From Sailors to Singers: The Maritime Music Journey

Of ask behind there.

This is Steve the Rev Hawkins welcoming you to another wonderful podcast of Ship Shape and Bristol Fashion.

Ship Shape and Bristol Fashion.

From even large to wonderful even all the line Secure the barrels down below Bind and tie and lash em this vessel she sets a mind.

Ship Shape from Bristol Fashion.

Ahoy there and welcome to episode 28 of Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.

I'm Oggy, your host and a member of the Port of Bristol Shanty Crew.

This podcast is designed to talk about what we get up to as a shanty crew, but also to lift the lid on the shanty world.

And so if there's anything we think that's interesting for you, we're going to put it in the show and that is definitely going to be happening on this episode.

We've got our usual segment of the Signaler where you can catch up with what we've been up and where you can catch us in the next couple of months.

But this month we welcome Dean Callan who is a member of that well known shanty crew from America bounding Maine.

But he is coming onto the show to talk about his project that he has been invested in for a very long time and it's called the Maritime Music Directory International.

And he is coming to talk to you about that project.

So let's pop down to the Signaler who this month is being voiced by Chilli because our wonderful Ash is taking a month off.

Ahoy shipmates.

It's chilly and I'm stepping in for Ash who's having a bit of R and R, a bit of time off on shore.

So I've big shoes to fill.

I have tried it before.

Let's see how we get on with it.

So what have we been up to?

Has spring sprung?

That's a nice way to put it.

The sun's out most of the time and hopefully it'll be a nice summer.

So let's tell you where we've been and what we've been up to.

So what have we done?

In April 23rd of April we were at St. Monica's Retirement Village at Sanford Station and it is gorgeous.

I've got to say it is a gorgeous place to do and it was a lovely crowd and they made us very, very welcome.

So we'd love to do them again on the 25th of April, not two days later.

We were with the Thornbury Action Art and we did a gig for them.

I put the ship in at Ulverstone.

Again, wonderful venue, really friendly and they were just the most supportive appreciative crowd we've seen so far this year.

I think to be.

To be honest, it was good fun.

So what have we got coming up in May?

Well, Saturday the 2nd of May we've got the.

The NEV Community Hub, which is on Neville Road in Bishopstone and that's starting at 2:00', clock, so we'll be there, given our best efforts.

So you can enjoy a little bit of shanty and a bit of fun in frolics, so feel free to come along.

That leads us on to Saturday and Sunday.

This is one we organize.

This is the 9th and 10th of May and it's the Real El and Shanty Festival which is at park street in Bristol.

Now we've got 16 various crews from all over the southwest coming along and we've got royalty.

Yes, I know we've got Nobby, but we've got Tom Lewis himself who's coming all the way over from Ireland.

I'm not sure what we've offered him, if it was bribes, a bottle of rum or if we've press ganged him, but he's coming over and if you've ever heard Tom Lewis, you know you're going to be in for a spectacular treatment.

Please come down and join in and come along and see what we've got to do.

Tickets are still available if you go for the Relay and Shanty Festival on Tinty Net, then you can still buy tickets.

So they are going quickly because obviously it's, it's going to be a good one, so feel free to get yourselves there.

16Th of May, we're going up to Madison's and Madison's is on the Westerly Road and it's a lovely, lovely calf, a hidden gem without a shadow of a doubt.

We're going to be there from 7pm and all of all the proceeds from that, as most of our stuff does, go straight to the Teenage Cancer Trust.

We're currently on 53, 700 pounds so we would love to break 60,000 by the end of the summer.

So feel free to come along.

It's going to be a good.

On that one, they've got a bar outside bar, they've got barbecue, they've got everything.

So fingers crossed for the weather and we'll all be there, given our best.

24Th Sunday to 24th from 7pm if you can't meet the other ones, Snuffy Jacks on Fish Ponds, Fish Ponds Road.

It is a wonderful little venue and it's one of those micro breweries and they serve some amazing drinks.

I can't Tell you now, there's some amazing beers, some of them really strong.

