2023 Featured Performers

40 Degrees South
Members of 40 Degrees South (Tom Hanson, Margaret Walters, Don Brian, Chris Maltby, and Jude Alexander) have been maintaining a tradition of unaccompanied singing for over three decades. Mostly known for their repertoire of maritime songs and shanties, they also sing Australian colonial history, industrial, gospel, and traditional chorus songs. Their latest CD – Crossing the Line – features songs of the southern oceans and includes unique gems from ship logs, contemporary songs, and old favourites, which they’ve taken back to their roots. 40 Degrees South performs at folk clubs, festivals, and boat shows in New South Wales and beyond, giving concerts, themed presentations, and leading traditional-style singing sessions. They have toured throughout Australia, the US, France, Holland, England, and New Zealand.
find them on: facebook • youtube

Bob & Jeanne Zentz
Folk-Legacy recording artist Bob Zentz – now Smithsonian Folk-Legacy! – has been spreading the gospel of the Chesapeake’s watery ways as well as his own brand of Homemade Music for more than six decades, with stops along the way including the U.S. Coast Guard, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and Virginia’s Legends of Music Walk of Fame.  The award-winning singer, songwriter, song finder, and multi-instrumentalist joined with his spouse, song historian Jeanne McDougall Zentz to co-found the Ramblin’ Conrad Folklife Institute in 2016.  The Institute helps to  preserve roots and promote branches of traditional music, in the belief that the future of our world depends upon our youth and music.

David Jones
A Londoner, David moved to the USA in 1965 and became involved with the NYC folk music scene. He has sung solo, with The Starboard List, The Bermuda Quadrangle, Poor Old Horse, and The New York Packet. He has performed in NYC theatrical productions, many folk festivals, and as a featured artist in The Sea Revels, a production based on traditions and lore of the sea. He has played the role of the great sailor, Joshua Slocum, in a Dillon Bustin production based on Slocum’s book, Sailing Alone Around the World, and has made recordings with the above groups and solo. He has also written an autobiographical book, Smith of Lambeth.

Ken Sweeney
An accomplished singer and instrumentalist on harmonica, 5-string banjo, and English concertina, Ken Sweeney has been performing at festivals and dances at home and abroad since the mid-1970’s. Varied lifestyles, occupations, and hard travel are the hallmark of his performances with a special affinity for songs of his native New Eng- land shores. Ken has been a farmhand, deckhand, logger, lecturer, motorcycle currier, railroad hobo, and “Visiting Professor of Harmonica and Banjo” at a CT university, to name a few. He was a former chantey and demonstration squad staff member at Mystic Seaport Museum, and has crewed on tall ships and climbed to the main truck of the Charles W. Morgan.

Skylark
Skylark (A.J. Wright, Kate McCann, Yves Corbiere) is a trio with a broad range of instruments and a repertoire that spans maritime music, folk music of the British Isles, early American music, macabre ballads, sing-along-favorites, and a smattering of other traditions brought back from the annals of history. The band shines in tight harmonies, strong vocal tones, and a depth of knowledge about the songs, tunes, and instruments that they play. They have played shows, ships, private events, restaurants, and festivals all along the eastern seaboard. Whether on land or at sea, their diverse sounds and joyful stage presence are entertaining, informative, and a delight to audiences.
find them on: facebook • instagram

The Ancient Mariners Chanteymen
The Ancient Mariners Chanteymen are a sub-group of the Ancient Mariners Fife and Drum Corps founded in 1959 by Roy Watrous, with the idea of using a nautical flare. The tunes were soon sung by members of the corps, with Cliff Haslam and Dave Tiezzi at the helm. Soon thereafter, Kevin Brown blossomed and fine tuned the sound with Dr. Howard Hornstein’s arrangements – alas, the “wall of sound” emerged.  The current members are Dave Tiezzi, Neil O’Brien, Stephen Johnson, Dillon Johnson, Section Chief Scott Redfield, and our mentor Cliff Haslam.  The Mariners have entertained audiences from Maine to Texas, including Mystic Seaport, Port Jefferson, and Basel, Switzerland.

Dan Milner
Having gotten “deep water” experience emigrating to the USA on the Cunard liner Aquitania, Dan Milner has a long history of singing chanteys and maritime songs stretching from NYC’s South Street Seaport and going worldwide. In Manhattan he founded and ran weekly concerts at the legendary Eagle Tavern Folk Club for ten years. Growing up in a singing Irish family informs his broad repertoire and singing style. He has performed, lectured and taught about traditional songs at various universities, seminars, folk music camps and festivals here and abroad. Coupled with his research on songs, he has produced four CDs and two books, including The Unstoppable Irish (Notre Dame University Press). All are available at the concession table.

