May 2008
Spring is here in Maine (finally),
and there’s lots of news! I’m particularly pleased to announce that
my cassette album of shanties and sailors’ songs, From Salthouse
Dock, is once again available, newly-remastered in CD format. If
you've heard, or own the cassette, this new CD is so much cleaner and
clearer sounding, I am astonished; and a tip of the hat to Scott Elson
at Acadia Recording Company in Portland, Maine
www.acadiarecording.com
for making that happen.
I think you will enjoy hearing the songs of the shantyman presented
as they might have been heard aboard square-rigged merchant sailing
vessels of the 19th Century. With the great Liverpool shanty group Stormalong
John, and the legendary "Shanty Jack" of Hull as the
"crew," we sail through 19 of the most famous (and infamous)
shipboard work-songs and off-duty "main-hatch songs" from the
Days of Sail. And there are three contemporary songs of the sea,
including two in the old style written by Yours Truly.
Sing Out! Magazine has hailed From Salthouse Dock
as one of the best shanty albums performed in traditional style, that
is, close to what shantying sounded like in the 1800s. As an
"added bonus," the new CD features three tracks that
were not included on the cassette.
Visit our Recordings
page for details.
And if you want to hear traditional sea music "live," you have
outstanding opportunities to do so. I will be making my 28th appearance
at the annual Sea Music Festival at Mystic Seaport in Mystic,
Connecticut during June 13-15. It's a great weekend filled with sea
music concerts, mini-concerts and workshops, plus a scholarly sea-music
symposium for good measure! Check out www.mysticseaport.org
for up-to-date information.
On Sunday, July 20, I will appear in concert at the Maine Maritime
Museum in Bath, Maine. I’ll be sharing the stage with my musical
partner David Peloquin, a fine singer of British and American
traditional shanties and sea songs. After separate sets, we'll cap off
the evening by bringing together his beautiful tenor voice and my
baritone in a short program of shanties and songs related specifically
to ships and seafarers from the State of Maine. The festivities
begin at 7:30 p.m.: log on to www.mainemaritimemuseum.org
or call 207-443-1316 for more information.
I’m also happy to say that Eagle’s Whistle Music will
soon release a new CD entitled Waiting for Nancy: Old-time Country Duets,
featuring the "banjer" and hammered-dulcimer playing of Curt
Bouterse, and myself on a variety of gourd, minstrel and conventional
banjos, guitar, and concertina. Curt and I have performed together, off and
on, for 40 years, so this album of instrumental and vocal music is long
overdue. We expect to see it released this May: watch this website or
cdBaby.com for more information!
Many of you have asked if I planned to make my albums
available as MP3 files on the Internet. I'm happy to say that we have
signed a contract with Digstation.com to carry Full Circle:
The Solo Banjo Sessions. Now, you can immediately download your
favorite tracks simply by going to http://www.digstation.com/AlbumDetails.aspx?albumid=ALB000005005
and follow Digstation's easy pathway. You can hear portions of each
track, download the ones you can't live without; or you can download the
entire album for less than the cost of the CD. It's a great way to
get banjo music on your iPod or other take-it-with-you audio devices!
As I've mentioned before, there's a lot of good news about my new
banjo CD Full Circle: The Solo Banjo Sessions. My old friend Mary
McCaslin has paid me a fine compliment, which you can read on the cdBaby.com
page that is linked to my new album. And Monika White has written a
wonderful review in the Los Angeles folk-music magazine FolkWorks,
www.folkworks.org.
Also, for as long as it’s on their ever-changing website, the
Bath-Brunswick (Maine) Times Record newspaper has done a fine feature
on banjos and my playing, with an internet slide-show of several banjos I
used on the CD: check out http://www.timesrecord.com/website/archives.nsf/56606056e44e37508525696f00737257/8525696e00630dfe0525732b00730668?OpenDocument
to find the article "Banjo Man," written by Troy Bennett, who is
himself a "banjo man."
Right here where you are now, there's a new page devoted to the banjo and
its history as America's "own" musical instrument. The Sea Shanties
and Cape Horn pages are devoted to the lives of seamen who crewed
the great merchant sailing ships of the 19th Century. You can learn about the
shanties sung by sailors to coordinate the heavy manual labor on deck, and the
"main-hatch songs" that helped to pass their off-duty time on long
voyages across the Seven Seas. There are other arcane facts about seafaring,
too. For example, did you know that the famous Rhode Island Red chicken came to
be after a rooster from Asia was brought to New England aboard a sailing
ship?
Take a trip south’ard to Cape Horn, the place of hoodoo and fear for
generations of deepwater sailors bound between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
And you can obtain CDs of shanties and sea songs and old-time fiddle and banjo
tunes to enjoy at your own pursuits, whether they be gardening, house painting,
open-road journeys, or even sailing to "Cape Stiff!"
Fair winds,
Bob Webb
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