So not for the faint hearted but they've got something for everyone.

They got a pub garden as well when we've sang out there before.

They are great supporters of us and we love singing there.

Which leads us on to the last one for May which would be the Sunday the 31st.

We are at Newport for the Newport Shanty Festival.

We get the train over because it's easier but it means you can do those drinking things on the way back.

But that is a nice venue.

They've got it in the new part of Newport which is really posh.

Posh in Newport?

Yeah, yeah, you can say the two together.

So that really does sort of is worth a little visit if you want to.

There'll be lots of Welsh choirs and Welsh crews and things there along with all that slot will get dragged along.

So move it.

Make a point of getting up there.

What else we got in the near future?

June.

June is not one to miss.

We've been invited to the Falmouth International Shanty Festival again and we've got everything cross that we managed to get on that main stage.

If we don't, we don't.

But if you've ever been to a shanty festival international, that's the one to go to.

It's brilliant fun and they do pasties, pasties and cider and beer and everything.

Wonderful.

And then in July, oh yes, you've heard it.

Here we are opening the Bristol Harbour Festival at the amphitheatre, the Lloyds Amphitheatre.

And that will be a special thing for all of us, I think, just to open that because obviously the association with Bristol, the harbor and the boats.

So that's us signing off for the moment.

If you want to find out more, join us on the Facebook because if you put one of those things on it, a request and we can get you on there and you can see what we're up to, which is good way to keep in touch.

But have a lovely spring and let's look forward to the summer.

Have a good one.

Thank you, Chile.

And I just can't wait to get involved in all of the different shanty festivals and gigs that we're involved in.

Let's pop down to the cruise quarters and listen to Dean Callan who will give us a bit of his history and tell us all of what this Maritime Music Directory International is all about.

So as I've introduced this wonderful man, Dean Callan, welcome to Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.

Thank you for Having me on.

I'm eager to discuss our genre with everyone.

Oh, it's so great to have you on board.

Dean, for listeners who might not know you and who you are, do you mind just introducing yourself to the listeners?

And how did you first get involved in the world of maritime music?

Well, I went to public school or a private school in Chicago back in the day.

And our music classes introduced us to contemporary songs and traditional songs.

And curiously, two of them stood out to me.

One, and it was a Catholic school, so nuns teaching you drunken sailor was very paradoxical.

But also, come on you young fellows and follow the sea to me way hey, blow the man down Blow the man down.

So it was a sea shanty.

Yeah, there's a sea shanty in, in music history class.

So I've always had that sitting in the back of my mind.

In freshman year of high school, some friends of mine and I lacking a Star Trek fan club that we could join, we decided that we would start our own.

And at 14 years of age, I created what became the world's largest independent Star Trek fan club.

Now, as you might know, the show's creator was inspired by Horatio Hornblower.

So that mentality that that type of, of thought process has been in my mind for a very long time.

Now.

Of course, the sailors of the military did not do shanties, but that environment has always been in my head.

When I was a young man, I was cast in a show portraying an Elizabethan sea dog.

And in that cast we learned sea shanties.

As anachronistic as it was, it was something that our environmental theater audience could latch onto.

So at that time, I learned a bunch of sea shanties.

Our assistant music director was a big fan of, of Tom Lewis and Johnny Collins, and he introduced sea shanties not only to our individual ensemble cast, but also to the cast as a whole.

Now the, the show that we were working had always been struggling with a Renaissance themed kind of music because real Renaissance music bores the living daylights out of most people.

And lacking an alternative to that, a lot of the independent musicians that they hired were doing Celtic music or some folk music.

But you can only sing Puff Magic Dragon so many times before people realize that what you're singing is not quite period.

So that fellow, by introducing Tom Lewis and Johnny Collins to our show, that spread throughout the whole United States at this type of event.

So we were forerunners for bringing sea shanties to the general public in America.

It was very interesting time.

So 23 years ago, I was asked to put a Group together for another show that had been assembled like this, and I did, and the show went on, and afterwards we had a really good time.

The.

The crew that I put together were all environmental theater veterans.

