BOAT BAND

Bio:

The Boat Band has been purveying serious goodtime music for twenty years. The current line-up is Kate Barfield, Tony Weatherall and Greg Stephens, occasionally joined by friends depending on the gig.

As you can see from the slides above, many other musicians have played with us over the years. Mark Burke(melodeon, rub-board) was with us a lot till recently, and played on "A Trip to the Lakes", the latest CD. Rob"the Bones" Coppard was a regular percussionist for a long time, but he jumped ship on our first Irish tour fifteenish years ago and settled in West Cork. He still joins us for Irish tours, and has been recording with us recently. Igg Welthy(rub-board, gob-iron and occasional ukulele) is an intermittent regular these days. JC Gallow(Mamou, Louisiana) recorded two albums with us and did a lot of tours with us in the cajun-craze years. Allison Parkes was the accordion player for many years. The original line-up, for the first serious boat-touring back in 1989, was Greg and Kate, plus Gavin Lewery(trumpet, melodeon) and Dan Fox (trombone, percussion); also John Wassell(skipper, and baritone sax on two numbers), Liz Pugh(non-playing manager, fixer, publicist and co-owner of Harbinger, the 45-foot double-diagonal planked transport and accommodation). The first recordings also featured Chrissie Gladwin(vocals, percussion), Jez Dolan(alto sax and tea-chest bass), Barrie Marshall (clarinet, soprano sax), Pam Barfield and Wendy Meadley (vocals) Here is the 1989 team(with an addition or two) getting back together in 2009 to sinbg Shallow Brown

Member Since:

May 12, 2008

Members:

Kate Barfield (fiddle, trombone,percussion, +melodeon in the old days). Greg Stephens(guitar, tenor banjo, percussion). Tony Weatherall(melodeon/button accordion, cajun accordion, percussion).Everybody sings. That's the core line up these days. And here we are(with a few extra friends, like the whole of the 1989 band) playing the Romanian tune Muntilor. The arrangement commemorates the trip frfom Islay to the Mull of Kintyre when the boat when into thick fog, and Kate and Dan used their trombones in the bow for four hours as foghorns Here is the whole crew at the 20th Anniversary Concert, (New Vic Theatre, Necastle-under-Lyme), with a cacophonous rendering of Magic Isdland Merengue. That was the tune we used when taking the hat round the west coast harbour bars on the first 1989 boat tour

Influences:

Lonnie Donegan, Two Time Polka, Canray Fontenot, Amadee Ardoin, William Irwin, Gavin Bryars, Blind Willie Dunn's Gin-Bottle Four

Sounds Like:

TONY SINGING BOSCO BLUES, KATE DOING BOSCO STOMP, THEN EVERYONE PLAYING JENNY LIND IN THE GREYHOUND, PENKHULL- STOKE-ON-TRENT

Record Label:

Harbourtown