Album Notes

Simon Spalding was born and raised in San Francisco. For over 30 years, Simon has performed music in the American, European, and Asian traditions. Simon studied Ethnomusicology at UC Berkeley. He has performed sailor songs and traditional dance music throughout North America and Europe as a solo act and with a variety of folk and traditional music ensembles. His venues include festivals, museums, folk clubs, live theater, Renaissance fairs, films, recordings, and the decks of sailing vessels at sea. Simon’s primary instrument is the fiddle, but he performs with a stable of about 50 stringed instruments from around the world.

The Rambling Sailor: Music of the Sea and of the Road
Recorded in 1988, released on CD in 2007

Simon Spalding - vocals, fiddle, banjoes, nyckelharpa, crwth, hardangfele, p’tit fer, bodhan, bass

Mark Soderstrom - vocals, banjo (Waterbound)

Rex Shaver - bones

Joe Linbeck - tin whistle (Camptown Races)

Gary Coover - concertina (Hornpipes)

Busker’s Lament and Humors of Annagassan by Simon Spalding, copyright 1988
Springar part B by Leif Sorbye
The Glendy Burk and Camptown Races by Stephen Foster
All other traditional, arr. Simon Spalding

Engineered by Karl Caillouet
Cover photo by Ira Blaustein
CD layout and artwork by Susannah Kirtland

Thanks to Stan Hugill, Pauline and Rhona Doyle, Chris and Rita Roche, Leif Sorbye, Bruce and Albert Daigrepont, Jan Eriksson, Cathy Whitesides, and Joe Linbeck for tunes, instruments, and help on the original recording. Thanks to my wife, Sara Kirtland Spalding, for organizing the CD release in 2007.