The Jolly Rogers
Encyclopedia
The Jolly Rogers are a pirate-themed Renaissance
folk group who perform at Renaissance fair
s in the Midwest United States. Their high-energy performances of traditional sea shanties
, humorous songs and improvisational comedy skits are big crowd pleasers wherever they go. The band's music also makes regular appearances on Marc Gunn
's Renaissance Festival Music Podcast, and came in 9th place for top music performers in the podcast's First Annual Renaissance Festival Performer Awards in 2005.
, especially at live performances, which keeps the rhythm of the song and adds more reinforcing rhythm to the song. On album recordings, the band at times has guest performers who play other instruments or play other instruments themselves, including a bodhran
, flute
, hammer
, bones
, fiddle
, violin
, banjo
, bass
, accordion
, drums
, and trumpet
. The songs from the first two albums of the Jolly Rogers were based on historical shipfaring songs, especially those with pirates as a theme.
Former members:
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
folk group who perform at Renaissance fair
Renaissance Fair
A Renaissance fair, Renaissance faire, or Renaissance festival is an outdoor weekend gathering, usually held in the United States, open to the public and typically commercial in nature, which emulates a historic period for the amusement of its guests. Some are permanent theme parks, others are...
s in the Midwest United States. Their high-energy performances of traditional sea shanties
Sea shanty
A shanty is a type of work song that was once commonly sung to accompany labor on board large merchant sailing vessels. Shanties became ubiquitous in the 19th century era of the wind-driven packet and clipper ships...
, humorous songs and improvisational comedy skits are big crowd pleasers wherever they go. The band's music also makes regular appearances on Marc Gunn
Marc Gunn
Marc Gunn is a musician and podcaster. As the autoharp-playing half of the Brobdingnagian Bards, Gunn and partner Andrew McKee developed a following with weekly performances on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. This led to gigs at renaissance faires, science fiction conventions, and...
's Renaissance Festival Music Podcast, and came in 9th place for top music performers in the podcast's First Annual Renaissance Festival Performer Awards in 2005.
Musical style
The music of The Jolly Rogers is mostly carried by vocals, which in many songs are chorus pieces with some or all the members performing at one time for the duration of the song with an occasional solo (recurring or at single parts of the song). Many of their songs are accompanied by a guitarGuitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, especially at live performances, which keeps the rhythm of the song and adds more reinforcing rhythm to the song. On album recordings, the band at times has guest performers who play other instruments or play other instruments themselves, including a bodhran
Bodhrán
The bodhrán is an Irish frame drum ranging from 25 to 65 cm in diameter, with most drums measuring 35 to 45 cm . The sides of the drum are 9 to 20 cm deep. A goatskin head is tacked to one side...
, flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, hammer
Hammer
A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...
, bones
Bones (instrument)
The bones are a musical instrument which, at the simplest, consists of a pair of animal bones, or pieces of wood or a similar material. Sections of large rib bones and lower leg bones are the most commonly used true bones, although wooden sticks shaped like the earlier true bones are now more...
, fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
, bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
, drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, and trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
. The songs from the first two albums of the Jolly Rogers were based on historical shipfaring songs, especially those with pirates as a theme.
The band
The Jolly Rogers is an all-male group consisting of five to six members. The current lineup is:- Chris Berger, aka Kane (vocals)
- Sean Foree, aka "Bottomless" Pete Yar, The Pariah (guitar, mandola, vocals)
- Cliff Lawson, aka Devin Blackheart (vocals)
- Kurt Hanover, aka Blood Beard (vocals)
- Mark Stahl, aka Mayhem (guitar, vocals)
Former members:
- Clint Glidewell, aka Calico Jack (vocals) He left in 2003 to pursue a career in social work, and was replaced by Sean Foree.
- Brian Price, aka Captain Spitte (vocals) Former member of the Jolly Rogers, he left in 2004 as a member of the Army National Guard as part of a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo. He officially resigned his position on May 22, 2006. Brian originally taught Chris Berger and Kurt Hanover their first sea shantiesSea ShantiesSea Shanties is the debut album of Progressive Rock band High Tide. The cover artwork was drawn by Paul Whitehead.-Production:Denny Gerrard produced Sea Shanties in return for High Tide acting as the backing band on his solo album Sinister Morning...
and was a member of The Jolly Rogers for several years.
Discography
The Jolly Rogers have released 10 albums, the first four of which are out of print.- Pirate's Gold, released in October 1997, consists mostly of historical sea shantiesSea ShantiesSea Shanties is the debut album of Progressive Rock band High Tide. The cover artwork was drawn by Paul Whitehead.-Production:Denny Gerrard produced Sea Shanties in return for High Tide acting as the backing band on his solo album Sinister Morning...
and a few original songs, all from the first four out-of-print albums. - Loose Cannons/Midnight Buffet, is a two-disk set first released in Sept 2000 which contains traditional songs, a few originals, and a few cover songs of contemporary songs. Loose Cannons/Midnight Buffet was re-released in February 2007 after being re-mixed and remastered.
- Disc 1 - Dead Men Tell No Tales (2007 title: The More Looser Edition)
- Disc 2 - Midnight Buffet (2007 title: The Have Some Pie Edition)
- X Marks the Spot, released in October 2003, was the first album of entirely original pirate-themed songs written by members of The Jolly Rogers.
- Cutlass, Cannon & Curves, their ninth album, is also a collection of all-original compositions. It was released in September 2005.
- No Refunds, recorded live from a show in Kansas City, released on CD in 2007 and on DVD in 2008.
- SCORE, released June 2010, is a third collection of all-original songs. The title is a subtle reference to 2010 being their twentieth season (2010 = 20th year, 10th album).
Cover Songs and Tributes
- American rock band Jessica's CrimeJessica's CrimeJessica's Crime is a sporadically active American independent rock band. Founding member and lead vocalist Aaron Bishop has cited the band's "day-jobs in professional academia" as the primary reason for their occasional, long periods of apparent quiescence....
recorded a version of the Jolly Rogers' classic, The Devil's Son, for their 1998 debut CD, Psychosemantic.
External links
- The Jolly Rogers at Chivalry.com - CD playlists & release date information, instrument usage & some biographical information.
- The Official Jolly Rogers Fan Club - Announcements, get togethers and other fun group stuff.
- The Jolly Rogers at MySpaceMySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
- The Jolly Rogers Performances on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....