Hear Bono’s version of ‘Dying Sailor to His Shipmates’ and read our interview with Hal Willner, producer of ‘Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys’.
‘Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys’ is released on August 22nd.
When producer Hal Willner is in the studio, you can be guaranteed the results will be ground-breaking. Hal has an unrivalled reputation for putting together tribute albums in musical styles from jazz to rock, as well as making acclaimed records with artists like Marianne Faithful, Bill Frisell and Gavin Friday. And then of course Hal has followed U2 for many years, not least because he has been the music supervisor of Saturday Night Live since 1981.
But the reason we tracked down Hal right now is this – he’s produced the record on which Bono appears next, an astonishing double-album called ‘Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys’. Due out August 22nd, it’s a maverick collection filled with contemporary reinterpretations of songs from a genre of music that has all but disappeared – the sea chantey. And it has a dazzling cast-list from Bono and Sting to Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Rufus Wainwright and Richard Thompson.
The idea originated when film director Gore Verbinski and actor Johnny Depp were working on ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.’ ‘I slowly became fascinated by the idea of a contemporary reinterpretation of the sea chantey,’ recalls Verbinski. ‘I imagined the artists that I listen to and respect doing their take on this age-old music: the song of the sea.’ Verbinski got talking to Brett Gurewitz who owns Epitaph Records and to Depp, a serious rock fan, and they realized that apart from a list of artists to record the songs, they needed a producer. Enter Hal as ‘the captain of this vessel.’
Visit U2.com to listen to Bono’s performance of "Dying Sailor to His Shipmates"
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