Album Notes

"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!