The ports, harbors and inlets of Massachusetts and Rhode Island have been home to seafaring men and women for 400 years, and yet most of the best-known songs of and about the sea are from the British tradition.

Newport's most notorious contemporary saloon singer and balladeer – Jim McGrath – herein helps to balance the scales with six traditional American sea songs and seven of his own.

Each song tells a story, whether of a jealous murder in the home port, hard life and death at sea, the promise and pitfalls for immigrants, or – as in the title tune – the elation of returning home from the sea.

While the setting for these songs ranges from the Greenland whale fisheries to Boston Harbor, from New Bedford to Westport, and from Nantucket to Newport, the stories and themes are universal.

Selected by the Maritime Heritage Network as a featured CD.

What others have said:

"Jim McGrath has a great reputation as a singer of sea songs and shanties, and knows the lore of the coast of southern New England better than most. In his new collection of ballads and songs he covers such favorites as "The Dark Eyed Sailor," "Blow Ye Winds," and "Greenland Fisheries;" and adds seven fine songs of his own making."

– Mary DesRosiers, Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine