Customer Reviews

Blow Ye Winds in the Morning

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Blow Ye Winds In The Morning is truly one of the most unique CD's you'll ever own. It harkens back to a bye-gone era, when clipper ships ruled the seas, and colonial strife, pirates, and whaling were at the forefront of Anglo-American Culture. These songs are a vocal and instumental collection of New England folk songs. If you are familiar with Boston, Cape Cod, New Bedford, Nantucket & Martha's Vineyard...then this album is a must have..in order to better understand the region's cultural history. From eerily mournful ballads like, "All Things Are Quite Silent," to heart wrenching, reminiscent sailor's songs like "Cape Cod Girls," to silly, children's music, heard in "Allee-O", these songs use powerful vocal melodies to highlight a forgotten time. I reccommend it highly!

Sea chanties may be the purist and richest form of work song extant today and there are a large number of CDs of performances of this very traditional kind of song. Four of the very best are:

`Blow the Man Down' by eleven different voices, one of which is a group, The Watersons.
`Blow Boys Blow' sung by Ewan MacColl & A. L. Lloyd
`Sailors, Ships, and Chanteys' by Louis Killen
`Blow the Winds in the Morning' choral interpretations directed by John Langstaff

The best thing about this selection is that in spite of the great similarity in the names of the albums, there is practically no overlap in selections. There is some difference in style among the four, as chanteys may be performed with a solo voice, a chorus, or alternating between a solo voice and chorus.

The last of these three styles is probably the most traditional, as it is closest in realization to how chanties were actually used, as a means of coordinating the efforts of a large number of men contributing their muscle power to a single task such as raising an anchor or raising or lowering a large sail boom.

The first of these four CDs is a mix of all styles. The second is primarily solos by the two principle artists. The third is a combination of solos and responsive singing, the chorus being supplied by a group playfully named `The Out-of-Shape Chanteymen' The fourth is largely choral interpretations.

As appropriate to what one would find on a wind powered ship, the instrumental accompanyment is typically no more than a banjo, guitar, mandoline, or concertina. It's interesting that the harmonica does not play a larger part in chanty accompaniments, but it strikes me that this would detract from the overriding importance of the voice in joining in with the chorus. Similarly, there is no hornpipe, let alone bagpipes heard on any of these recordings.

If I were to recommend any one of these albums, it would be the third, since Master Killen has the finest tenor voice among all the performers. It also strikes me that his selection of songs is just a bit more fun than the others. The CD with the most rustic performances is `Blow the Man Down' with a lot of really crusty solos by Killen, Ewan Maccoll, Cyril Tawney, The Waterssons, Sam Larner, Ian Campbell, Bob Davenport, Bob Roberts, Harry H. Corbett, Bob Hart, and A. L. Lloyd.

All these albums are satisfying to anyone with a yen for sea songs.

Anytime you want to learn about REAL roots music, treat yourself to one of the Revels CDs. The Revels is a celebration (usually of season)that's put together locally and has a theme that might be Christmas, or might be seafaring, or might be spring, and the bases are folk songs that illustrate the theme. While I've always loved the Christmas Revels best, I'm enchanted by Blow Ye Winds with all its sailing and adventure songs, sung by talented amateurs in public performance. You can hear the voices of those brave sailors on clipper ships in the voices of these community singers. This CD is a real treat, and I hope it'll lead you to the other Revels recordings.

This was my first introduction to Revels. It's high quality and great selection of songs had me listening to it over and over.
You will enjoy the tremendous talent that went into making this CD.

Not sure what I was expecting - old sea dogs humming and shouting, maybe? Good music, but a little over-orchestrated for what I wanted. Still enjoyed it!