Description
Fishing was all around us here; we had a richness of it. Many of my friends (including my brother) have spent some part of their lives in a local fishery. I’ve seen some friends walk out of one fishery at forty looking for saner work and some grow old in another, saying that, over the years, they’ve “done pretty good.” So many stories.
I’ve seen one fishery after another on two oceans go under, mostly in the name of greed, and there’s no need of that. When we lose a fishery, we lose an independent way of life, of living, There’s shame in that, for all of us.
And the boats go then, of course. The low, kindly handhaulers with their quiet, converted Chevy engines go first, then the double-ended seineboats and the dories, then the rugged little seiners that would find other work in other seasons. And now the long, graceful sardine-carriers with their schooner lines are leaving us, one by one. You’ll hear some of their names in one of these pieces. Each name is a book of people, of stories.
So these songs, from Ireland, the Carolinas, Brazil, Colombia and the Pacific Northwest should give you some different perspectives of a way of life.
Note: My singing often diverges from the original versions; we have printed the original when we could. ~ Gordon
To Jack and Belvea MacDonalad, Isle au Haut, who gave more that the world could ever haul away. Thank you.
Recorded, engineered and mastered by Bruce Boege, Limin Music, Northport, Maine.
Mixed by Bruce Boege, Gordon Bok, and Anne Dodson.
Produced by Gordon Bok and Anne Dodson.
