Marc Bernier is a Professional Chef, Musician, and Sailor with a diverse musical and professional background. No stranger to Sea Music audiences he has spent over 5 years as a Mystic Seaport Chanteyman. He has worked as a musician and educator for the Clearwater program on the Hudson River, and has sailed as cook, deck hand, and entertainer on numerous traditional sailing vessels from the coast of Maine to Chesapeake Bay. When accompanying himself on songs he is equally at home with Guitar, Mandolin, and Tenor Banjo. Marc has also been active in Connecticut’s Fife & Drum community since his teenage years, when he began playing in various traditional and progressive ensembles.

www.marcbernier.com

For the last 30 years, Maine native Jerry Bryant has performed folk music all over the US. Performing on guitar, concertina, banjo, melodeon and other acoustic instruments, his repertoire includes hundreds of traditional and contemporary folk songs, with a particular interest in the music of sailors. Jerry’s performances are full of good music peppered with historical insights, giving people a glimpse of our maritime heritage through the songs he presents. Jerry has been featured at Mystic Seaport’s Sea Music Festival, and can be heard on their CD American Sea Chanteys. His recording The Ballad of Harbo and Samuelsen showcases old and new songs, and his CD Roast Beef of Old England – traditional songs from the man-of-war days of the British Navy – is a companion to the novels of Patrick O’Brian.

Jerry Bryant Webpage

New Englanders Neil Downey and Barry Finn perform as the duo Finn & Haddie. Specializing in traditional sea songs, shanties and work songs originating in the southern prison system, they present primarily a cappella material related to heavy work and hard labor. Both are gifted songwriters who bring their unique talents and experiences to this collaboration. They have performed on board numerous ships, including the USS Constitution, the USS Eagle, the Polish schooner Zawisza Czarny, Canada’s schooner Empire Sandy, and Nova Scotia’s Bluenose II and at festivals around the country, including the Mystic Sea Music Festival, San Francisco Maritime Festival, New England Folk Festival, Boston’s First Night, Boston’s Sea Revels, and at the inaugural Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival.

www.finnandhaddie.com

Great Bay Sailor is the happy reunion of three singing friends, Bruce MacIntyre, Steve Carrigan, and Kevin Scanlon. With an extensive repertoire of maritime, Irish/Scottish and ol’ timey songs, these past members of the High Pukka Flying Squad bring their high-energy strings and harmonies to the Festival for the first time in this new line-up. Steve is a Seacoast resident, found many a Friday night at the legendary Press Room trad sessions. Kevin is now living in North Carolina making high lonesome sounds both day and night. And Bruce has sung with innumerable groups over the years, most regularly as our own “Pavarotti of the Press Room.” Take in the wash – here they come!

New Hampshire native Tom Hall has been collecting, researching, and singing folk songs for over 40 years. Drawing deep from the vast well of English, Scottish and Irish songs, he has pulled more than a few pails of nautical songs from these and other lands. His body of song includes shanty work songs and foc’sle ballads sung by sailors to while away their few leisure hours. Tom is the chief organizer behind the Great Bay Company, and for the past two decades, has been the host of the Press Room’s Friday evening Anglo-Celtic traditional music session.

Linn Schulz has been performing with Tom for over 15 years. Linn, originally from the Midwest, comes from a musical family, and grew up with an eclectic mix of tunes and songs. In the mid 80s, she began to devote herself more seriously to traditional songs and ballads. With Tom, Linn forms part of the core of the Press Room trad sessions every Friday night. Tom and Linn have worked with the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival since its inception, as volunteers, performers, and now producers of the fest.

Over the centuries, immigrants from the British Isles have come to the Americas bringing with them their musical styles and tastes as well as their instruments. Emery Hutchins uses the concertina, bodhran, guitar, and banjo to play traditional tunes and songs from Ireland, the mountains and the sea. He performs American country music in the way it was conceived in the early twentieth century and demonstrates how these tunes are often derived directly from the songs of the Irish but influenced by other cultural and ethnic groups (particularly African-American) to create an original American sound. Emery has been a member of The Angel Band (NH), currently tours with Two Old Friends, and is appearing at the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival for the fifth time.

www.twooldfriends.com

Andrew and Carole live on the South Wales coast of Britain, near the ancient seaport of Swansea. Andrew has been singing and playing the obscure Crane Duet concertina for more years than he cares to remember. He was a member of Baggyrinkle, the Swansea Shantymen, when they performed at Mystic and Kennebunkport in 2002. His CD of self-penned “new songs of old times” – Pennbucky to Llangenny – was released in 2004. Carole visited and sang at Mystic Seaport in 2003, as a member of the Shellback Chorus. They finally met at England’s Lancaster Shanty Festival, and have recorded a much-acclaimed CD together – Characters. Between them, they have written a number of fine songs which are often taken for traditional, many based on historical tales of Swansea and the wild Welsh coast.

http://www.cranedrivinmusic.com

Kendall was introduced to folk music by Burl Ives and Pete Seeger, but it was Gordon Bok who encouraged him to make his debut performing folk songs. He is well known as a Maine humorist and folk singer and, with his brothers, Erlon and Les, was part of The Morse Brothers bluegrass band. He was a conservation officer for seventeen years, serving as captain of the fisheries patrol vessel, the Explorer. Unfortunately, in 2002, Kendall was hit with cancer of the vocal cord, with a re-ocurrence in 2004, and is still having treatment to try to regain more of a voice. In 2006, he traveled to California for a gig with Utah Phillips – two of the folk world’s most consummate storytellers on stage together for the first, and only time. Kendall has performed throughout the USA and the UK, and has issued three CDs, Lights Along The Shore, Seagulls and Summer People and Beginner’s Luck.

