Gordon Bok
Gordon Bok sings about the sea and the people who work on it. Raised in Camden, Maine, he writes songs drawn from the working boat culture of the Gulf of Maine, sung in a deep bass voice over six- and twelve-string guitar.
- Born
- 31 October 1939, Pennsylvania
- Raised
- Camden, Maine
- Plays
- Six- and 12-string guitar, cellamba
- Labels
- Folk-Legacy Records; Timberhead Music
- Trio
- With Ed Trickett and Ann Mayo Muir
Career
Bok's first album, Gordon Bok, was produced by Noel Paul Stookey and released on Verve Folkways in 1965. From 1970, beginning with A Tune for November, he recorded for Folk-Legacy Records in Connecticut, and since the early 1990s for his own label, Timberhead Music.
His songs tell stories of fishermen and other sea-folk, and in the 1970s especially he drew on the myths of the North Atlantic. He is also a folklorist and song gatherer whose repertoire includes songs from Italy, Portugal, Mongolia, French Canada, Latin America and the Hebrides, and a wood-carver whose work mostly takes the sea as its subject.
The cellamba
Alongside steel- and nylon-string guitars and the 12-string, Bok plays an instrument of his own making that he calls the cellamba: a six-string, fretted cello.
The trio
Bok has performed as a trio with Ed Trickett, on hammered dulcimer and guitar, and Ann Mayo Muir, on harp and flute.
Selected albums
| Year | Album |
|---|---|
| 1965 | Gordon Bok |
| 1970 | A Tune for November |
| 1974 | Clearwater |
| 1975 | Bay of Fundy |
| 1983 | A Rogue's Gallery of Songs for the 12-String |
| 1992 | Schooners |
More songs of the sea: read our guide to sea shanties.