Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys

November 26, 2009 · Filed Under Songs 

roguesgalleryIt must have seemed like a good idea at the time.   The story goes that Johnny Depp, fresh from playing Captain Jack Sparrow in the highly popular if extremely uneven “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies decided to get his rock star friends together to make a CD of pirate songs and sea chanties.  What could be bad?

The answer to the question, “what could be bad?” regarding Rogue’s Gallery, the two CD set that resulted,  is regrettably –  most of it.  The entire CD may not be execrable garbage, but the majority of it is.  The only really good news is that you do not have to actually buy it to decide for yourself.   By the magic of Youtube, many of the CD cuts are on-line, some in live performance.  Amazon also provides 30 second previews of all 43 songs on the album.

How could so many talented musicians and singers create such noisome noise?  I think most of them just never got the memo.  Most don’t seem to understand what sea chanties or sea songs are all about.    When Nick Cave, the punk rocker, takes the slyly obscene, Fire Down Below, adds punk rock  instrumentation, an out of tune chorus and shouts “And all you mother f__ckers, if you lead a life of sin,” well, shall we say that the charm is lost?  Or when Martha Wainwright sings Lowlands, her voice is fine but is so overwhelmed by the orchestration that the song seems beside the point.  (Most sailors did not travel with full orchestras.)  Likewise, Bono’s  version of A Dying Sailor To His Shipmates is 4 minutes,48 seconds long, of which about 3 minutes is Bono moaning along with the orchestra. And on and on it goes.

To be fair, Richard Thompson, Sting and John C. Riley get it more or less right.  Their songs feature limited accompaniment, straight-forward singing and robust choruses.   I particularly like John C. Riley’s “Fathom the Bowl.”   Nevertheless, these three stalwart singers can’t make up for all the rockstar preening and over orchestration.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys”

  1. Andy on November 26th, 2009 11:22 pm

    Thanks for the review. I’d seen this album, but was not impressed with the short tracks provided on Amazon.

    Here are some that I have liked:

    Roast Beef of Old England (Traditional Sailor Songs) by Jerry Bryant and Starboard Mess

    Classic Maritime Music>/i> from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

    Sea Music by Dan Zanes Festival Five Folk
    — nominally a kid’s CD, but drawing songs from a number of unexpected traditions

  2. Rick on November 27th, 2009 9:33 am

    They all sound like good recommendations. Thanks Andy.

  3. lame-e-lema on November 30th, 2009 7:25 am

    oh, come on. the songs are not that bad. i bought the cd when it was released and still love it. really, even the “punk rock” tracks are fun to listen. and nick cave doing sea chanteys – what did you expect? i strongly recommend the cd. if you can live with the songs not being all original anymore, go and buy it. it´s worth it.

  4. Rick on November 30th, 2009 4:29 pm

    Whatever music you like is great. Maybe I am being too much of a purist. Then again between Bono’s moaning, Cage’s shouting and all the over orchestration and waling guitars, it didn’t work for me. And Baby Gramps and Lou Reed singing shanties? Who though that was a good idea? I am an old fan of Lou Reed but a shanty singer, he is not.

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