DESCRIPTION:
Celtic Mayhem performs the traditional whaling sea song "Rolling Down to Old Maui" during Pirate Weekend at the 2009 Florida Renaissance Festival at Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

With Ty Billings on guitar and lead vocals, Martyn Wylde on bass guitar, and Jack Stamates on fiddle. This is a classic capstan shanty that has been well done by many other groups and performers (including the late great Stan Rogers), but here it is given a makeover with unique riffs and unexpected changes of tempo.

Best viewed in High Definition if possible (the HD button), although YT admits that HD 720p format is still in beta and may be jerky or out-of-sync on a slow connection. You will get best HD performance by letting the streaming file complete download first before playing.

Gale Huntington's "Songs the Whaleman Sang" has a song "Rolling Down to Old Mohee" which was taken from the 1858 log of the ship Atkins Adams out of New Bedford. It appeared earlier in Joanna Colcord's "Songs of American Sailormen" (1938), but Colcord could not find a tune for it. Huntington found a tune for the words in Frederick Harlow's "Chanteying Aboard American Ships" (1962). The words of this version are somewhat different but are clearly related to the Huntington version. As with many shanties and folksongs, it is possible the words were sung to various tunes or they had an earlier common source. In the living tradition of folk music, the performance in this video is accompanied by a new and lively instrumental arrangement by Celtic Mayhem.

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www.celticmayhem.net