Biography

I first took an interest in sea shanties and ballads while as a fiddler playing dances sponsored by the Baltimore Folk Music Society back in the mid-70s. Informally, some member would initiate a shanty and others participated by improvising various harmony parts. I then discovered recordings by the likes of Louis Killen, Jeff Warner, Gordon Bok. In the late 70s, I performed sea ballads as a member of a traditional Irish band. The Clancy Brothers’ Sing the Sea album and sea ballads recorded by the Dubliners were attractive to me for the instrumental arrangements had become an important aspect of the presentation. The recordings of Ewan MacColl sparked my interest, especially the BBC documentary, Sing The Fishing, as social science, cultural history, and musical art are interfaced. The 1961 recording, Sea Shanties, by The Men of the Robert Shaw Chorale sets a high bar for shanty vocal arrangements. Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony employing the poetry of Walt Whitman is inspirational because of the programmatic nature of the score that captures the varying moods of the sea. All of these influential sources in some way or other comprise the background for this work, SEA BOUND.