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Sample From Voices Across the WaterMurdock Releases Another Winner
Review by Gloria Peck
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Sample From Voices Across the Water
Lee Murdock has just completed and released his eighth recording, Voices Across the Water. This is another excellent compilation of traditional folk songs and Lee's originals. For the many who have requested this at Lee Murdock concerts, Gordon Lightfoot's Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald arranged by Lee with The Red Iron Ore may be a highlight of this album. The album's title song recounts the experience of Dennis Hale, the sole survivor of the wreck of the Daniel J. Morrell, lost in Lake Huron in November,1966.
My personal favorite is The Longing That I Feel, a rare sea song about a woman. Many women were left to tend lighthouses because their husbands or fathers went off to supplement the meager income of lighthouse keepers by piloting or fishing. Sometimes the men would become disabled or die and the women would keep the commission until they retired. The woman in this song is acknowledging the chronic loneliness of a lighthouse keeper but is suffering the deeper loneliness for the husband of many years who is no longer there.
As in Lee Murdock's previous recordings, these songs tell stories full of respect for the Great Lakes and their people. A song written by Joe Lincoln in about 1900 and set to Lee's music lauds the bravery of members of the U.S. Coast Guard in their rescue mission. In this album respect is extended to Great Lakes lighthouses. The lead song and the finale stress their importance, both past and present. In fact, the "first person" in The Deep Blue Horizon is a lighthouse.
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