Selecting "good" sea music recordings is like pointing out the "best" dish at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet: one may go back for thirds on the crab rangoon, while another loads up on kung pao chicken. There are some great recordings of nothing but chanteys, and many many recordings by the performers already mentioned above that are sea music, with a mix of chanteys, forebitters, shore songs and so on.

I never cease to be amazed by the breadth of material that fits under the label of sea songs, given what a relatively tiny slice of the folk music pie it is. Listening to the final concert at Mystic on Sunday would have been enough to convince even the most narrow critic that sea music is one hell of a smorgasbord.

Jerry