Monday, September 04, 2006

Rogues Gallery


I've been listening over the weekend to a double CD called "Rogues Gallery". (Like a lot of people I seem to do most of my listening to new music in the car.) I acquired the album on casual recommendation, I knew it had some connection with Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean. The music was a total surprise and fresh enough to provide with the impression of personal discovery. The background to the album is: Johnny Depp and producer Gore Verbinski, while working on the films, became so absorbed by the mystique of pirates that they had the idea to make a compilation album based on songs of the sea. They’re a real mixture of sea shanties, traditional folk songs and bawdy ballads. The double album provides fantastic value for money having 43 tracks in all. However it is the artists that raise the concept from a good idea into a brilliant success. There are British folk stalwarts such as Martin Carthy and Richard Thomson, American folk artists like Loudon Wainwright and Kate McGarrigle and icons more widely known like Brian Ferry Bono and Sting. There are some names of whom I have never heard of but I will not embarrass myself by revealing which these are. The highlights for me are; Richard Thomson's rendition of the Mingulay Boat Song and David Thomas' wonderfully offbeat Drunken Sailor. I cant find a homepage for the album just now so I will have to make do with a link to Amazon here.