Gordon Bok

Gordon Bok grew up around the boatyards of Camden, Maine.  In his early years, he worked on a variety of vessels - on America's Northeast coast and others - fishing boats, passenger schooners, and as deckhand, mate, and captain of various yachts. On the boats, he learned many tunes, sea songs, stories, legends and ballads from the people he worked with.  After high school, he worked on the boats in the summer months while the rest of the year he worked in Philadelphia and other cities as a carpenter and teacher.  It was there that he found a thriving folk music scene and began performing.  Dissatisfied with the images generally portrayed of people who work on the water, he began to write songs based on the experiences of those he knew - real people whose language was honest, whose feelings were credible.  These early works, songs like “Bay of Fundy”, began to get attention, as did his rich voice and fluid guitar work.  Paul Stookey of the folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, produced Gordon's first album for Verve.

At a time when folk music was experiencing a great revival, Gordon became a leader in preserving, collecting, creating and sharing a wide variety of rich and intensely beautiful songs of both land and sea.  His mastery of both 6- and 12-string guitars added to his already well-developed vocal expression to create an unmistakable style that has carried him through decades of being one of our most cherished folk artists. He has made more that a score of albums, and many other musicians including Archie Fisher, Liam Clancy, and Tommy Makem have recorded his songs.  In addition, his music has been used in films and published in folk music anthologies, including Rise Up Singing­ and his own collections, Time and The Flying Snow and One To Sing, One To Haul.

In addition to performing in concert halls, coffeehouses and festivals throughout the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Australia, Gordon has taught choral singing and song writing at summer music camps and other gatherings.  He has organized choral groups in his own community and gladly shares his knowledge with others wishing to do the same.  A superb storyteller, he often introduces songs in concert with a bit of their origin and history. 

Besides his countless solo appearances, Gordon toured for nearly thirty years with the trio, Bok, Muir and Trickett. He has also performed with his wife, harper Carol Rohl and with Anne Dodson, Cindy Kallet, Bob Zentz, Margaret MacArthur and other well-known folk artists. He has appeared in concert with the Paul Winter Consort and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and has been heard on NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion.  He has served both as Artist-in Residence and faculty member of the College of the Atlantic.  Although he never graduated from college, he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the Maine Maritime Academy in 1997.

Another aspect of the artistic talent of Gordon Bok is his woodcarving skill, which he developed quite naturally from growing up around woodworkers. Already an accomplished instrument builder and furmiture maker, he took up woodcarving in the mid 70s when he inherited his mother's carving tools. Over the past 30 years, when not performing and recording, Gordon has been quietly working out his music and memories in bas-relief. The result is nearly a hundred carvings of people, boats and other images that have influenced his life.  In 2002, a local gallery displayed his carvings publicly for the first time. Now, many of these unique and compelling works are available to the general public.

Wood Carvings by Gordon Bok