Coope Boyes & Simpson in Harvest Home - Words and Music from a Traditional Harvest, BBC Radio 2 FM 1995-09-10 brand new transfer from master cassette FLAC


FM Tuner/cheapo Aiwa cassette deck/JVC TD-W718 to adobe audition >Tracks>fades>hiss reduction>Flac

For hundreds of years, the harvest was the climax of the agricultural year - the time marked by heaviest labour and most intense celebration for the whole community. Music played an important part in this season of work. As harvesters cut and bound the sheaves, and during their short periods of rest at mealtimes, old songs made their customary appearance and new tunes were learnt from migrant workers. Customs and tasks of the harvest field were depicted in songs. And when the harvest was eventually gathered, there was song and music at the huge supper that was Harvest Home. It's an image that stays with us. Even today, when crops are cut by machine, the metaphor of the communal harvest recurs powerfully in contemporary song.

Harvest Home uses the voices of participants to draw a picture in words and music of the work of harvesting - the excitement of a first chance to earn an adult wage and the arrival of new faces to 'take the corn', the 'downright slavery' of threshing, the toasts and singing of the 'harvest frolic', gale beer, cakes and new boots for the children, and the bloody harvest of the First War. It includes stories and songs, histories of old customs and even a recipe,written by Georgina Boyes.

Originally commissioned by Sidmouth International Festival of Folk Music for performance at the Pavilion Theatre, Harvest Home has toured widely and this is most of the version adapted for radio, featuring songs and music by Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy, Coope, Boyes and Simpson, Fi Fraser and Georgina Boyes was also broadcast on BBC Radio 2.


This cassette needed hiss reduction - it doesn't sound too bad now though. Not one of my recordings in our household, so referring to the title of track 9, I'll say no more!! I hope the BBC rebroadcast this wonderful show sometime.




01 One man and a machine
02 Drink
03 Cutting expenses
04 Migrant workers
05 Scotland - harvest and courtship
06 The harvest field customs
07 Threshing machines
08 A reasonable weekly wage
09 A woman's work is never done
10 Rollin' home
11 The month of harvesting
12 Non eating traditions
13 A toast
14 Reducing number of workers required
15 The hope for something better/Bringing in the sheaves