And I said, I really enjoyed this.

Would you like to continue this beyond this show?

And everyone was very enthusiastic, and we.

We picked names out of a hat, and we put bounding main together.

And for 23 years, we've been doing a unique style of maritime music.

We all come from theatrical backgrounds, so our particular take on it is richly harmonic.

And the reason that we do that is not only because of our background, but we've discovered that while there is a need and a demand for true historical shanties, the way they were sung, not everyone in the modern audience appreciates leaping and bellowing.

And what we do is a little more at home for them.

People enjoy the harmonies that we do.

And despite the fact that we have a completely improvised show with a great deal of humor, we're very serious about our music, and we.

We.

We take it very seriously.

So when we're performing, we.

We reach a lot of people.

And it has been so heartwarming to know that we have fans now who were literally born listening to our music because their parents were fans.

Yeah, of course.

And, you know, how.

How.

How can you ask for anything more fulfilling than that?

Wow, that's such a great story and a great introduction to how you got involved in the maritime music.

So where is home for you, Dean?

I am at a little town called Racine.

Racine in Wisconsin, On Lake Michigan in the United States.

What is it about that genre that.

That, that.

That music that really keeps you so passionate about it?

Maritime music is an interesting subculture of folk music in general.

One of the deciding things about who to include in the maritime music directory, which we'll talk about also, is how much maritime are they?

The.

The cutoff is generally 51%, 51% maritime.

They get thrown into the directory.

And of course, there are exceptions because artists like Alela Diane, who did pirates gospel, that was a big thing, and everyone was covering that song.

So she got put into the directory.

And even Brandy, you're a fine girl, is in the.

The author of that song and his band are in the directory because for 50 years now, I hate to admit that that song, it was a maritime theme song, and it.

It touches people very heartfelt, and it's.

It's right in our genre, despite the fact that the group is essentially soft rock.

Yeah, of course.

Of course.

Wow.

Yeah, exactly.

And it does capture you, doesn't it?

The maritime music, it, it's a, there's an element of escapism and it's so rich with history and it's quite a privilege to be part of, of a, a group of people that steward that style of music, which is fantastic.

I mean, clearly you've got many years of experience in this world singing and also being the custodian of the Maritime Music Directory International.

But have you got any stage standout moments in your time that really sit there and performances that have really stayed with you over the time that you've been part of this, this, this maritime music world?

Oh, absolutely.

I think the.

When we got together early on at a rehearsal, I was discussing with everyone our future plans as I saw them.

And I knew that we would have a certain amount of regular shows and they thought that I was overestimating.

And I said, and then we will be doing festivals in Europe.

And everyone was like, ah, go on.

Because that seemed like, like a very, very big thing.

But having done my research, I knew that all of the key festivals were in Europe.

There, there were a few festivals in America, but the ones that I really wanted us to get to were in Falmouth, in Bremen, in Eppingdon.

So this, this is what I, I knew that we were going to get to.

So when we did, in 2008, finally get to Festival Maritime, I looked around, I looked around and saw the thousands of people in the audience and I said, we did it.

It was so good.

And then further to that, in, I think it was 2017, sorry, 2019, we were in Pamphol and we were on one of the stages and we happened to take a photo out at the audience, but the audience was shoulder to shoulder.

And the depth of appreciation that that French audience had for what we were doing, not just maritime music, but our maritime music, bringing them in, standing room only.

It made me very proud.

It made me very happy that, that we could do that, that, that we could reach an international audience with, with a project that was so important to us.

And so every now and again that picture crosses my screen.

I'm like, very happy.

Such a sense of achievement and, you know, you clearly had a vision to allow that to happen and it did.

And wow, it's so good.

And I can see how that makes you feel so positive about that world.

But what I really would like to talk to you about, which is a resource that I certainly have been using and it's been really helped me with this podcast, is this wonderful resource called the Maritime Music Directory.

International.

And so for those that are hearing about it for the first time by listening to you on this podcast, we.

What is it?

When the Pandemic gave focus to some absolute outsiders to the genre, the.

