RANZO! We all know the chorus – Ranzo, me boys, Ranzo! So who is Ranzo? Sounds a bit like a Marvel comic superhero. In fact, it’s short for Lorenzo, a name applied generically to men from the Azores. Many Azoreans “shipped on board a whaler,” as Ranzo does in the well-known shanty. RANZO! Read more…
A big thanks goes out to all who participated in the successful fund raiser at Portsmouth Flatbread Company. The final figures are not in yet but success is assured. Special thanks to Gail Finn for getting this pizza fundraising ball rolling, and, excuse the mixed metaphor, putting together the many Read more…
Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival June 2018 Newsletter Summer has finally arrived and your Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival Board members are busy finalizing all the details for this year’s 19th annual festival. The dates this year are Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 29th and 30th and the place as always is Read more…
On the Friday evening before the Saturday and Sunday of the Festival, It has been our tradition to meet and participate in the Celtic/Maritime open session that has historically taken place at the Press Room, Portsmouth’s legendary venue for both traditional and contemporary music. This year, as she did last year, due to ongoing Read more…
We have ventured for a first time to the realm of the Night Club, and we could not imagine a better venue for one of our two Saturday afternoon open sings. The Gas Light Night Club is located on the third floor directly above the restaurant of the same name. The room Read more…
Spitzer & Mareva are a fierce vocal duo with a deep repertoire of sea shanties and ballads of the British Isles. Spitzer Space Telescope’s wild booming energy joined with Mareva Lindo’s formidable contralto echo the powerful arrangements of The Watersons and The Young Tradition. Their unique collaboration has brought them Read more…
Gina started her musical journey on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, singing and dancing in the aisle for soldiers and sailors off to the wars. Over the years, she has gathered an extensive repertoire of maritime songs and American, Irish and British folk songs. She played in Read more…
Jeff Warner sings traditional American and English folk songs. His banjo tunes, 18th-century hymns and New England sailor songs are rich in history and a sense of place. He is a Folklorist and Community Scholar for the New Hampshire Council on the Arts and is a former State Arts Council Read more…
Craig Edwards has been called “an encyclopedia of American roots music.” He’s been playing and singing traditional music for almost five decades, singing and performing on fiddle, guitar, banjo, mandolin, and button accordion in styles ranging from Appalachian old time music, Blues, and Celtic traditions to Zydeco. A member of Read more…