Honey & The Bear are the guests at Grayshott Folk Club

Club spokesman Des O’Byrne said: “After a delayed first gig owing to lockdown in March 2020, they have now played for us twice since then, in May 2022 and November 2023. “British folk and roots duo Honey & The Bear combine delicately interweaving vocal harmonies with emotive and evocative song writing. With a diverse range of sounds, textures and rhythms that flow from the fast and furious to gentle ballads, their live performances are spirited and dynamic. Conjuring up stories in song, they tell tales of Suffolk folklore, courageous people they admire, their passion for nature and the odd heartbreak or two.

“The multi-instrumentalist pair, comprised of songwriters Jon Hart (guitar, bass, bouzouki) and Lucy Hart (guitar, ukulele, bass, banjo, mandolin and percussion), have been writing and performing together since early 2014, having met at a song writing event two years previously. Since then, they have played at many revered venues and festivals across the UK, as well as travelling across the channel for their first European tour.

“This show will feature cherry-picked favourite songs from their back catalogue and for the first time at Grayshott Folk Club tonight, we will be seeing their full, five-piece band. Jon and Lucy will be joined on stage by Toby Shaer (whistles, harmonium, flute, fiddle, bass), Archie Churchill-Moss (melodeon) and Evan Carson (percussion, drums, bodhran). All of these musicians play on all three of Honey & The Bear's albums and all of them have also appeared at Grayshott Folk Club in other bands, at different times.”

Tickets £18 from Grayshott Post Office (in person only) or reserve tickets by calling Des O'Byrne on 01428 607096.

Last year Honey & The Bear celebrated their tenth anniversary.

Lucy explains: “We met at a songwriting evening. We used to go regularly to this place in Ipswich and we happened to be there at the same time. And I just stood there in awe of his guitar skills, to be honest. He sang three songs on this songwriting evening and they had wonderful lyrics and it was just such a good feeling. And everything about the guitar was just perfect and he was very smiley in his presentation!”

Jon recalls: “We sometimes get asked about our name, Honey & The Bear, but actually it was the first thing I thought when I heard her sing, that her voice just had the quality of honey. Sometimes you just hear a quality of voice that moves you and I was just so bowled over by the uniqueness of Lucy’s singing. And when I see something that overwhelms me I just have to say something. I'm quite an honest person in that respect and I gave my full opinion at that first meeting! We started a friendship and we started to talk whenever we met. This was back in 2012 but we didn't really start playing together until I came back from Australia in early 2014. I wanted to learn what I was going to do musically next and the first thing that came to my mind was to work with Lucy and we played our first festival appearance in 2014.”

As Lucy says: “I've always loved singing harmony and our voices blended so well together and it just worked.”

Their albums are Made in the Aker (2019), Journey Through The Roke (2021) and their 2023 album Away Beyond The Fret.

“We did a traditional cover on the second album and I don't think we did any original covers at all on the third. It was all original but our second album was something we did during lockdown. We did 52 streams and we challenged ourselves to write a song every week while we were doing it just to have something fresh to play for audiences and so we ended up producing the second album.”