The general public assumed that certain individuals were experts in.

In our field.

And it made me very sad that we, as a collective group of entertainers, had not collectively promoted ourselves so that the general public would know who we were.

And why is that?

Well, because it takes a lot of work.

It takes a lot of work to be able to look outside of your own project, your own group, your own doorway.

And my, my day job background, I've been a sales and marketing in the commercial aerospace industry.

So I have a lot of experience both with travel and communications and networking and publishing.

So I knew that there was a way that we could make all of this information available to the press and to fans because it did not satisfy me that strangers were getting book deals and lots and lots of money where legacy groups and.

And contemporary groups whose careers were dedicated to maritime music were virtually unknown.

It was.

I felt it was a complete, completely inequitable situation.

So I can see how that is a huge motivator to create this repository of incredible acts, artist entertainers, like you said.

Well, the.

The struggle is as.

As we say, there are only so many ways to communicate with the general public.

And I discovered that the trove of information that we've assembled gets us on the first page of a lot of Google searches, so that when people are looking up a shanty or a group or a festival, our reference is one of the first ones.

And I think that's so very important because once you get into the site, within each of the listings, whether it's for a musical act or a venue or event or an individual performer, there are links within the site to be able to reach in between.

Like Port of Bristol Shanty Crew will perform at Falmouth.

And then once you're in Falmouth, you can see, oh, here are the other groups that are performed there.

Let's click on that name and then you get over to that group.

So it keeps you within the genre.

And the average viewer who may not be aware of this as a, as a culture can see that it's all linked together.

There's hundreds of groups, it's literally over a thousand groups and at least 400 venues and events that are involved in what we do.

And I think that even within our community, for any one of our bands to see that there is this volume, I don't think anyone really Recognizes that we're substantial.

What we're doing is a very important and recognizable thing.

So whilst building the platform, I mean what kind of acts and artists feature on there and how do you and maybe a team of people get to decide on who is included on that website and in the direction we.

I should say that I've got a great deal of help from my friend Tony Goodenough.

Tony, some people may remember, is the author of the song Pump Shanty from when he was working in London with the Shanty Crew many years ago.

I also have the assistance of Gunnar Wiegan from Germany, Volksinger, Gunner Wiegen, Janice from Flossy, you may recognize her from Australia.

And so I've got a number of people across the globe who are identifying groups and events that should be added.

And sometimes they will add the listing themselves.

There are some specific graphic requirements.

So I end up doing pretty much all of those and I do a lot of the listings.

But generally it's.

It's become a project of long in the tooth performers of the genre that feel the same way that I do.

It's like what we're doing is important and it needs to be recognized.

Yeah, I can imagine.

And it's not.

Yeah, I can absolutely see it's a huge amount of work and listeners if you, you know in the show notes will be the website and we will want you to go and look because it is an incredible resource have you whilst building this and clearly it's a.

A labor of love because it isn't just a one one.

You don't just complete it and it's done.

You clearly have to invest in it with the help that as you've mentioned.

But have you come across any kind of surprising discoveries and artists and groups that maybe you didn't expect originally?

I was thrilled to see the large increase of activity in Australia and New Zealand.

Okay.

For the longest time I think the Shanty Crew.

I'm going to have to check that resource again sometime and I can do that live on the site.

How good the website is.

You can just literally delve straight in.

That's right.

Because I can go to countries a musical acts and there we are.

We have.

Australia is the very first one.

And there's.

There's a fellow named Barry Skipsy who wrote a song called Ocean Liner which is a.

A maritime themed song that was popularized by the Rocky River Bush Band that was picked up by a Dutch group called Debogeneers at the Chicago Maritime Festival.

Deboganeers sang that song and we were Bounding Maine was performing at that show also.

So we decided that we would lift that from them.

So a song from Barry Skipsy in Australia made its way through to Chicago, through to the Netherlands, to Chicago, and out to the public again through us.

So it's amazing how interconnected all of this is.

Yeah, certainly is.

It's phenomenal, isn't it?

