Smithsonian Folkways SFW40553
Irish Pirate Ballads and Other Songs of the Sea

Sung by Dan Milner with Guest Artists: Joanie Madden, Mick Moloney, Susan McKeown, Robbie O'Connell, John Doyle, Gabriel Donohue, Brian Conway, Tim Collins, Bob Conroy and The Johnson Girls.

Pirates, shanghaiers, slavers, and smugglers are just some of the central characters in this album of lusty, authentic maritime songs; others are ardent patriots, hard-pressed immigrants, and weathered sailors sheltering in the taverns of the seven seas. All are midway between some dicey spot in life and an uncertain future. Their compelling stories of bold adventure are excitingly re-told here by an all-star crew of Irish singers and musicians led by vocalist/author Dan Milner. Irish Pirate Ballads captures centuries of tradition and the revelry, mischief, tales of love and caution that characterize nautical life.

Milner "really gets inside a song and brings it alive," writes New York University professor Mick Moloney, who also appears on the album. "It's impossible not to be drawn in by the imagery of these songs and the absorbing stories they tell of memorable rakes, adventurers and scoundrels."

Ten Thousand Miles Away
The Ballad of O'Bruadair / Out on the Ocean
Saucy Ward
Captain Coulston
Granuaile
Get Up Jack, John, Sit Down / Miss Thornton's
The Flying Cloud
Larry Maher's Big 5-Gallon Jar
Bold McCarthy (The City of Baltimore)
All for Me Grog / Parnell's March
Castle Gardens (Sixty Years Ago)
The Lowlands Low
The River Lea

40 page booklet with photographs, 13 tracks, 58 Minutes.

Sample tracks, downloads ($9.99) and CD purchase ($15.00) now available at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings:

http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=3220

Official release date: 10 February 2009.