Rick Spencer
Rick often introduces the concept of traditional maritime music by describing how people of the past who worked on or near the sea documented their lives in songs which described their lives. In creating these songs they inadvertently left us a remarkable resource, in a very entertaining format, that we can use to learn about their lives. Listening to these songs brings the history of seafaring vividly to life. The same can be said for the literature, poetry, scrimshaw and other forms of "folk" art that have been left to us. You can read more about Rick Spencer on his website: http://www.catfeather.com

Unmooring Unmooring
The song was collected by a scholar and master mariner, W.B. Whall (who first went to sea in 1861) and was included in his book "Sea Songs and Shanties" in 1920. Whall indicated that Unmooring was an "example of the purely professional song, dear to the old-time sailor, and full of seamanship. It was a favourite with the prime old shellback, and was all the more successful in that it had a good chorus about the girls."

Video Performances by Rick Spencer

A traditional song from the Royal Navy, circa 1880s. I learned "Rounding Cape Horn (Amphitirite)" from my association with folk music icon Lou Killen, of Gateshead on Tyne, UK. The song is marvelously and accurately descriptive of the preparation, execution and times ashore following a passage around Cape Horn in the 1880s. The song appears to have originated in the British Navy.

A traditional seafaring song. The sailor's welcome ashore runs out when his money does. "Get Up Jack (Jolly Roving Tar)" is a sailors' adaptation of a song from a New York stage show (circa 1882) called "Old Lavender." The original version disappeared into obscurity until recently, when it was re-discovered. The "folk" version of the song heard here was collected in the middle of the 20th century by several scholars and is still very popular among maritime song enthusiasts.

From the Historic Music Programs "Sweet Sorrow: Songs of Love, Pursuit, Connecting and Parting" and "In Their Own Words: Songs of the Seafaring Traditions." "Adieu Sweet Nancy" appears to have originated in the late 1790s or early 1800s on British Navy ships. It was documented not long afterwards as having made a transition to the American whale fishery.

Rick performs Warren Zevon's Mutineer demonstrating how maritime culture has influenced other genres such as rock. As Rick points out, over the years other significant pop music personalities have composed songs about seafaring. Noteworthy among them are Billy Joel (Downeaster Alexa) and Mark Knopfler (The Trawlerman's Song, Privateering, "So Far From the Clyde, and The Dream of the Drowned Submariner). Even the Beatles did a cover of a maritime song called Maggie Mae about a prostitute that robs the "homeward bounders" (sailors).


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