Hi, my name is Dean Calin, and I created the Maritime Music Directory International three years ago specifically to promote maritime music to the general public. I have been performing maritime music, myself, for about thirty years and have been able to tour across North America and Europe with my own group, Bounding Main. Over these years I have observed some things about this genre of music that called me to action.

About the time of the pandemic there was a public fascination for the idea of "sea shanties", but only about eight musical acts found the spotlight, and of those, two of the most popular had no prior relationship to the genre whatsoever.

Because fame is so capricious I wanted to build something that would at least point the compass toward the real maritime music scene - the Maritime Music Directory International. Even though the genre is rich with entertainers and venues it does not have its equivalent of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nor a Country Music Awards. The MMDI portal aggregates a growing list of past and present musical acts and places at which to hear them. To counteract the increasing limitations that search engines put on websites I made sure that the MMDI is search-engine optimized, is "secure" (even though there is no ecommerce conducted on it) and is mobile-friendly. This gives a critical advantage to some of the older, technically challenged performers whose management of their own websites prevent them from being indexed and therefore discovered by fans.

This was designed to be a community project and I welcome suggestions, submissions and volunteers to help assemble information to add to the site. Please have a look at https://seashanties4all.com.