And I guess, you know, you've referenced the fact that Covid was a time where, you know, there were particular artists that were doing very well.

And, you know, thankfully, we've now got this resource that people can discover how international maritime music is.

How would you kind of compare the modern revival with the kind of traditional routes that we know all so well?

I think what's exciting is that there are definitely brand new eyes coming into the genre.

There is a Reddit subreddit, I think they call it, for sea shanties.

And every day you see people who discover sea shanties.

And of course, what they're discovering largely is maritime music.

But even.

Even when we got started 23 years ago, a lot of people were calling everything by Stan Rogers a sea shanty, which, of course, he didn't write any sea shanties.

Everything that he wrote was maritime music.

Sea shanties is a shortcut term, if you will.

It's.

It's used incorrectly, but it's a quick way of saying.

It's a quicker way of saying maritime music than maritime music.

So that's okay.

That's okay.

That'll be the placeholder.

Yeah.

Maybe there's a call of action there for everyone to be really clear that.

That there is a slight difference.

And maybe we should be using the maritime music as a.

As a.

As there's a phraseology more, I guess.

And the interesting thing is, since I started this in 2023, I have noticed that more posts on Facebook are being attentive to the use of the word maritime music, which I love because like.

Like a mechanic working on a.

A car engine.

If you say to your young assistant, hand me a.

Hand me a Phillips screwdriver, and then he hands you a hammer, I said, what is this?

It's a Phillips screwdriver.

No, that's a hammer.

Well, I call it a Phillips screwdriver.

It's like, no, that's not that at all.

That's not how this works.

And I guess, you know, we are in a great place within the Port of Bristol Shanty crew because we clearly have an incredible amount of people that follow us and.

But we're not alone there.

You know, we speak to our local shanty cruise and maritime music cruise.

And there is a following and with your own reflection, because you get to see it on an international community.

But why do you think that this music genre is really resonating with people again?

I think that along with other trends, we're enjoying the fact that what we do and have been doing involves people working positively together.

And I think that with so much political and social challenges today, I think that the world in general is looking for something happy and positive that they can contribute to.

And if they can go out and have a pint and sing a song that they may not understand, they're doing something that makes them smile and laugh.

And my God, is there anything more important than that?

I love.

Laughing pints and music.

It's great.

It's a great combination.

It really resonates with positive mental well being, isn't it?

Which is great.

Absolutely, yeah.

Really good.

I guess one of your challenges is that, and maybe I'm generalizing here, is that maybe some of the groups that are centralistic around maritime music and shanty struggle with the digital world.

I mean, you know, even a podcast like this doesn't always resonate with everyone.

I guess that's been a little bit of a challenge, but ultimately, I think from COVID it might have got better.

What are your thoughts on that?

I think that there are a lot of great musical artists whose careers have come and gone, but the legacy of their music remains.

But lacking technical expertise, there are certainly very important albums that are no longer available for any of us to listen to.

And one of my.

One of my goals for.

For down the road is to be able to identify lost albums.

Okay.

Whether in the form of a cassette or vinyl, get my hands on it and digitize it.

What I want to be able to do is to create a label, if you will, for the Maritime Music Directory so that we can re release these lost albums on Bandcamp and set up a cash flow for both the original artists who lack the technical expertise to do this and also to help support the Maritime Music Directory doing a profits share.

Yeah, well, that sounds like a fantastic idea to bring stuff that have been long forgotten.

And physical media is so alien to lots of people these days.

To bring that and to make it digitalized, it sounds.

That sounds really exciting.

Yeah, I'm struggling with the technical part of it right now.

For some reason I. I can't get my output device to talk to my computer, but I'll fix it.

Perseverance.

Perseverance.

Oh, lovey.

As a community that are listening in the world of maritime music.

Is there stuff that we could do to better support you and the small but perfectly formed team that support you in making this incredible directory?

Well, one of the things that I'm very excited by the idea of and I heard from individuals in Australia and Canada about this and I think no one has really considered it because we haven't, we haven't taken ourselves seriously enough as an individual genre.

