Category: David Higgen

New Album “The River”

This New Album has been released in time for what would have been David’s 77th birthday and now available on Bandcamp.

After the release of Farewell Reunion in February 2025, David (Harley) and Dave (Higgen) got back together to record another album together. Unfortunately during that process David sadly collapsed and died suddenly at home. Dave (Higgen) eventually carried on producing their last album. Maybe Final Reunion could have been an appropriate title, but The River is named after one of David’s songs.

By David Harley, Dave Higgen, and Nancy Higgen, masquerading as the New Prize Silver Jug Band.
All songs, words and music, by David Harley and/or Dave Higgen, except lyrics to ‘When You are Old’ by W. B. Yeats (public domain).
All vocals by *David Harley and/or **Dave Higgen, except lead vocal on ‘Evening to End’ by ***Nancy Higgen.

Instrumentation:

David Harley: electric & acoustic guitars, mandola, banjo.
Dave Higgen: drum and percussion programing, bass, keyboards, synth instruments.
Engineered and produced by Dave Higgen.

The River (name taken from one of David’s songs is currently available only from Bandcamp.

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

  1. The River (*)
  2. Island (**)
  3. Hangman (*)
  4. Diva in Disguise (**)
  5. What Do I Do About You? (*)
  6. Sylvie (I Just Feel Like Letting Go) (*)
  7. When You Are Old (Yeats / Harley)
  8. Bumper to Bumper (*)
  9. One Step Away From the Blues (*)
  10. Living in the Middle (**)
  11. Evening to End (***)
  12. Woodland Glade (*)

license

all rights reserved

David A Harley 31 May 1949 – 29 October 2025

Keepsake Mill

My setting of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. From the New Silver Jug Band’s first album Farewell Reunion. The poem is from ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’.

Link on recording on Bandcamp (you don’t have to buy it to listen). Keepsake Mill

Over the borders, a sin without pardon,
Breaking the branches and crawling below,
Out through the breach in the wall of the garden,
Down by the banks of the river we go.

Here is a mill with the humming of thunder,
Here is the weir with the wonder of foam,
Here is the sluice with the race running under—
Marvellous places, though handy to home!

Sounds of the village grow stiller and stiller,
Stiller the note of the birds on the hill;
Dusty and dim are the eyes of the miller,
Deaf are his ears with the moil of the mill.

Years may go by, and the wheel in the river
Wheel as it wheels for us, children, to-day,
Wheel and keep roaring and foaming for ever
Long after all of the boys are away.

Home from the Indies and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers we all will come home;
Still we shall find the old mill wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam.

You with the bean that I gave when we quarrelled,
I with your marble of Saturday last,
Honoured and old and all gaily apparelled,
Here we shall meet and remember the past.

Words by Robert Louis Stevenson: ‘Dublin Shop Window’ image, tune and vocal by David Harley. All instruments by David Harley and David Higgen.

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)*