Album Notes

I was hanging out with Mary Garvey and Alice Winship at the annual Shanty Camp at Fort Columbia State Park when Mary mentioned that our mutual friend, the late Stan James, had always wanted to do an album of tugboat songs.

Mary asked if we were interested in helping put this together, and so it began. At first we could not find many Northwest tugboat songs, but soon Mary was digging up songs and artists from the most obscure places. Gradually my studio filled with musicians and my hard drive with songs from up and down the West Coast. The variety and quality of what we found was amazing, and the performances just as amazing.

These songs represent the rich tradition of tugboats in the Northwest, woven with images that span the lexicon of what tugboats have done, from Thea Foss and her small fleet of skiffs to monster tugs keeping the I-90 bridge from sinking to sad tales of tugs long gone.

Enjoy! - Chris Glanister