‘My mother called me Silver. I was born part precious metal part pirate’.
‘…and the stories I want to tell you will light up part of my life, and leave the rest in darkness. You don’t need to know everything. There is no everything. The stories themselves make the meaning.’
– Jeanette Winterson, in: Lighthousekeeping
The Tall Tales is a band which can vary in its line-up and number. The band plays with my songs and depending on where we play can also include improvisations and poetry. The musicians are active in the improvised music and jazz worlds and bring a rich melodic vocabulary to the folk songs and poetry. We’ve been playing like this over a number of years, sometimes with two, sometimes with six of us. Poet Julia-Beth Harris joined in 2022. The Tall Tales often gives more attention to strings, with acoustic, electric and lap steel guitars. These are The Tall Tales musicians:
Felicity Provan (trumpet, vocals)
Joost Buis (lap steel guitar, trombone)
Paul Pallesen (electric and acoustic guitar)
Julia-Beth Harris (poetry)
Michael Moore (alto and bass clarinet)
Alan Purves (drums, percussion)
Michael Vatcher (drums, percussion)
