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 Caught in the Carousel "There will be music despite everything"
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David Francey and Mike Ford
Seaway
Laker Music
Written after spending two weeks aboard the 750-foot bulk carrier M.V. Algoville, which sailed from Montreal to Thunder Bay, David Francey and Mike Ford's Seaway is a stirring homage to the nautical life. It's no surprise the two singer/songwriters were inspired by the sights of the Saint Lawrence Seaway or the inland sea of the Great Lakes, but what's nice is that in addition to the breathtaking panoramas, they were equally inspired by the captain and crew of the carrier. "Banks Of The Seaway" is an elegant meditation on the boats of the Saint Lawrence River; in "The Ballad Of Bowser MacRae," Francey sings of the M.V. Algoville's Third Mate Greg Bowser MacRae, who calls both the ocean and the farmland of Cape Breton home and "The Chief Engineer" is a loving portrait of the diesel engine enthusiast Simon Van Galen. The calypso-tinged "There's No Rush" captures the loneliness of the long distance seaman; "21st Century Great Lake Navigators" is a perfect mix of lighthouse audio and idiosyncratic Tom Waits mutter, while the album's finest track, "When You're The Skip" finds Ford playfully leading a sailor's call and response about their duties at sea. Elsewhere, the lilting folk of "Dustless Road To The Happy Land" tells of the passage of New World immigrants in the 1800's, while the autobiographical "The Parting" is about Francey's own family's immigration to Montreal. "Believe me, my young friend," Kenneth Grahame wrote in The Wind In The Willows, "there is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." Singing about them's not so shabby either. This is high caliber work.
—Alex Green
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