Roast Beef of Old England (Traditional Sailor Songs)

If Roast Beef of Old England isn't enough to spawn a dose of contact scurvy, many other of these two dozen salty tunes will set the boat a-rocking. Treasures such as "A Jolly Sailor's True Description of a Man-of-War" and "Drops of Brandy" detail life among British seamen of the early 1800s without dredging up too much of the usual pirates, shipwrecks, or mutiny. It's an historical document of the regular life at sea, inspired by the British Navy novels of Patrick O'Brian, with intentions to anchor the writing in the ordinary sounds and stories of those fictionalized seafaring times. Glad fiddle, fife, and Jerry Bryant's humble six-man choral crew Starboard Mess spill the beans in suitable fashion without a sailor's colorful vocabulary. They supply the "yo ho ho" and annotations, you bring the rum and black powder. --Ian Christe