Kevin Mahler - Pirate's Christmas

Remember last year when I talked about Suburban Sprawl's free annual Christmas compilation? Well, 2009's is up, but here's a look back at two tracks from the first two years.

Kevin Mahler (MySpace) doesn't ONLY write Christmas songs about pirates, but I wish he would. I'd buy that album. (He's also contributed songs to later editions of the compilation, and those are all good too.)

His MySpace genre classification is "Country/Rockabilly/Emo" which sounds ridiculous, but those categories aren't too far from these two songs. The first song is "Pirate At Christmastime," wherein the song's narrator pines for home and Yule logs and family. The second, "Pirate's Christmas," tells a more traditional pirate story, about a battle between an underdog and the bloody Bluebeard. These songs aren't for sale, so the buy link goes to Mahler's latest release instead.

Kevin Mahler - Pirate At Christmastime
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Kevin Mahler - Pirate's Christmas
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Buy Kevin Mahler's latest CD

Aye, Pirate Week: Thurl Ravenscroft's POTC LP

Ye come seekin' adventure and salty old pirates, eh? Sure, ye've come to the proper place. Aye, har be the final post o' Pirate Week. Forty-some years ago, the Disneyland ride Pirates O' The Caribbean opened. Soon after they called on our patron saint, Thurl Ra'enscroft, t' narrate a record tellin' the story o' the attraction. I posted that record on Thurl's birthday this year, and ye may find it har.

The flipside o' the record war a bunch o' sea shanties, performed by Thurl, which I done uploaded today. (Ye can see the back co'er o' the disc har.) If ye can only lis'en to one o' these, I heartily suggest "Asleep In The Deep," which be the deepest Thurl has e'er sung. This disc be long out o' print, so the buy link'll send ye to a used copy.

I hope t' do Pirate Week again next year, but until then, mark well my words, mateys: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

...Dead Men Tell No Tales...

1) A Life On The Ocean Waves m1 m2
2) Asleep In The Deep m1 m2
3) A Capital Ship m1 m2
4) Shenadoah m1 m2
5) Tarpaulin Jacket m1 m2

Buy from GEMM

Aye, Pirate Week: Barrett's Privateers

Arrr, har be the next t' last post o' Pirate Week. Stan Rogers (official wiki AMG) were a Canadian folk singer, and the year were 1976 when he released this shanty about plunderin' American merchant ships, with extensi'e loss o' life and limb, largely from th' shabbiness o' the pirates' own ship.

Ahoy, sadly, Rogers suffered an ironic death several years later -- he too died in an untrustworthy craft: Air Canada Flight 797. (Hist'ry do not record whether Rogers called that plane the scummiest 'essel he'd e'er seen.)

Thar be an extremely detailed line-by-line notation on the song har, so simply steer your browser thar, and read yer fill. Meself, I done read all I can, and now I have a hankerin for a fine pork loin. I hope that pilferin pussycat ain't taken it!

(Lubbers beware: this song do contain a wee bit o' profanity.)

Stan Rogers - Barrett's Privateers
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Buy from Rogers' official site

Aye, Pirate Week: The Derelict

Ahoy, thar be no Stagger Lee today -- Stag will return next Saturday. (He who complains'll walk the plank! Be that clear, señor?)

Away back in 1883, Robert Louis Ste'enson published Treasure Island, and it contained parts o' a new shanty, "Dead Man's Chest." In 1891, poet Young Allison adapted and expanded the shanty int' a full-length poem, "The Darlict."

One hundred six years later, a band o' young musicians first recorded their 'ersion o' the poem, beginnin' with a quote from Ste'enson's no'el. The Jolly Rogers (official Myspace) be currently plyin' their trade at the Kansas City Renaissance Festi'al -- navigate festwards if ye be in a flat square state nearby.

The Jolly Rogers - The Derelict
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Buy from the band, matey

Aye, Pirate Week: Hoist The Colours

Aye, speakin' o' pirate mo'ies, har's the theme song t' ...At World's End, the third (but not last) POTC film. It war orchestrated by Hans Zimmer, who not coincidentally orchestrated that Tim Curry song we heard Sunday.

