Harley

1949 - 2025 Former Musician/singer/songwriter; independent author/editor. https://davidaharley.substack.com - biographical information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Harley is largely accurate.

New album: ‘Farewell Reunion’

By David Harley, Dave Higgen, and Nancy Higgen, masquerading as the New Prize Silver Jug Band.

There’s a certain amount of genre hopping here, but no actual jug band music.  Come to that, no brass/silver band either. Next time, maybe.

Back at the end of the 60s at college in North Wales, Dave and I, among others (including Sally Goddard, better known more recently as part of the Canadian band ‘Atlantic Union’, and Paul Dunderdale, last heard of teaching music on the Isle of Man) occasionally gigged under a name that cheekily parodied that of  a local silver band. When Dave and I started (via the wonders of internet connectivity) to record together, it seemed appropriate to resurrect the name (but dropping the name of the real band!)

Farewell Reunion (name taken from one of Dave’s songs) is currently available only from Bandcamp, though it may get streamed at some point. No hurry for that, since it’s unlikely that any of us will live long enough to make the threshold for payment from Spotify etc…

Dave Higgen: engineering and production; bass, drums/percussion, keys, guitars, vocals**, any instruments unaccounted for.

David Harley: octave mandola, most of the guitars and impersonation of other things with strings (but not the harp), vocals*.

Nancy Higgen: vocal on ‘Mad as the Mist and Snow’***

Here’s the tracklist. You don’t have to buy anything to listen to tracks.

  1. Anywhere (Harley)*
  2. Summer (Higgen-Harley)**
  3. Old White Lightning (Harley)*
  4. Bourgeois Domesticity (Higgen)**
  5. A Rainy Day Blues (Harley)*
  6. Mad as the Mist and Snow (W.B. Yeats-Higgen)***
  7. Who Do You Think You Are? (Harley)*
  8. Alone (Higgen)**
  9. Hannah (Upcountry) (Harley)*
  10. Ugly (Higgen)**
  11. Keepsake Mill (Robert Louis Stevenson-Harley)*
  12. Farewell Reunion (Higgen)**
  13. Paper City (Slight Return) (Harley-Higgen)*
  14. Lachaise (Higgen-Harley)*

That ‘Cornish Writers’ interview

Taking off my musician’s hat to masquerade as an author, I’m very pleased to be included on the Cornish Writers site. (To be fair, the bio does include a link to my book on Nashville tuning, so not entirely music-free.)

However, what I really liked about the whole thing was doing this interview, which was a lot of fun. (Mostly, but your mileage may vary.)

David Harley reveals much more about himself and his writing than anyone will ever want to read.