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Ana Vinagre was born in the small fishing village of Figueira Da Foz, Portugal. Following in the footsteps of her sister, mother, and grandmother, she began singing fado professionally at the age of 13 as a member of her local folk dance group, Cantarinhas de Buarcos. Vinagre toured extensively with this group throughout Europe, until immigrating to the United States with her husband and singing partner Jose in 1972. Today, she is one of the area's best known and most respected fadistas. Vinagre performs regularly in the Portuguese community for various community and private events, as well as at festivals and other events for a wider audience. She has appearanced at the 2002 National Folk Festival, the Northwest Folklife Festival in 2003 and 2004, and the Lowell Folk Festival in 2006.
A tradition dating back hundreds of years, fado singing is "the soul of the Portuguese people", as described by Vinagre. The emotional core of the fado is saudade, an indefinable yearning or nostalgia for love, times past, or a lost home. Accompanied by a twelve string Portuguese guitar and a bass guitar, the voice of a true fadista embodies and expresses the soulfulness of this music tradition. The traditional fadista dresses in black and uses a shawl as a prop to accentuate the passion of her voice and words. The genre developed in the port city of Lisbon where it was performed at waterfront clubs and bars frequented by sailors and seamen.
Calico Jack is the dynamic folk duo of Janie Meneely and Paul DiBlasi, whose music celebrates the people, places and history of the Chesapeake. Singer/songwriter Janie Meneely delves deep into the well of Chesapeake lore to produce songs evocative of the waterman's way of life, and her nautically inspired tunes have been recorded by artists throughout the country. Paul DiBlasi adds his powerful vocals, including a penchant for harmony, plus a strong hand on the guitar. Meneely's strong regional roots have led her to develop a hefty list of Bay-inspired songs that trace the history of the oyster industry or capture the tales told round a country store liar's bench, but her ditties are just as apt to poke fun at time-honored traditions. Calico Jack is eelgrass at its best. Sometimes saucy, sometimes serious Calico Jack offers audiences a glimpse of a rapidly disappearing way of life and invites them to join in on the chorus.
Jon Campbell owned a workboat before he owned a car. In those days bay scallops, clams, and quahogs, flounder and lobsters were abundant in the coastal ponds and Narragansett Bay. Regulations were few and the commercial fisheries were still represented by independent men in wooden Eastern Rigs.
For the past 25 years Jon has been writing and performing music based on the wide range of experience available to those people living in coastal regions, the tourists, the cuisine, the fisheries, cranky Yankees and an assortment of humorous and poignant characters. Jon has been a recognized Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Folk Artist since 1982, and he has been involved in a large number of recording projects both as performer and producer. He is presently retired from a 25 year career in the motion picture industry, and yes he did work on the Perfect Storm, in addition to many more major releases.
To fill in the blanks, Jon's musical activities in the last year have ranged from Camden Maine to Kodiak Alaska.
Castlebay weaves together Maine's ageless nautical and British Isles legacies transporting their audience through time and across the Atlantic. Julia Lane and Fred Gosbee have loved and researched traditional music for most of their lives and blend history, legend and experience into their personable performances. Finely crafted ballads with evocative imagery and beautiful melodies depict Maine characters, history, and life close to the elemental beauty of the sea and shore. Their renditions of traditional and original songs are supported with Celtic harp, 12-string guitar, fiddle & woodwinds. Castlebay has toured the Eastern US, British Isles & Ireland performing at festivals, museums, schools and folk clubs. To date they have released 20 recordings which receive international airplay.
Daisy Nell, native of Essex, MA, mainstay of the shipbuilding industry for over 300 years, brings alive New England's maritime history through traditional songs of the sea. A familiar voice on the North Shore music scene, she is known for her broad repertoire of traditional folk, chanteys, and contemporary songs. Daisy's appears regularly at the Essex Elementary School where she provides an annual residency in music and folklore. Her husband, Stan Collinson, (Captain Stan), adds his guitar and dobro to Daisy's banjo and guitar. Pat Conlon of Gloucester and Jack Schwartz, of Essex fill out the band. Together they cover a lot of territory, from the foc's'le to the farm!
