Various Artists - Rogue'sGallery: Pirate Ballads,Sea Songs, and Chanteys

Sun 27th Aug, 2006 in Music Reviews

It’s an age old story of musical success – a double album of songs inspired by the success of an overlong, over praised piece of Hollywood drivel based on a theme park rid.  Yeah, Pirates of the Caribbean may have Johnny Depp playing a fantasy pirate version of Keith Richards, but you’d have to have patches over both eyes to seriously praise it. Rogue’s Gallery however is an unexpected treasure chest that has washed up behind the wreckage of pirates.

The idea for the collection came from the musings of Depp and Pirates’ director Gore Verbinski, who seem to have come up with the idea, then enlisted an underling to make it happen. Thankfully that underling doing the selection and compilation of Rogue’s Gallery isn’t some Disney executive who has groped his way up the corporate ladder from his days as the creepy bloke in the Pluto costume. The compiler/co-ordinater duty fell to Hal Willner - a man with a prized list of phone numbers and a series of stunning collections on his resume. He’s worked on tribute albums to Charles Mingus with Elvis Costello and Chuck D; Edgar Allan Poe with Marianne Faithfull, Christopher Walken, Iggy Pop and Jeff Buckley; and the recent Leonard Cohen tribute Came So Far For Beauty (which brought Nick Cave, Antony, Beth Orton and Jarvis Cocker to the Sydney Festival in 2005 and has recently been released in conjunction with a Cohen documentary). Sure he was also the music supervisor on the new Will Ferrel movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, but that’s probably because tribute albums don’t pay bills and hit comedies do.

There are 43 pirate ballads, sea songs and chanteys on offer from a staggering array of respected musicians. So much quality that it’s worth spending a whole paragraph of open mouthed wonder to list the some of the more illustrious members of the crew. There’s Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Antony, Ed Harcourt, Van Dyke Parks, Jolie Holland, Jarvis Cocker. Ye be needing more? Well there are a few odd fellows in the gang – including Boogie Nights and Chicago actor John C Reilly and gonzo cartoonist Ralph Steadman. Add made up names such as Sting, Bono, and Jack Shit to the mix and you’ve got a selection well worth your pieces of eight. Though oddly and unfortunately the most piratical looking of all singers, Shane McGowan is absent, presumably too busy drinking to be persuaded into a studio.

The selection varies from sing-along call and response drinking songs to more sombre reflections; each song chosen to perfectly fit the style and delivery of its performer. Baby Gramps opens the voyage with suitably rousing ‘Cape Cod Girls’, featuring deep rolls of throat-singing and a refrain of ‘bound away for Australia’. John C Reilly also offers an early highlight with the brief lark of ‘My Son John’.
/My son John was long and slim/
/and he had a leg for every limb/
/but now he’s got no legs at all/
/cause he ran a race with a cannon ball/
Offering a quick sing-along chorus, Reilly dashes away as Nick Cave steps to the mic with typical menace and reminds us that pirates are sweary bastards not PG rated fun rides – with the ragged ‘Fire Down Below’. The smoky voiced Robin Holcomb – think a less ragged Marianne Faithfull – is devastatingly beautiful on ‘Dead Horse’, while The Old Prunes yelp their way through ‘Bully In The Alley’. Bono’s contribution is less thrilling, so weighted in ‘worthy’ tribute that he threatens to sink the whole show with his take on ‘Dying Sailor to His Shipmates’. (Though it’s not Bono’s most painful tribute album sin- for that you’ll have to seek out Tower of Song for his Pop era electronic version of ‘Hallelujah’.) Yet, misjudged moments of soberly seriousness aside this is a fine collection that offers much for the pirate traditionalist and curious fan of the many featured stars.

Oh, and as you bark out another rum flued ballad thank the powers that be that this isn’t a double album of French love songs inspired by another of St Johnny of Indie-creds woeful missteps – Chocolat. In fact it’s probably best to ignore the connections to the Pirates films and think of this as the perfect accompaniment to a unquestionablely great sea faring film – Peter Weir’s Master and Commander, a perfect fit as it delivers the genuine saltiness of Weir’s film and yet you’re never in any danger of hearing Russ singing. Though whatever sea-faring images ye prefer, the Rogues Gallery should please pirates and land-lubbers alike.