November 11 - Harvesters of Redemption

Up before the dawn. Out in the fields until after dark, then go inside, say your prayers, and get to sleep so you can wake up the next morning, and do it again.
That was the life of the Amish: a never ending cycle of work, prayer, and sleep.
Except for Saturday nights.
Saturday nights were for music: Barn-busting gospel. House-rocking hymns. The Good News cranked out with the intensity of a mid-summer thunder storm, courtesy of Eli Stutzman, Samuel Plank, Daniel Stoltzfus, Abraham Slagel, and Amos Ramseyer, aka the Harvesters of Redemption--the baddest, hardest, and most righteous purveyors of unplugged church music this side of the Erie Canal.
Forget Tesla. The Harvesters were the REAL five man acoustical jam--as in jam the Good News down your throat until it commands you to get up and testify.
And that's what the good, God fearing Amish people of Lancaster County lived for every Saturday night: a good old fashioned Barn Romp featuring the Harvesters of Redemption. Eli on guitar, Samuel on washboard, clogs, and other tools of percussion, Daniel on a milk bottle xylophone, Abraham on fiddle, and Amos on a bass fashioned out of an old plow and the braided tail hair of Deuteronomy, the finest steed in the area.
Musicologists called their firebrand evangelical stomps "farmer core" because the lyrics centered around cultivation--of crops and spirituality. Farmer core combined the rage and intensity of metal, the virtuosity of bluegrass, and the passionate fervor of gospel into one truly feverish, uplifting, and at times terrifying musical idiom.
And make no mistake about it--when the Harvesters played, it was scary. They absolutely punished their instruments while shouting out lyrics about hellfire and brimstone so vivid and extreme they made Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God seem like a Hallmark card.
And then there was their appearance.
The Harvesters dressed in black from head to toe, and wore white face make up with black eyeliner and eye shadow. The white symbolized the goodness that predominated in man, and the black symbolized the darkness that could sometimes cloud man's vision. Put together, it made for a jarring sight, especially along with the furiously intense music they played. Anyone who had seen them knew the Harvesters were all about raising Hell--just so they could beat it back down and remind it who the real boss was.
Jesus Christ.
Their music was loud, rowdy, rough, and hard, but their message was every bit as steeped in gospel as the infinitely more sedate church services that followed on Sunday mornings.
This was by design.
Saturday nights were all about exorcising the demons of the work week so the parishioners could go to church the next morning pure of heart, mind, body, and soul.
To bring about this effect, the Harvesters played their instruments and sang like their very salvation was at stake, like it was their personal duty to protect the souls of every man, woman, and child to set foot inside the rotating circuit of barns where they delivered their fiery musical sermons. They played until they were soaked in sweat, until the women fainted, and until all the men were hollering Hallelujah. They played until everyone leapt and stomped and shook and raised their hands to the heavens and praised Jesus.
And then they played some more.
That was the Harvesters of Redemption.
There may have been other bands in the Pennsylvania Dutch Farmer Core scene--Stigmata; Plow for Now, Salvation Forever; 40 Acres and My Lord--but the Harvesters of Redemption were the cream of the crop. The hardest, loudest, most relentlessly earth rattling Bible thumpers in Lancaster County.