January 8 Song Circle Venue/Sponsor the PT Pizza Factory, hosted by Mike James

Tis the Season to Give Gifts - Last of our Sing Shanties & Songs About the Sea Songbooks Available !

Christmas is a great time to give our Sing Shanties & Songs About the Sea songbooks for gifts! We have 36 songbooks left in our retail inventory. If you live in the area, contact us at singshanties(at)gmail(dot)com to arrange local pick up and payment, or to have shipped. Price: $11.95 + 9% tax in the State of Washington + S/H $4.50.

Books also available in Port Townsend at the Northwest Maritime Center, Crossroads Music and Olympic Trading Post.

Greenland Whale Fisheries with Lewis Kane

November's Sing Shanties Song Circle was so much fun. Dan Roberts showed up to lead a rousing shanty sing with the other two members of The Whateverly Brothers, Matthew Moeller and Chris Glanister. Laura Martin brought a newcomer to our song circle - Lewis Kane, a traveling minstrel from Inverness, Scotland. What a delight to have Lewis with us for the evening. We hope he'll join us again, next time he visits Port Townsend!

Lewis posted a blog on his website about his time with us at our shanty sing on Friday, November 8th 2013:

"... The next day I went outside to find Dolly surrounded by the friendly neighbourhood deer. I then went off to find the local Coop for some groceries and also met mouth-organist, Roger from The Roadhouse the night before. After a few errands, I followed a tip I’d received and went back to the Coop to jam. I think the first time I’d jammed at a super market but it went down really well and I had loads of fun. I also met Laura who’d also been at The Roadhouse. She told me about a sea shanty song circle that was happening that night. So after more music and a bite to eat, we headed up to catch the song circle, hosted by Port Townsend favourites, The Whateverly Brothers.  

The Whateverly Brothers

It was such a good time and I won a draw for a free copy of the group’s songbook of maritime folk songs. I did a rendition of Greenland Whale Fisheries, which was a special moment for me in a night of great music and company. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I actually pressed record for my turn at the circle so you can listen by clicking here. 

Afterwards I headed to the Boiler Room for their open mic night. A great comfy, accessible haven, mainly aimed at youth. The highlight was jamming Smells Like Teen Spirit with a local young guitarist. Then it was a late-night stroll down the town’s grand Victorian streets with Laura before sleeping in her vacant gypsy caravan."

Go to Lewis' website to follow his travel adventures, listen to his music and read the rest of his blog post Port Townsend.

Listen in as Lewis introduces himself to the group and leads a famous Irish tune "Greenland Whale Fisheries" with his accordion. The Whateverly Brothers, Mike James and the rest of us join in.

Shantyman and Storyteller Captain Daniel Quinn Returns to Lead December 5th Song Circle!

Please join us on Thursday, December 5th, for a fun and festive shanty sing with Captain Daniel (Dano) Quinn. Dano, who now captains the SS Legacy, spends a lot of time off shore, but will landing again here in Port Townsend to lead our December song circle. Not to be missed! So much fun! His stories are a hoot! Be sure to bring your family and invite your friends!

Here is a repost of Deborah Bach's Three Sheets NW blog post from November 2, 2012 about Dano Quinn and his CD Salty Stories and Tall Tales. Click on the title link below to hear the audio of Hawaii Blues, a maritime story that Dano authored and performed live at the 2011 Stories of the Sea.


Salty stories and tall tales on Dano Quinn CD 

by Deborah Bach

"Perennial audience favorite Dan “Dano” Quinn is a four-time winner of the annual Stories of the Sea competition. Dan “Dano” Quinn grew up with a father who loved to tell jokes and ballad-style stories, sometimes in a faux Cockney accent. 

So it’s not surprising that Quinn grew up to become a storyteller himself. The 55-year-old ship captain is a four-time winner of Seattle’s annual Stories of the Sea competition, captivating audiences with his comical, ribald rhyming poems of hijinks on the high seas. 

Quinn is now sharing his tall tales on a broader scale through his recently released CD “Slightly Salty! Sea Stories, Tall Tales and Outright Lies.” The dozen original stories, written over the past decade, tell of shipwrecks and pirates, of green young sailors and scallywags — good for listening during a road trip or ideally, Quinn says, onboard on a chilly evening while enjoying a rum toddy. 

If Quinn’s delivery seems effortless, it’s likely because he’s long loved telling jokes and eventually found his way to rhyming poems. 