Fisher poet, Geno Leech began writing poetry while drag fishing on the COLUMBIAN STAR off the Oregon/Washington coast. This will be Geno's third appearance at Working Waterfront Festival. He has also performed at events in New York City, Mystic Seaport, Camden, Maine, Martha's Vineyard, Elko, Nevada, Kodiak, Alaska, and recites annually at Fisher Poet's Gathering in Astoria, Oregon. "The toughest act I've ever followed was a scallop shucking contest at the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford. The crowd carried the winner off on their shoulders and disappeared." Today, Geno works aboard a hopper dredge in the Gulf of Mexico and lives in Chinook, Washington with his wife, Joanne.
Hosted and organized by the Schooner Ernestina, this 43-member chorus was created in 2001, and is made up of some of the Ernestina's most vocal volunteers. The repertoire includes a variety of chanteys and songs that reflect the rich maritime heritage of New Bedford, and the region. Sea Chanteys were traditionally sung as work songs on board sailing ships both as a way to pass the time and as a means of helping establish a rhythm for various types of work aboard the ship.
As a sampler of musical traditions connected to New Bedford Harbor and the New England seafarer, their performances feature the chanteys of the Yankee sailor, along with the ballads and ditties of global mariners and coastwise fisherfolk in North America, the Cape Verde Islands, and the British Isles.
NØÍR is the latest band to emerge from the vibrant folk scene of Southeastern MA. Centered around the admiration each musician has for regional European roots music, NØÍR sought to create a new sound by combining the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle (Hardingfele) and the Northumbrian smallpipes from England. This new voice, combined with solid rhythmic underpinnings, breathes new life into the enduring melodies of their respective traditions. Primarily Irish musicians, NØÍR would be remiss by not bringing their foremost passion to the stage. Here, the band combines the legendary and ever-inspiring combination of the Irish fiddle and uilleann pipes. Bouzouki and open-tuned guitar round out the exciting and toe-tapping trio. NØÍR is Mark Oien on Hardanger and Irish fiddle, Stuart Peak on guitar and bouzouki and Colin Everett on Northumbrian and uilleann pipes.
The Northern Neck Chantey Singers live in the Northern Neck, a peninsula lying between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers in Lancaster and Northumberland Counties of Virginia. The group keeps alive a unique tradition of African American work songs from the menhaden fishery. Work songs such as "Help Me to Raise 'Em" were an integral part of coordinating the hauling of the purse seine (nets filled with thousands of pounds of fish). Until the group was organized in 1991, this tradition was little known because the songs were sung only at sea. The Northern Neck Chantey Singers is comprised of seven men in their late 60s, 70s and early 80s who fished for menhaden in waters from the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic Ocean from the 1930s to the 1980s. They have appeared on radio, television and at festivals throughout the country to share their rich culture with others.
Maine-based folksinger, Dave Rowe is known as much for his hairy-chested, fiddle-driven maritime and Celtic classics and rollicking Appalachian songs as he is for his captivating originals and his Downeast, common-sense wit. He grew up in a folk music family, his late father being a founding member of the popular trio, Schooner Fare. Dave, usually backed up by bassist/vocalist, Kevin O'Reilly, and fiddler/vocalist, Zach Ovington, seamlessly blends traditional and contemporary music with themes of northern New England, its interesting culture, rugged landscape, and rich heritage. His own sturdy songcraft is uniquely suited to express these traditional themes and imagery of hard work, community, and family together with stunning clarity, while making inventive use of instrumentation and strong vocal harmonies, evocative of the great folk bands of the 1960s-creating a unique musical tapestry rarely heard in the contemporary folk landscape.
The Souls of the Sea Band sings about the lives and experiences of the fishermen of the North Atlantic. The original, musically diverse songs are unique interpretations of life around the working harbor. The group of nationally acclaimed musicians, singers and songwriters are based in America's oldest seaport, Gloucester Massachusetts, and perform throughout the Northeast.
The trio consists of guitarist and lead singer Allen Estes, a long time performer and former songwriter for the Merit Music Corp in Nashville, TN; former Stompers lead guitarist, Sal Baglio, who has opened for The Beach Boys; and fiddle player Matt Leavenworth, whose virtuosity is legend throughout the New England states. Frank Tedesco writes the lyrics.
The Festival features maritime and ethnic music that relates to the commercial fishing industry.
Send press packet and sample recording to:
Working Waterfront Festival
c/o CEDC
PO Box 6553
New Bedford, MA 02742-6553.