But having an annual awards show where we can recognize top groups, top songs or even top events, I think it's important that we, we know that we don't have a Rock and Roll hall of Fame, we don't have a Country Music Awards, but we can, we can certainly do that because we can recognize the fact that there's no reason why we cannot as a thousand strong musical act genre do an annual awards ceremony because that becomes a press event and press events reach the public.

Yes, they do.

There is nothing as important to success as the appearance of success.

You can have that on a T shirt.

Absolutely, absolutely.

I've always felt that way.

And I think that if, if we can get organized on this, it will, it will greatly benefit every single one of us.

Yeah, you are right.

You are right.

It's a huge, huge community and I've only got a small perspective of it.

You, you get to see the big picture.

Now that, that sounds like an exciting thing.

And so I guess you know that my next question to you is what next for the Maritime Music directory?

Clearly one of them is to digitalize music and maybe, you know, be part of the conversation around having a truly international award ceremony.

Have you got any other projects or features that you're excited to tell our listeners today about this?

It, it's not as, as exciting as I would like.

However, we shifted from an HTML based website several years ago to a WordPress based website and unfortunately we have not been well served in terms of the technology.

And it's gotten to the point that we're going to have to rebuild the site entirely.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, it's, it's kind of dreadful.

But because of the template that we're using and the, some of the technicians that we've had working on the site, it's, it's becoming more and more unavoidable as time goes on.

I got an estimate from a local development house that is offering a considerable discount because we are a not for profit organization.

But we're still looking at about 4, $500 to rebuild the site and unfortunately we have to do it.

It's not really.

It's not really something that's going to be optional.

And unfortunately what, what I need to do now is to start grant writing, which had, which had been in my plans from the very beginning.

But unfortunately last year I. I developed cancer and a cardiac issue which kind of took me off the workforce for a little while.

Yeah, I guess.

And so I've got a member of my board which is experienced with grant writing and we hope to be able to get that going before the site actually breaks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Time is of the essence.

I get that feeling.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, Dean, I'm glad that.

I mean, are you feeling better now?

Is life a little better on the health side?

I have been in continuous medical supervision.

I've been doing chemo, I've been doing radiation therapy, physical therapy, and I'm feeling considerably better.

I started doing bounding main shows again this year, so I'm delighted to be back at it.

I'm certainly not 100 yet, but I'm up and about and taking care of myself.

So my, my feelings are.

Feelings and expectations are quite high.

Good, good.

Well, I think we're all very thankful and, and it's great that you are moving in that direction.

So the platform itself, is there any hidden gems within the directory that you really would like us to go and visit and explore further?

Absolutely.

I think some of the little tools that we've added to the site have made its utility very, very powerful.

I think that people should be aware that we have a way to sort by categories so that if you're in say musical acts off on the right hand side, you can sorts specifically for solo musicians or acapella groups or bands with instruments and vocals.

And the, the beauty of that is I think of the casual fan that happens to be in Falmouth for the Falmouth Festival.

And if they don't remember what the name of the festival is, but they remember that group that they really liked, they can say, well they.

They were four gentlemen on banjos and guitars.

So they can go to this category, sort and look at bands with instruments and vocals and suddenly they're looking at everyone who specifically like what they're looking for.

So even if they don't find the original group that they're looking for, they'll find a group that they like.

That's fantastic.

That's so good, isn't it?

Because it's so easy to get so focused on one band, but actually being introduced to, to others that are kind of would resonate with the.

The visitors to Your site, that is such a powerful tool.

We've worked very hard on making this something that everybody can use.

The other two things are as often as the calendar permits, we add a maritime note which is typically age of sail related because that's the time that shanties were developed.

Obviously maritime events and maritime individuals are all very important, but we try to focus an interesting thing on the maritime notes and that's something found on the homepage.

And lastly, I get emails from people asking about how they can buy CDs.

And what we've done is that we've created a fourth category that pulls links from the individual listings.

Of course musical acts have albums, but some festivals also have albums.

