Aye, Matey: The Corsairs and "Leaving of Liverpool"

Pirate lovers - or lovers of old sea shanties - today's your day! Our random tune is from a group that's a bit of a mystery. I remember seeing The Corsairs at some festival in San Antonio years ago and purchased their album. This is not the 60s doo wop group, but an American a cappella group that sings sea shanties and pirate songs. I can't find too much on them except that they've released a number of albums, each named after a color - for example, The Red One, The Black One, etc. This song, Leaving of Liverpool, is from their 1998 first album The Red One.

Dreaming of the Sea: Madredeus & Banda Cósmica with "Não Estamo Sós"

I grew up in a small town on the Northern California coast...a small town filled with Portuguese families that made a living through fishing. In that way, our harbor back in the early days of the town must have seemed like a harbor on the Portuguese coast, with the sounds of the Portuguese language waxing and waning as the fishing boats made ready and left port in the morning, and returned and were moored in the evening. I grew up with the smell of the sea in my nostrils, the wet sea air in my hair, and the sound of the roaring surf in my ears at all times of the day. I went to sleep with the low moaning of buoys, their sound carried by winds for miles, on windy evenings. Two of my uncles were fishermen (though they weren't Portuguese) but they fished alongside men with names like Figueredo, Tomás and Pacheco. My father (adoptive father) was also part Portuguese - his mother was a Pacheco and my father had dark skin like someone whose lineage may have originated in the Azores.

Having grown up near the ocean, I am very empathetic with the Portuguese love for the sea, and have come to appreciate that their songs often extoll the sea or express a deep longing for it. As a coastal boy who has now lived over half his life away from the sea, and who ironically now lives about as far environmentally from the sea as he possibly could in a high desert environment, I still dream of the ocean, its sounds, smells and taste. When I go back home to see my mother, my body almost automatically adjusts to the damp air, drinking in the wetness in the atmosphere. My love for fog and the other variations of coastal weather returns. If I were a musician, I think I too (and I recently found out that I may actually have some Portuguese in me) would write songs about the sea expressing my love for her in no uncertain terms.

Não Estamo Sós (I believe it translates as "We are not alone") is by Portuguese band Madredeus & Banda Cósmica. Madredeus combines traditional Portuguese music with contemporary folk, creating melancholy songs that often, like fado, refer to the sea, travelling or absence. This may sound like fado, but fado is a subgenre of the type of traditional music of Portugal that Madredeus draws from. The band was largely unknown for a long while outside of Portugal, but became internationally known when filmmaker Wim Wenders asked them to perform for the soundtrack of his movie Lisbon Story and the soundtrack received rave reviews. Banda Cósmica is a portion of Madredeus that brings in new instrumentation, such as African instruments and percussion. They have released nineteen albums to date. Não Estamo Sós is from their 2009 album A Nova Aurora.

Seaside Towns: Mariza and "Maria Lisboa"

A week ago, I came back from California with the sea smell still in my nostrils. My hometown is on the coast, and I love the ocean and the blue vista stretching west to infinity, and ironically I am now living a mile high in a desert where one looks out and sees nothing to the west but the brown of a desert mesa and an ancient volcano just peaking its head above the horizon. The last thing to leave my imagination when I die, I imagine, will be the sound of the waves breaking ceaselessly against the shore, and when I listen carefully enough I can even hear it in the middle of the quiet desert.

My hometown, because it was a fishing town, was a place where Portuguese settled. The first European to see the area was a Portuguese explorer, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, and my classes in school were peppered with Portuguese names. My adoptive father was of Portuguese and German descent, and the people often were referred to (and by each other) as "Portagees." A Portuguese Hall still exists in my hometown, and a Portuguese Holy Ghost Festa occurs every year - my high school band was often called upon to march in the parade.

Today's song, Maria Lisboa, is a metaphorical allusion to another seaside town (city actually) - Lisbon. It is a fado (a melancholy song often about the sea or the life of the poor) and it is easy for me to understand the Portuguese fascination with the ocean and love for the ocean. Lisbon is presented as a poor woman whose past was great, whose present is shabby and poor, and who is always in a relationship with the ocean that sustains her. These are the lyrics translated (on the net by a Portuguese speaker):

(She) is a seller of fish, and wears old shoes.
(She) moves like a cat
In the basket, (she carries) the caravel (a small ship for exploration)

In her heart, (she carries) the frigate (a warship)

Instead of ravens (the symbol of Lisbon) on the shawl
Sea-gulls came to lay down.
When the wind takes her to the ball
(She) dances at the ball with the sea.
(Her) dress is made of shells
(She) has seaweed on her hair
And in her veins, the bark
Of the engine of a fishing boat.
(She) sells dreams and the smell of the sea
(She) announces storms with a cry.
her first name: Maria
Her surname: Lisboa

The singer of Maria Lisboa is Mariza, a Portuguese fado singer born in Mozambique before it gained independence from Portugal. She is of mixed Portuguese and African heritage. When she was three her family moved to Lisbon and while young she began learning to sing in many styles, including jazz, gospel and soul. She adopted fado at the insistence of her father, who felt it would give her more acceptance in the Portuguese community. After the fado's most famous interpreter, Amália Rodrigues (Maria Lisboa was made famous by her), died in 1999 Mariza was asked to perform a tribute in her memory, which led her to record a fado album. Fado was starting to regain popularity, and her album sold an astounding number of copies. She has since focused on fado, has released seven albums and has sold over a million records worldwide. Maria Lisboa appeared on her debut album Fado em Mim (2002) and this version is from a live concert in Lisbon.