tracks

We Be Three Poor Maniners
Tobacco Is Like Love
To Portsmouth
White Up The Shrouds
Saturday Night At Sea
Tom Bowling
The Jamestown Homeward Bound
Norfolk Girls
Running Down To Cuba
The Old Virginia Lowlands
Bound For Baltimore
The Titanic
Rosanna
See You When The Sun Go Down
Sailing Down The Chesapeake Bay
Mail Day

notes

Four Centuries of Maritime Music on the Chesapeake Bay.” From favorites composed during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I, when tobacco was king, to Tin Pan Alley numbers of the early 20th Century, when hydraulics began to replace muscle, this Sailor’s Companion charts the history of an important musical journey. Like this nation, the songs begin an ocean away from England to Africa and are transformed by commerce, technology and social change into something uniquely American.

A meticulous researcher with musical skills to match, John Townley leads the Press Gang—a group of friends and fellow musicians who were ‘shanghaied’ into a recording studio for these sessions. Among their number are cellist Anne Waple, pianist Blanton Bradley and grand champion Scots fiddler John Turner.

Townley’s enlightening liner notes are accompanied by vintage maritime illustrations to complete this delightful package.

This release is part of the Maritime Music International Series.

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