Welcome to Harness Family Band

The Harness Family Band. A simple name for a band. Not a particularly flashy or catchy name, but the one that fits. It is a family that makes music....together....for the love of the music, and...each other.

From the back of hay wagons and backyard barbeques, to the stage of the Ford Theater at the Honeywell Center, this band has played a wide variety of venues over the last 20 years, with entertaining audiences and sharing that love of the music, the goal of each performance.

"We consider each opportunity to play for an audience, a privilege, and we approach every performance with that in mind", says founder and patriarch, Ellis Harness. He and his wife, Oleda, introduced music to their four boys at an early age when they were singing and playing with various groups in their home church throughout the 1960's and 1970's. Gospel music was the foundation, but country and bluegrass were always in the mix as the boys were growing up.

Oldest son Rick began playing guitar at age 10 when Ellis bought him his first Sears & Roebuck model for Christmas 1967. Youngest son James had the same experience when Robert bought James his first banjo at age 8. Brothers Robert and Tim began singing with the band at similar ages and Robert took up the mandolin while Tim experimented with the bass. Over the years, Tim has taken over lead singing duties and Robert has been unable to play full-time with the band.

The band and the family continued to expand, however, and now includes Rick's wife, Dawn on the bass, his father-in-law, Kenny Carmichael on the mandolin, and his brother-in-law, Kevin Carmichael on rhythm guitar. Rick's mother-in-law, Judy Carmichael, provides crucial accordion to the band's Tex-mex flavored tunes and also serves as the band's official photographer/videographer. Patriarch Ellis and wife, Oleda provide both lead & harmony vocals, as well as rhythm guitar. Rick and Dawn's daughters, Lacy and Lindsay not only lend their well-honed harmony voices to many of the band's numbers, but also have their own solo and duet parts of the show. Son, Luke provides solid dobro work sharing duties with his Uncle James as he has shown a real talent for that traditional bluegrass instrument.

The band's strengths lie in their tight family harmonies, solid rhythm, and hot solo licks, most notably from banjo/dobro picker, James. Equally important, however, is the song selection and the enthusiasm for the music that they are able to convey to audiences. Whether it be an old country or bluegrass standard, a classic rock 'n roll tune adapted to their bluegrass instrumentation, or one of the several band-written tunes, the idea is to convey the heart of the song. This, they do, every time out.