Saturday 3 September 2011
Tune of the Day: Three Fishers
English folk song
The music to this song was written by English composer John Hullah shortly after 1851, when Charles Kingsley wrote the poem “Three Fishers”. The lyrics tell the story of three fishermen who sail out to sea, and lose their lives when overtaken by a storm.
There have been a number of modern recordings of the song since the American folk music revival; it was most notably recorded by Richard Dyer-Bennet in 1955 and by Joan Baez in 1963. In the 1980s, Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers recorded a version with a musical arrangement by his brother, Garnet Rogers. Many recent recordings closely follow this arrangement, such as the one by The Duhks on their 2006 album Migrations.