Martha’s Vineyard Folksongs Album

Mark Alan Lovewell has just come out with his second CD and it is called Martha’s Vineyard Folksongs. The CD is filled with songs of the sea and songs of the land, relevant to the Vineyard. Mark sings, plays guitar, concertina, and harmonica. There are songs for mariners, friends of the waterfront and children. And for fun there are sounds of the waterfront, the West Chop Lighthouse foghorn; Menemsha waterfront; coastal birds.

The music begins with Old Zeb, a song about Captain Zeb Tilton, who traveled the coastal waters of New England in a 90-foot schooner called Alice Wentworth. It was written by Larry Kaplan. There are sea chanties and songs that will be familiar to more than a few old-timers. There is Aphrodite, an old tune with Island lyrics written in the 1950s. It is a song about a famous swordfishing boat that fished out of Menemsha. Bark Gay Head is a sea chantey about a whaling ship that traveled the oceans of the world in pursuit of whale in the late 1800s. Off to Sea Once More is a sea chantey about a man stuck in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans; a familiar occurrence to Vineyard whaler men who traveled the Pacific. Granny’s Old Arm Chair is an old Island favorite, a children’s song, sung by Zeb Tilton and later by Gale and Mildred Huntington, collectors of Vineyard folksongs.

Track List:

1)West Chop Fog
2) Old Zeb, Larry Kaplan © 1977, BMI
3) Aphrodite, written by Ted Brown and Jane Slater
4) Rolling Down to Old Maui
5) Menemsha Bell Buoy
6) Drunken Sailor
7) Eddystone Light
8) Granny’s Old Arm Chair
9) Paddy West
10) Song for Gale, Larry Kaplan © 1988, BMI
11) Will You Go Lassie Go
12) Off to Sea Once More
13) Menemsha Birds
14) John Kanaka
15) Bark Gay Head
16) Old Susanna
17) Haul Away Joe
18) West Chop Light