Various Artists – Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys
What with the rise of wireless internet and handheld video games, and the declining popularity of Gilbert & Sullivan, sailors just don’t burst into song like they used to. Blessed be, then, actor Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski; while toiling o’er their seafaring sequel Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, they concocted the idea for a modern-day anthology of rhymes — and melodies — of ancient mariners, and recruited Hal Willner to helm the project.
Willner, the inventive producer of award-winning tributes to Kurt Weill, Charles Mingus, and Disney film music, assembled a motley crew: Nick Cave, Jolie Holland, and sundry representatives from the Wainwright, Carthy, and Thompson clans. All involved prove remarkably well-suited, from the biggest pop stars (Bono) to the most esoteric cult acts (Akron/Family, Mary Margaret O’Hara). Sting and Andrea Corr both startle with persuasive a cappella performances; shorn of their studio frippery, they are redeemed through these antiquated ditties.
Like manatees passing for mermaids, the most eccentric offerings are among the most seductive. Gavin Friday surges through “The Baltimore Whores”, a concertina wheezing in tandem with his smoked-out vocals. Bryan Ferry drops his monocle-and-white-tie affectations, seasoning his delivery with a wink and a leer on “Lowlands Low”, a spiraling duet with falsetto crooner Antony. The eccentric Baby Gramps erupts into spasms of throat singing while describing enormous fish heads deployed as tobogans on “Cape Cod Girls”.
Featuring 43 songs sprend over two discs, Rogue s Gallery spans vast territory, but, unlike the film that inspired it, never feels rudderless or interminable.