And if you go to the home page on the site and you click on the recordings link, you'll come to a page that gives you a complete list of every place that you can go to to reach the recordings of the.

That are available in our genre.

You can search by let's say longest for longest Johns and, and I use them because they're very prolific and there's a lot that, that people will see and they've done a marvelous job as well with marketing themselves.

Yes.

And the.

I think the important thing that I hope the musical acts recognize is the fact that we do not sell their music.

We don't want to get between them and the fans.

What we do is we link to their links to their site where fans and the press can find their music.

Yeah, that's great.

It is.

That's a great gift to the artists for people to discover them and then to go to their website to do that purchase, which is.

Yeah, that's so good.

Yeah.

And of course our anticipation is that the more fans and the more musical acts and festivals who see what we're doing to promote the group, to promote the music, that they will recognize that and go to our donation link and drop us a few coins every now and again to help us sustain what we're doing.

Yeah, and I think that's probably very important listener that, you know, we're not here asking you to part with thousands and thousands of pounds to enable this new rebuild.

But like you said, it's a non for profit.

There's a, there is a donate space, isn't there, on your website for people to, to donate whatever currency they have and whatever, whatever money they have to, to help you.

Yeah, no, that's fantastic.

I mean, you know, what you do is, is phenomenal.

And a big thank you from the Port of Bristol Shanty Crew for, for doing everything that you've done so far.

If people have listened to this interview and they want to find out where this directory is and how they can get involved, let's signpost them to the right direction.

Absolutely.

The.

The link to the site is HTTPs seashanties plural for the number4all.com seshanties for all.com.

It says it.

It says it right there in that address.

Exactly what it is all about.

Any final message for listeners that are aspiring to be maritime singers or acts?

Anything, any advice to give them because clearly you get to see them all.

Any, any advice and words of wisdom.

As you said earlier, we are in a.

A wonderful period today that we have such a active group of musical acts all over the globe, typically English speaking.

I would love to see more input from Mediterranean groups and I think that as the years go by, there will be more focus on that.

But as time goes on, I think that we will all see how fun this is for all of us and how important it is, this fellowship, this brotherhood that we can go to a festival and we have a group from Germany and we have a group from England and France and Netherlands and Belgium and America and doing all of this beautiful, wonderful, historic, contemporary, heartfelt music of love and dedication and hard work together.

We are so blessed.

We are so fortunate to be able to have this and we're here now and who knows what the world will have in 10 years.

I hope it'll be even bigger.

Yeah, let's hope.

Let's hope.

Well, Dean, thank you for your time and thank you for everything you do.

I certainly confident this won't be the last time that we talk and having you on the show because you are a font of knowledge when it comes to the international community of maritime music.

And I think, you know, listener, please do go and spend some time.

You could literally lose hours of your life by just going to that space and really absorbing how what a wonderful community that we are in right now and all of that hard work is, is clearly paying off.

So well done Justin.

Thank you so much for having me on.

Sally is the girl that I love dearly way.

Hey, bullying the alley.

Sally is the girl that I.

Thank you Dean.

That was an incredible interview and once again, if you have not managed to visit this website yet, I will include it in the show notes.

And so your good podcasting app or in fact if you're listening to this online, you should find it in the notes section.

There's a link there to the website.

It's worth spending some time there just to find out some of the history and some of the details around individual singers and groups from around the world.

It's an incredible resource and and I certainly use it quite regularly.

So that's it for this month's episode of Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.

If you haven't already done so, then please do pop over to Facebook, give us a search port of Bristol Shanty crew and you'll find our wonderful community.

Now join it because it's a great way of keeping in touch with what we get up to instantly and it's a great way of interacting with us.

So thank you for listening.

And once again, fair winds and following seas take care Ship shape and Bristol.

Fashioned boys along the harbor side from even gorge to underfall we'll even hold the line Obscure barrels down below Wind and tie and lash em this vessel she is certified shipshape and Bristol fashion So haul away me laddie boys haul way up free Haul away me ly boys and save a drink for me Haul away me ly boys haul away you're free Haul away me ly boys and save a drink for me.