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Apr. 24th, 2007 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2Today's Song:
Arrr, matey! Today's song is one of my favorite pirate tales, from one of my favorite celtic folk-rock bands, Leif Sorbye's band Tempest. Leif is partly responsible for my interest in Celtic music and by extension, world music in the first place. My high school English teacher Mr. Quiring had played for us (as part of a music appreciation class) tracks from Steeleye Span's album All Around My Hat, but it wasn't until I was sitting in the student commons area at Seattle Pacific University one afternoon listening to the Celtic folk band Golden Bough that it occured to me that I really liked this kind of music, a lot. Then, recalling Steeleye Span, I got into them... and discovered my love for not just Celtic folk but folk-rock as well. Leif Sorbye was a member of Golden Bough at the time, but soon quit to form the band Tempest. At the same time I was hunting for anything that could be described as Celtic folk-rock, and came across the first Tempest cd for sale at the Seattle Folklife Festival.
Tempest has done a lot of pirate songs over the years, and their latest cd, The Double Cross, has a lot of pirate stuff on it. But it's their tale of the pirate Captain Ward that I like the best. You can listen to a good long sampling of it on their web site.
It would be too much to expect to find this particular song on Youtube... but I did find a couple of Tempest concert clips: Green Grow the Rushes Oh, Byker Hill, and another pirate song, Captain Morgan
Addendum: Curses! I forgot to verify that this song was available on iTunes... and as luck would have it, it isn't! The only Tempest cd on iTunes right now is their latest, The Double-Cross and a couple of tracks on the collection cd To Cry You A Song. So since you can't download Captain Ward, you might consider Captain Kidd (a different pirate song) or the excellent track Slippery Slide, both from The Double Cross, or even better, check out their amazing take on Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath. Highly reccomended!