Jeff Davis
Jeff Davis is a respected collector and interpreter of traditional music. He has visited source singers—the singers and players of the old music—and closer at hand to archives, always on the lookout for the best music that was once common in our fields, villages, and on shipboard. Through Jeff you might “meet” Nova Scotia farmers, African-American sailors, New York loggers, New Zealand gold diggers, and others. He plays the fiddle—including some rare Yankee fiddle tunes—banjo, mandocello, guitar, and more. He’s performed in Canada, England, The Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, and New Zealand. He’s made several recordings, including with Dan Milner and David Coffin, Civil War Naval Songs (Smithsonian-Folkways)

Nick Apollonio
Nikos Apollonio is a stringed instrument maker and multi-instrumentalist from Belfast, Maine. With over 60 years experience, his work is known internationally. Early on, he developed a keen interest in chanteys and fore bitters and has even writ- ten a couple. He is proficient on guitar, fiddle, and the 10-string cittern, and has played on over a dozen recordings of his own and with other folk musicians in a variety of styles. He has accompanied Gordon Bok, Bob Zentz, Skip Gorman, and the quartet Any Monday, doing mostly Scots, Cape Breton, and Irish songs and tunes, with a smattering of Spanish and Galician.

Stout
Bob Conroy, Frank Hendricks, and Bill Grau have been performing traditional music since the 1960’s. Their music is the hearty American variety, woven from sea shanties, work and tavern songs, and popular tunes of the 19th century, as well as compositions of more recent vintage. Stout has appeared at Lincoln Center, South Street Seaport, Historic Richmond Town, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Mystic Seaport, and the Everyman Folk Club in Liverpool, England.

Bob “Bobaloo” Basey and Tracey Wright-Basey
Bob-Bobaloo Basey and Tracey Wright are music educators currently working in the New York City public schools. They met in Hartford, CT and began street performing in New England and Europe, developing a unique blend of improvisational music with flutes, drums, and dance. Based in Staten Island, they continue to develop a repertoire of songs, instrumentals, and interactive performances with varied audiences in schools, street fairs, public spaces, and libraries. Tracey has explored sacred music and toured with an ethnic fusion band. Bobaloo is a grant recipient who is expanding his playlist of folktales and tunes, and has a musical ministry in New Jersey State prisons. Bobaloo and Tracey enjoy the storytelling and sing-along style of sea shanties. Come join this duo as they encourage audience participation with song, instruments, movement, and play for the whole family.

David Carson Iler
David Carson Iler has been performing professionally since 2005 playing at festivals, museums, and private parties throughout New England. David is known for his smooth baritone voice, accompanied by banjo, bouzouki, and alternately-tuned guitar. His repertoire is primarily traditional maritime and Irish folk songs, yet he’s also known for his Blues performances that use harmonica and a handcrafted shovel slide guitar. His first album, Watching the Dog, was released in 2020. His latest release is Of Lords and Ladies, Of Maidens and Sailors. Both albums reflect the maritime music David loves so much. David is an avid songwriter and often employs a “traditional” feel to his new musical creations.

The Johnson Girls
The Johnson Girls have been an internationally acclaimed, all-women, a cappella maritime group since the 1990’s. Joy Bennett, Alison Kelley, Bonnie Milner, and Deirdre Murtha met in the NYC sea music community, sang at South Street Seaport as members of the NY Packet, have all been in the NY Revels, and each bring a special influence to the group. Believing that sea chanteys were the first real “world music,” the JGirls remain true to their mission to keep chantey singing alive while bringing women’s voices to the fore. Whether performing at festivals, clubs, workshops, or in educational settings, they deliver rousing chanteys, maritime songs, ballads, and laments – with hair-raising harmonies – and sweep their audiences along in a tidal fervor.
find them on: facebook

Rick & Donna Nestler
Husband and wife team, Donna & Rick Nestler have been playing together professionally for over twenty years. Though they perform in various traditional genres in- cluding folk, Irish, and maritime, it all falls under roots music. They are both multi- instrumentalists, playing 6 & 12 string guitars, tenor banjo, ukuleles, and concertina, among other things. Their Late Night, Early Morning CD showcases their instrumental talents and Rick’s original tunes, especially The River That Flows Both Ways. They have performed with Pete Seeger, Tom Chapin, Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, Hudson River Sloop Singers, Guy Davis, and Rik Palieri, among many others.
find them on: facebook

The Dirty Blue Shirts
The Dirty Blue Shirts is an experiential history collective of living historians, scholars, and artists who know that uncovering history is dirty work. Its members worked together on the front lines of Mystic Seaport Museum for nearly 20 years in the Chantey and Roleplaying Programs and on the Special Demonstration Squad, where their blue shirts got the dirtiest. Now, they bring customized, museum-quality programming to historic sites throughout New England, offering presentations and workshops on environmental history, blacksmithing, fiber arts, woodworking, historical dress, original and traditional music, immigrant history, theater, and, of course, maritime culture and history.