Haves & Haves

We're Janis and Geoff Haves. Husband and wife team playing and singing lyric driven, story powered acoustic folk/americana.

We travel and tell our stories from our home on wheels, Big Gus the Bus, our ex 17 seater minibus.,

Geoff is a long term professional session guitarist and producer, and we've recorded three albums together. Along the way, on the road, we joined Albert Lee and Hogans Heroes as support on two UK tours as well gig supports for Mary Gautier, Will Kimborough, Rod Picott, Clive Gregson and our good friend Grammy award winning artist Bob Cheevers. Janis also toured with 'Songwriters in the Round' alongside Peter Bruntnell and folk legend Michael Chapman.

Gesine Garz Photography

Albums

Reviews

Bob Harris's (Radio 2) Whispers

'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.'

Dave Sedley (promoter) - Psychos at The Monkey Cafe

'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!'

David Mundell - Mundell Music

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!nd they made our big day truly unforgettable!

Folk World - Big Front Door : Janis Haves

The thing that strikes me about this album is that it is ideal material for consideration should they be wanting to bury a capsule that incorporated all that is quintessentially ENGLISH. Note that I said “English” and not “British”.
Janis has a pleasant warm voice that seems blissfully unmannered. And Praise God she is not singing in an English regional accent (about three notches up from the regional accent in which that performer would SPEAK!): but rather in RP (“Received Pronunciation”) English with diction that thus makes her splendidly readable lyrics (in white on charcoal grey in the liner booklet) a bit superfluous.
Janis and husband/producer Geoff Haves have built a solid reputation these past few years as performers. She has one of those sweet fragile voices: just like an English version of Irish songstress, Dana. Janis is a former staff writer of potential hit records at the famous Rockfield Studios in Monmouth. And it shows.
My favourite track is her opener. “Gwendoline” evokes the memory of her singing teacher. You might think it too personal a song for other artistes to pick up on: but no. It does not matter that you or I did not have a singing teacher called by this name: we can all relate to it. She marvellously evokes the kind of memory we ALL had as kids of certain people in our life. A mixture of love, respect and – yes, a little – FEAR too! I certainly felt just the same way about the lady who taught me piano as a small boy, and I am sure I would get much the same sensations should I return to her house today after half a century.
There is a commercial aspect to the sound of her songs: they all are knocking at the door of instant memorability (essential if one’s writing pop songs). Of course Janis will say that these songs (aimed incidentally at the memory of several now-deceased women who had made an impact on her life) are the very antithesis of pop. And of course they are: but that said, her knowledge that the HOOK is everything in pop, never leaves her. So “Waiting For Jesus” (a very serious song) has the catchiest of choruses.
She won’t thank me for saying that I see her voice as more Lynsey De Paul than Joan Baez! (Yes, dig myself out of THAT one! Well actually, I don’t have to: Lynsey De Paul was a very tuneful singer!)
But what the heck! Janis is NATURAL. She is a breath of fresh air.