Chicago Maritime Festival
Chicago, Illinois
2008 Chicago Maritime Festival - Saturday, February, 23
at the Chicago History Museum
Performers
.
.
.
2008 Featured Performers
 |
The Northern Neck Chantey Singers
The Northern Neck Chantey Singers specialize in the work songs (chanties) used in the menhaden fishing trade. This African-American tradition evolved to coordinate the back-breaking task of hauling in a .purse seine. . a net filled with thousands of pounds of fish. They have helped to preserve a unique part of our maritime heritage that is exclusive to only two centers of this part of the fishing industry: Reedville, Virginia and Beaufort, North Carolina.
The members of the group all came up through this culture in the Northern Neck region of Virginia, a peninsula lying between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers. They all worked in the menhaden fishery over a 50-year period beginning in the 1930s. Now in their 70s and 80s, they are keeping alive an uncommon legacy of African-American work songs sung on the water
William Hudnall organized the Northern Neck Chantey Singers at the request of the Greater Reedville Association and the Association's Museum Committee for a special program on the 4th of July 1991. Since then, they have appeared on radio, television and at festivals to share their knowledge, experience and art form.
|
 |
Debra Cowan
Debra's love of the music of the British Isles lead her to move to Edinburgh, Scotland in 1997 and study with some of the country's best singers. She was chosen to be a resident musician at Edinburgh's premier folk club, Sandy Bell's Bar. From there she developed a wonderful repertoire of songs of the sea which landed her performances at Mystic Seaport and the Lancaster Maritime Festival. She is an accomplished accompanist on guitar and has garnered praises for her recordings. Away from maritime music, she works with kids, tours extensively, has performed at the Chico World Music Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Greater New Bedford Summerfest, has been published in SingOut! magazine, and can be heard on Richard Thompson anthology called RT-The Life and Times of Richard Thompson. For a preview close to the festival listen for Debra on WFMT radio's Midnight Special, with Rich Warren, in January 2008. www.debracowan.com
|
 |
Walter "Salty Walt" Askew
Walter's love of history and study of oral traditions led him to work at several museums including San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, where he sailed the Hawaiian Chieftain (a 105ft topsail ketch), and the scow schooner Alma (a craft unique to the San Francisco Bay) and crewed on Delaware's state ship the Kalmar Nyckel.
A regular performer at San Francisco's Festival of the Sea with his band Salty Walt and the Rattlin' Ratlines, he has recently completed his second tour of Europe playing at festivals and folk clubs: England (Scarborough.s Seafest), The Netherlands (Scheepvaart Museum), and Germany (Festival Maritim).
He has shared the stage with acts such as Lou Killen, Tom Lewis, The Johnson Girls, Holdstock & Macleod, Hughie Jones, Richard Grainger, Maree De Paradis, and many others.
At home in San Francisco he performs regularly and hosts a monthly session at Edinburgh Castle Pub, where he works to maintain the authentic voice of the traditions he represents while making this music accessible to a new generation.
|
 |
Holdstock & MacLeod
Dick Holdstock and Allan MacLeod blend the maritime traditions of their homelands, England and Scotland, together with their adopted seaport home of San Francisco. They serve this blend up, in song and story, to audiences from Coast to Coast. In addition to tremendous a cappella arrangements, Dick and Allan trade off on mandolin and guitar. Accomplished band members and solo performers, they have produced four fine recordings as a duo including the classic, Deepwater Shanties.
Dick emigrated to California from his native Sittingbourne, Kent, in the south of England with his family. At the time of the British folk music revival, he developed a reputation as a shanty singer at sea festivals up and down the West coast of the United States and Canada.
Allan came to the U.S. from Armadale, West Lothian Scotland where he performed with Arnold Wesker.s .Center 42. Traveling Festival of the Arts and also founded the Nottingham Folk Song Workshop. He has appeared at the Berkeley, Newport and the Mariposa folk Festivals.
Dick and Allan met at the 1976 Santa Rosa Folk Festival where they were both doing solo gigs. From that point on, they have developed a lasting friendship and lasting musical partnership. www.dickholdstock.com
|
www.kastles.net |
Tom and Chris Kastle
Tom and Chris Kastle's songs and stories reflect their lives as singers, sailors, and travelers. They have performed throughout the United States, Europe and New Zealand.
Performance credits span the country from Mystic Seaport Museum and Passim to the Northwest Folklife Festival and the Florida Friends of Folk. Their performances across the sea include the Shanties Festival in Krakow, Poland, the University of Trondheim (Norway), the Folk House in Kinsale, Ireland, and the National Maritime Museum and Devonport Folk Music Club in New Zealand.
Closer to home, Tom and Chris have performed at the Illinois Storytelling Festival, the Fox Valley Folk Festival and at tall ship events all around the Great Lakes. The Kastles teach at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and have been featured on public radio and television shows. They have worked behind the scenes as well creating soundtracks for productions including WTTW TV's Chicago Stories (Race to Mackinac).
Using their experience as mariners as well as performers, Tom and Chris have acted as hosts and MCs at tall ship events around the Great Lakes. Tom is a captain of the tall ship Friends Good Will out of South Haven at the Michigan Maritime Museum and can be seen yearly as part of the Weather Channel's "The Christmas Tree Ship: A Holiday Storm Story". They are founders and directors of the Chicago Maritime Festival. www.kastles.net
|
2007 featured performers: Bounding Main, Jerry Bryant, Johnny Collins, Philippe Duo, Tom and Chris Kastle
2006 featured performers: The Boekaniers, John Townley, Nanne Kalma & Ankie van der Meer, David HB Drake, Tom & Chris Kastle.
2005 featured performers: Pint & Dale, Serre l'Ecoute, Talitha MacKenzie, Lee Murdock, Tom and Chris Kastle,
2004 featured performers: The Johnson Girls, Tom Lewis, Bob Zentz, Don Sineti & Steve Roys, and Bob Zentz.
2003 featured performers: Kat yn^Yt Seil, Johnny Collins, John Conolly, Tom & Chris Kastle, the 97th Regimental String Band, and Mlynn.
Past special guest performers: Lanialoha Lee, Sheridan Shore Chantey Singers, David HB Drake, Bounding Main, The Friends Good Will Singers, and the Old Town School of Folk Music Sea Music Class.
|
