"Great Balls of Fire" is a 1957 popular song recorded by American rock and roll musician Jerry Lee Lewis on Sun Records and featured in the 1957 movie Jamboree. It was written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer. The Jerry Lee Lewis 1957 recording was ranked as the 96th greatest song ever by Rolling Stone. It is written in AABA form. It sold one million copies in its first 10 days of release in the United States making it one of the best-selling singles in the United States at that time.
Bruce Randall Hornsby is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. His music draws from folk rock, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Southern rock, country rock, jam band, rock, heartland rock, and blues rock musical traditions.
"Banks of the Ohio", also known as "Down on the Banks of the Ohio" and "I'll Never Be Yours", is a 19th-century murder ballad, written by unknown authors. The lyrics tell of "Willie" who invites his young lover for a walk during which she rejects his marriage proposal, and once they are alone on the river bank, he murders the young woman.
The Midnight Special is an American late-night musical variety series originally broadcast on NBC during the 1970s and early 1980s, created and produced by Burt Sugarman. It premiered as a TV special on August 19, 1972, and then began its run as a regular series from February 3, 1973, to March 27, 1981. The 90-minute program aired on Saturday mornings at 1 a.m. ET/PT after the Friday night edition of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo were Norwegian-Americans who in 1896 became the first people ever to row across an ocean. Their time record for rowing the North Atlantic Ocean was not broken for 114 years, and then by four rowers instead of two.
"Cocaine Blues" is a Western swing song written by Troy Junius Arnall, a reworking of the traditional song "Little Sadie." Roy Hogsed recorded a well known version of the song in 1947.
"He Was a Friend of Mine" is a traditional folk song in which the singer laments the death of a friend. Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax was the first to collect the song, in 1939, describing it as a "blues" that was "a dirge for a dead comrade."
"Young Hunting" is a traditional folk song, Roud 47, catalogued by Francis James Child as Child Ballad number 68, and has its origin in Scotland. Like most traditional songs, numerous variants of the song exist worldwide, notably under the title of "Henry Lee" and "Love Henry" in the United States and "Earl Richard" and sometimes "The Proud Girl" in the United Kingdom.
Bounding Main is an American a cappella quintet focusing on traditional sea shanties and maritime music.
Camp Favorites is a studio album by "The Campers" that was released in 1962 or 1963 by Cameo Records. It is the first known commercial record made by folksinger, songwriter, and social activist Phil Ochs.
Frank Hamilton is an American folk musician, collector of folk songs, and educator. He co-founded the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois in 1957. As a performer, he has recorded for several labels, including Folkways Records. He was a member of the folk group The Weavers in the early 1960s, and appeared at the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959. He was the house musician – playing guitar and other folk instruments – for Chicago's Gate of Horn, the nation's first folk music nightclub. After many years of teaching, playing, and singing in California he married a third time, and with his wife relocated to Atlanta, where he performs on banjo, guitar, ukulele, voice, and other instruments and co-founded the Frank Hamilton School in 2015.
Rick Saucedo is a musician, songwriter, actor, and Elvis tribute artist.
Salty Walt & the Rattlin' Ratlines is a sea shanty performing group based in San Francisco, originally formed in 2003. The group consists of Walter "Salty Walt" Askew, Daniel Briggs, Griff Nelson, and Jon Richardson. On occasion, they also perform Celtic music and since at least 2005 have been performing a show of traditional carols and wassails on Boxing Day. They were voted San Francisco's "Best Sea Shanty Band" in 2006. The group appeared at the "Festival Maritim" in Vegesack, Germany in 2007.
Tom and Chris Kastle are a maritime music performing duo based in Chicago. They first began performing maritime music in approximately 1977. In the mid-1980s they were known for running "whale watching" concert cruises on Lake Michigan on the sailing schooner Charlotte Ann.
The Mystic Seaport Sea Music Festival, held annually in June from 1979 to 2020 at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut, was among the oldest, and was the largest sea music festival in the United States. It reportedly attracted "the highest caliber of sea music performers, scholars, and fans." The Festival was first organized by Dr. Stuart M. Frank as a place to perform and hear sea music as well as a symposium for ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, and historians.
Debra Cowan is a folk singer based in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
The Chicago Maritime Festival is a maritime music and culture festival held in Chicago, Illinois, every winter, usually the last weekend in February, usually at the Chicago History Museum. It is not uncommon for over 500 people to participate. It has existed in its present incarnation since 2003 and is the only wintertime festival featuring maritime music in the United States. The main organizers are performers Tom & Chris Kastle.
Anthony D. Saletan, known professionally as Tony Saletan, is an American folk singer, children's instructional television pioneer, and music educator. Saletan is responsible for the modern rediscovery, in the mid-1950s, of two of the genre's best-known songs, "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" and "Kumbaya". In 1955, he was the first performer to appear on Boston's educational television station, WGBH. In 1969, Saletan was the first musical guest to appear on Sesame Street.
"Fireship" is a risqué variation of the song "Roving Kind".
