Heres a video from my concert at Fairfield Studios in Shreveport LA. The song tells a true story - one I found on PBSs History Detectives television series. I wrote the song using an old Irish melody. The story is about a run away slave who wound up working as a whaler. The TV show that told me about him was several years ago, before those shows were so well documented on-line .... and so when I decided to write the song and I didnt remember the young mans name - I had to make one up. I searched and searched through the names of sailors on ship logs from the period, hoping if I came across it would trigger my memory ... but after reading through several long lists of names from the period and the ship I knew he sailed on - I settled for one that had a ring to it; Thomas Higgins. Same thing with the name of the young mans home state. I wasnt sure which state he came from, but Georgia fit the meter perfectly. Some years after I wrote and published the song, PBS began posting full detail about their shows - and I was able to discover that the real name of the whaler/sailor in my song was James Hamlin and he was from South Carolina. His ship, the Charles W. Morgan is still afloat today at the Mystic Seaport museum in Mystic CT. youtu.be/HnMaErIQo3s
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 03:05:36 +0000
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