“I just always thought it was a fun way to tell stories,” he says. 

 

A lifelong reader, Quinn was inspired by English poet and writer John Masefield, whose best-known works include “Sea-Fever” (“I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky … “), and Robert Service, an England-born writer who lived in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush and became known as “the Bard of the Yukon.” 

Reading the two poets’ works gave Quinn the idea to give rhyming storytelling a try, and Stories of the Sea provided the impetus to begin writing. His stories often start with the kernel of a joke or anecdote he’s heard somewhere. If it’s not maritime-themed, it soon will be. Embellishment, as the CD title makes clear, is a given. 

While there’s an “element of truth” in all his stories, Quinn says, “If I just told a straight story, it’s not going to be as humorous.” 

Several poems on the CD include nods to the Northwest, including “Changes,” an wry lament on the gentrification of Seattle’s waterfront and surrounding areas. 

“The folks that thought the fleet so quaint when they moved into the ‘hood now want those rusty hulks to move; it’s for the common good,” Quinn recites. “There’s 20 different restaurants and a lot of little shops, but no place to get your welding done or fix a dinged-up prop. 

“I thought I saw a little place where I could get some bait, but it’s just too damned expensive when it’s called a sushi plate.” 

The one serious poem on the CD is “Yearning,” in which Quinn speaks of the powerful pull of the sea: “They say you can never go back but I sure would like to try, to cross an ocean under sail again before I die.” 

It’s a tug that endures for Quinn, who is currently the captain of Wilderness Discoverer, a 76-passenger cruise ship that travels to quiet anchorages in southeast Alaska. He grew up in Connecticut and spent 15 years working on tall ships before moving to Seattle with his wife and their son. He’s crossed the Pacific several times, sailed through the Panama Canal and on the Great Lakes. 

And after 35 years of working on ships, Quinn says, it still hasn’t gotten old. “I still love what I do,” he says. 

“I still think it’s a pretty romantic lifestyle. I get paid to do something I enjoy doing. You can’t beat that.” 

“Slightly Salty! Sea Stories, Tall Tales and Outright Lies” is available at Captain’s Nautical Supplies in Seattle or by emailing Dano Quinn at danmast3@gmail.com. The cost is $12, plus $3 for shipping. Quinn is also available for parties and events."

Whateverly Surprise

Dan Roberts showed up to lead our November Sing Shanties Song Circle with a "little surprise"... a couple of friends, the other 2/3rds of The Whateverly Brothers - Matthew Moeller and Chris Glanister. Good time had by all!  More good news - The Whateverly Brothers will be back to lead our Song Circle at the Northwest Maritime Center on November 6, 2014! Thanks Dan, Matt and Chris!!!

Listen to some of their tunes at cdbaby.

Sing Shanties Song Circle Returns to the Northwest Maritime Center in 2014!

Do you remember? Did  you attend our very first Song Circle where we gathered in the Chandlery/Cafe area of the Northwest Maritime Center back on January 6, 2011? Nearly a hundred folks crowded together, sitting on chairs, on the floor, standing where ever they could. Good times!

Though crowded, anywhere from forty to a hundred folks, everyone loved that we were able to sing in a maritime environment.  This was the perfect venue for such a community event and most certainly fit the mission of the Northwest Maritime Center - "to engage and educate people of all generations in traditional and contemporary maritime life, in a spirit of adventure and discovery."

When the cafe management changed, we moved upstairs to the Maritime Meeting Room, a room with a sweeping view of the bay and more space to create a true song circle. Even of a warm summer's night with Concert on the Dock happening across the park new folks trickled in out of curiosity, wandering upstairs following the wave of robust singing filtering out through the doors. Seventy-five folks filled the chairs and joined in the singing. More good times!

I am very pleased to announce that starting on February 6 of 2014, we will once again be holding our Sing Shanties Song Circle upstairs at the Northwest Maritime Center in the Marine Room - West, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. We will also be hosting a Sing Shanties Workshop from 5:00-6:00 p.m. just prior to our group shanty sing. Anyone is welcome to attend - this is the perfect opportunity to learn along with others some of those traditional maritime songs in our songbook that no one ever seems to know! 