The lyrics war written by the film's writers and director, if this har 'pedia have any truth t' it. This be a fine shanty to sing whilst ye hoist yer own colours, ye blooming cockroachers!

More t'morrow, mateys.

Hans Zimmer - Hoist The Colours
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Buy from Amazon, matey -- Buy from Deep Discount, yarr.

Aye, Pirate Week: Nick Ca'e and Lou Reed.

Aye, ahoy, mateys. I been nearly swallowed up by Da'y Jones himself, but emerged t' send you more tunes from the likes o' some swank-bellied pirates like meself. Gar.

Arrr, in 2004, Johnny Depp and Gore 'erbinski, while workin' on the second and third Pirates o' the Caribbean mo'ies, thought it would be nice t' have some contemp'ry albums o' sea shanties t' help set the mood. Thar warn't any.

So they produced some.

Har be two tracks from Rogue's Gallery... (wiki liner notes), with two personal fa'orite artists o' mine (but just look at that tracklistin' -- if ye like She'll Grow Back, surely ye'll appreciate the talent har).

Nick Cave - Pinery Boy
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Lou Reed feat. Antony - Leave Her, Johnny
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Buy from Amazon -- Buy from Deep Discount

Aye, Pirate Week :Tim Curry and The Muppets - A Professional Pirate

Psst! Avast there! It be too late to alter course now, mateys.

Aye, greetin's, friends. Welcome t' Pirate Week har on She'll Grow Back. Ahoy, in celebration o' International Talk Like A Pirate Day, I'll be pro'idin' some nautically-themed music all week. So keep your ruddy hands inboard -- that be the best way t' repel boarders!

Aye, as tis' Sunday, har's one o' the silliest thin's we'll lis'en at all week. Tis' Tim Curry and The Muppets, from Muppet Treasure Island. The song be written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who also enscribed "On Broadway" and "We Gotta Get Out O' This Place," among others. Arrr, as the soundtrack be impossible t' find, the buy link today steers ye t'wards the movie.

Download with care -- thar be squalls ahead, and Davy Jones waitin' for them what don't obey. Aye.

Tim Curry and The Muppets - A Professional Pirate
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Buy from Amazon, Matey -- Buy from Deep Discount, Arr

Happy Birthday Thurl Ravenscroft!

Today is February 6, which would've been Thurl Ravenscroft's 95th birthday. Around here, we call it Saint Thurl's Day. (You'll recall, I'm sure, that Thurl is the patron saint of She'll Grow Back.)

You can find a LOT of Thurl's stuff here and here, thanks to WFMU and Bob Purse, but this post contains a few of the other things in my collection.

In keeping with the theme of covering Etta James and Janis Joplin, Thurl does one of each, sort of. (By the way, I was hoping this story would've been reported earlier, so I could link it from one of those two posts, but sometimes the AP just won't cooperate!)

First, he helps out whitebread pop singer Georgia Gibbs (who was no stranger to "whiting-out" R & B records, then getting big hits with them) cover Etta's "Roll With Me Henry (The Wallflower)". Next, he joins in with the Modern Barbershop Quartet to give us the tale of "Me and Bobby McGee." (I know, it's really a Kris Kristofferson song, and one Monday soon I've got about a dozen versions for you all.)

Finally, I've featured a lot of Thurl from The Haunted Mansion, but here he is, narrating the story of Pirates of the Caribbean, and singing on "Yo Ho A Pirate's Life For Me." He also plays more than half the voices here. (For some reason, the folks at Disneyland Records decided to rerecord almost all the vocal tracks from the ride, rather than just use the ones they already had in the can. Bonus: more Thurl per minute, or TPM as I call it.)

Happy birthday, Thurl!

Georgia Gibbs - Dance With Me Henry
The Modern Barbershop Quartet - Me and Bobby McGee
Thurl Ravenscroft - Pirates of the Caribbean LP