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MP3 John Rowlingson - Wharf Rats
12 MP3 Songs in this album (39:40) !
Related styles: Folk: Folk-Jazz, Pop: Folky Pop, Mood: Party Music
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This digital re-release of the popular Wharf Rats album by John Rowlingson is long past due. When first released on cassette in 1989 it was exceptionally well received by the Maine coastal communities. Hopefully this new release will provide the wider opportunity for discovery that it so richly deserves.
For a little history, the seeds for this album were planted in John’s mind on Thompson’s Island in Boston’s Dorchester Bay. As a youth he attended the island’s trade school, worked as a deckhand on the school’s boat, and worked weekends as a deckhand on fishing boats out of Boston Harbor.
Later, while attending Boston University, he entertained as a coffeehouse folk-singer and began to write poetry with a maritime flavor. It was also during this period that he began working as a banjo player in Dixieland jazz bands. Then, following an interesting tour in the Submarine Service, his agent, Ruby Newman Orchestras, sent him to Portland Maine to open a new hotel with a hot Dixieland band called the “Dudes from Dixie.” The gig lasted for two years, and all of this eventually lead to his creation of the Riverboat Jazz Band and the production of this album.
The RJB came together in the mid-1980s to bring its version of traditional Dixieland Jazz to the Maine coast. Though some of the personnel changed over the years, the Wharf Rats album features a hard driving rhythm section made up of Tom Bucci on base, Dave Page on drums, and John Rowlingson on plectrum banjo. The album also features and an exciting horn section consisting of Mel Tukey on trumpet, Pete Collins on clarinet, and John Doane on trombone. To round it out, John Rowlingson provides the lead vocals, John Doane adds vocal harmonies, Pete Collins adds a Latin touch on casaba, and Tom Bucci doubles with some fine performances on the keyboards.
During the five or so years the band was together, they focused on performing at waterfront establishments along the Maine coast from Portland to Boothbay Harbor and beyond. One of their favorite regular gigs was at Lobsterman’s Wharf in East Boothbay, where on Sunday afternoons the folks in the audience could settle back with the drink of their choice and enjoy great seafood, fresh air, live music, and scenic views from the back deck overlooking East Boothbay Harbor. Let the good times roll!
As noted in the February 14–27, 1990 issue of Face Magazine, “…you’ll get a kick out of the Riverboat Jazz Band.”
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