Through the end of this year, 2013, we will continue to meet at the Uptown Community Center on Tyler Street from 6:00-8:30 p.m on November 7 (Dan Roberts leads) and December 5 (Dano Quinn leads) [Calendar]. Although we won't be meeting every first Thursday of the month in 2014, as we have for the past couple of years, we will continue to meet on the first Thursday of the month on February 6, May 1, August 7 and November 6. Thank you to the Northwest Maritime Center for continued support and sponsorship for our maritime community gatherings. If all goes well, the NWMC will remain our permanent home for our seasonal shanty sings, four times a year! Our song circles will continue to be free, family-friendly community events, where "singin' is encouraged, but knot required!"

Please take a moment to read what Jake Beattie, Executive Director of the NWMC & Wooden Boat Foundation, wrote as the foreword to our Sing Shanties & Songs About the Sea songbook, published in 2012.

Nearly every book of shanties includes a well-written passage that describes the value of work songs for traditional ship’s work. I’ve read that shanties were as good as having an extra crewmember on the halyard, and that shanties were the only way that sailors could publicly express discontent with the officer ranks. This could be true, and likely is, but while I have given an enthusiastic voice to these old songs more than a few times as crew on traditional ships, it was always as much as a re-enactment as the vessels themselves. While I’ve been onboard more than one vessel with a captain whose lack of ability was only surpassed by their ego, I’ve never faced capital punishment for saying so. As much as I read, and as close to the original experience as I’ve gotten sailing and working in traditional maritime education, for me the true value of shanties in our modern times can be boiled down to a single word: community.

It’s been years since I’ve given up the quarterdeck and began managing maritime programs from the office. They don’t make shanties extolling the arduous navigation of a tough budget year, but as the first Thursday of the month rolls around, voices from the shanty sing downstairs rise up through the floorboards and lift my spirits. Downstairs, on good nights, there are as many as 80 people sharing in the community of song. Even on the nights where there are fewer each person is connecting to the simple melodies in their own way, out of their own experience, but doing so in a way that draws them closer to those around them. Outside of church services and baseball games, sharing in song is increasingly rare in a world full of social media, guarded irony, and entertainment largely left to professionals. You can connect with multitudes of online “friends” through short updates about your cat, but I would argue that song is more a powerful way to build community since it draws people together through the celebration, courage, and vulnerability of looking your neighbor in the eyes and offering your voice alongside of theirs. Shanty circles are a chance to do just that.

Shanties are songs of hardship, of victory, of toil and mockery. They are songs of participation that are better to sing along with than to watch performed. For better and worse, the age of sail is an echo of a memory generations removed from anyone who actually worked under the conditions in which these songs were created. We can't possibly connect with their original meaning and purpose. Yet, despite that they are a vestige, despite that for all of the scholarly research, I will never as a modern individual understand them in the same context as the sailors who created them. When a heartfelt group gathers to join in the fellowship of songs of the sea, at that moment at least a part of me is part of the crew that is bound for South Australia.

Jake Beattie

Keep on Singin' Shanties!

Ahoy, Mateys! Dan Roberts leads November 7th Song Circle!

Sing Shanties Song Circle &

Sing-Along with Dan Roberts

1^st Thursday in November

6:00-8:30 P.M.   

Uptown Community Center, 

620 Tyler St., Port Townsend

FREE! All Ages Welcome!

Singin’ encouraged, but knot required.

Join us Thursday,

  NOVEMBER 7th 

for our monthly community, family-friendly gathering to learn, sing and enjoy shanties and other maritime music.

Join us on Thursday, November 7th for a rousing song circle and sing-along with shantyman and minstrel Dan Roberts!

 “A voice as masculine as John Henry’s biceps and as rich as a well-oiled wooden boat’s deck.” – “Playing music that can be fun, enriching and participatory… Dan does this about as well as anyone.” - Victory Review 

Dan Roberts… with his big baritone voice and whose musical background ranges from opera to street singing, is an engaging entertainer, known for his powerful voice, various vocal stylings, and encouraging audience participation on choruses and familiar songs. Dan’s performances are always fun and interesting. In addition to the release of his own solo CD “Rowing Minstrel,” he is a featured performer on the albums “Victory Sings at Sea” and “The curse of the Somers,” both by Victory at Sea. Dan also performs with the groups The Whateverly Brothers and Seattle Labor Chorus, and as a soloist at fairs, festivals, aboard several historical ships and many other venues around the Pacific Northwest. Besides singing, Dan has a background in radio and theater. Dan plays the guitar, mandolin, spoons, penny whistle and Appalachian mountain dulcimer. Among all the styles of music he performs, Maritime music is one of Dan’s favorite genres to play and sing.

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