Seacoast residents Alan Eaton, Dave Hallowell, Mike Jeanneau and Peter Hale mix traditional shanties with instrumentals and contemporary songs of the sea in their quartet, Mudhook. Meeting at the popular Press Room trad sessions, these friends realized that their strong voices and musicianship would make a fine match. Between the four, they play two bouzoukis, three fiddles, four guitars, and the occasional bodhran, all while singing up a mighty storm. Though individual members have contributed regularly to the Festival in the past, this is their second group appearance at the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival.

Lynn Noel has a compelling voice of striking clarity and power, as wide and deep as her repertoire, especially for “real head-back and let-fly chanteys.” (Mystic Seaport). Lynn is a leader and organizer of sea music events, including the Boston Folk Festival Chanteyboat, the MIT Chantey and maritime Sing, and the Northeast Chantey Sings Yahoo group. Her award-winning living history series of “voyageurs, Vikings, pirates, and other traditional women’s roles” has toured internationally from Canada to Iceland, Britain, Scandinavia, Estonia, and Russia. Lynn performs with the Gloucester Hornpipe and Clog Society, Ken Mattsson, the Lazy Jacks, and Fools for morris dance and mumming troupes. She plays dulcimer, percussion, concertina, and string bass: but her favorite instrument is the audience.

Lynn Noel Website

John Roberts developed his interest in folksongs at high school, when a group of friends decided to form a folk club. As a graduate student at Cornell University, John met fellow student Tony Barrand, and the two, sharing a common heritage and interest in folksong, started their continuing partnership in 1969. Their recording Across The Western Ocean is still regarded as a classic documentary of the songs of the transatlantic packet ship trade. As well as performing with Tony, John has also continued to develop his art as a solo performer. With concertina, and banjo, he sings the traditional folksongs of his native Britain in a manner that is at once authentic and authoritative. His solo CD of sea songs, Sea Fever, was released last year to critical acclaim.

John Roberts Website: http://www.goldenhindmusic.com/

Liam Robinson has been playing and performing traditional music since childhood. He is based in Lincolnshire (UK), where he has lived all his life, growing up around the fishing port of Grimsby. His singing repertoire consists mostly of traditional songs sung and collected in Lincolnshire. He accompanies himself on Anglo concertina, and is also an acclaimed melodeon player, which he took up at the age of 17. He has explored many diverse styles of music, collaborating with folk, jazz and world musicians. He has performed at festivals and venues throughout the UK, taught workshops in schools and communities, and is the director of The Mini Morris Company. Though Liam will be performing on his own in Portsmouth, he also plays in a duo with Thomas Fairbairn, and with The Pigeon English Dance Band.

Liam Robinson’s Website: http://www.minimorris.co.uk

A familiar presence on the folk scene since the mid seventies as an energetic harmonica and banjo player, singer, and workshop leader, Ken Sweeney took up the English concertina in 1983 and has been sharing his concertina playing techniques (in traditional Irish tunes, and song accompaniment) at such events as The Northeast Squeeze-In, NEFFA, and the Sea Music Festival at Mystic Seaport Museum in his native CT since 1989 (when he also joined the museum’s chantey staff). Ken’s first Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival appearance was in 2002.

Three Sheets is a Gloucester (MA) chantey/sea music group. Many of the crew have years of established song and sea history to offer and they roar up a storm of song and good cheer wherever they go. Audiences in ports and towns all over the Northeast coast have enjoyed the power vocals and terrific harmonies of Three Sheets — and the performers have a great time, too... as will be seen! The group can be heard every Tuesday evening as they host the popular shanty sessions at Cameron's Restaurant in Gloucester.
The singers and players who make it all possible include: Peter and Joanne Souza, Rose Sheehan, David and Colin De La Barre, George and Alex Thompson, Gardi Winchester, Tim Perkins, Martha Bowen, Barry O’Brien, Tony Hilliard, Leslie Wind, Gary Foreman, Jan and Graham Walker and Susan McHenry.

Jeff Warner is a singer of traditional American and English folk songs. He presents musical traditions from the lumber camps of the Adirondack Mountains to the whaling ports of New England. This music — rich in local history and a sense of place — brings us “the latest news from the distant past.” Community songs, banjo tunes, 18th-century New England hymns, spoon-playing and sailor songs highlight his amusing and informative programs. Jeff is one of the original producers of the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival.

“Providing more than just rich entertainment, Jeff will leave you with a deeper appreciation of the land you live in.” —Caffé Lena, Saratoga Springs, NY

www.jeffwarner.com

Bob Webb presents the music of seafarers, loggers, railroaders and other folk heroes and heroines. His specialties are shipboard work-songs (“shanties”), and off-watch sailors’ favorites (“forebitters” or “main-hatch songs”). A singer, instrumentalist and raconteur, he is an expert on the rare MacCann-duet concertina and also plays Southern mountain tunes on the banjo. Audiences take delight in joining his choruses: his music has been acclaimed from New Zealand to Poland! Bob has recently released his 1995 classic From Salthouse Dock on CD, and has a new release, Waiting for Nancy: Old-Time Country Duets, with musician and friend Curt Bouterse.

“His expertise on the five-string banjo and the concertina wins him many fans among musicians, and his dramatic and unusual vocals make for great listening. . .” —Newport Folklore Society, Newport, RI

www.richmondwebb.com

last updated 14 September 2008
© 2007-2008 Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival