News Release

Annapolis Maritime Museum / 723 Second St / Annapolis, MD 21403
Contact: Janie Meneely / 443 786-0463

CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER
. However, your tickets will be honored at tomorrow's concert (January 31) at the Avalon Theater in Easton.
For more information on tomorrow's concert please contact the Avalon Theater at 410-822-7299.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - December 10, 2009

A Bay’s Life in Story and Song: A Celebration of Tom Wisner

A concert and CD release celebrating Tom Wisner’s life work: FOLLOW ON THE WATER: A Celebration of the Bay’s Life in Story and Song will be held at the Calvert Marine Museum on Friday, January 29, and again at the Annapolis Maritime Museum on Saturday, January 30.

Well known local musicians Mac Walter, John Cronin, Teresa Whitaker and Frank Schwartz join Tom Wisner on stage to introduce Wisner’s final double-CD album: Follow on the Water. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., concerts begin at 7:30. Admission is $20/advance; $25/door. Tickets for the concert at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons can be purchased at: www.calvertmarinemuseum.com or in person at the Museum. Tickets for the concert at the Annapolis Maritime Museum can be purchased at www.amaritime.org. Seating is limited at both venues and advance purchase is recommended.

This musical tribute to our Chesapeake waters, watermen and artists will also signal the release of Tom’s final recording, which will be available for sale that night. Wisner has dedicated his life to chronicling the rich traditions of our regional waterways. He will be joined on stage by long-time friends and associates Frank Schwartz, Teresa Whitaker, Mac Walter, and John Cronin, singer/songwriters and powerful performers in their own right, who have assisted in the production and will be on hand to perform a preview of the work. The CD is produced by Jim Fox of Lion and Fox Studios in College Park Maryland.

Frank Schwartz grew up in Baltimore, MD - the oldest of three sons of deaf parents. Having been a musician for most of his life, that journey continued when he married singer, songwriter, and storyteller Teresa Whitaker.  They performed at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in Washington, DC as part of a special honoring of the 25th anniversary of Tom Wisner's Chesapeake Born album, along with friend and acoustic guitarist Mac Walter. Schwartz has two recordings: Things Have A Way Of Working Out and Below The Radar.

Three-time WAMMIE winner Mac Walter is an exciting, versatile, dynamic master of the guitar. In the 1960’s Mac developed his unique fingerstyle approach to playing folk, rock, blues, jazz, and country. Walter has toured with Johnny Winter and Deanna Bogart as well as playing with other DC legends including Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan.

Mac and his cousin, John Cronin, began playing together as teenagers and developed their unique style over the past 35 years. Both are talented in their own right but when they play together, the acoustic fingerstyle and gorgeous harmonies they project is amazing. Cronin, who lives in British Columbia, spent seven years working in the hugely popular Ian Tyson Band touring Canada and the USA. Tom Wisner, describes John’s playing as “the heart of the guitar.” Mac Walter and John Cronin have produced two CDs entitled Cousins and Second Cousins.

This new production, Follow on the Water, is an ensemble of stories “to hear, to tell, to sing,” says Wisner from his home in Calvert County. They have been collected and crafted over years of interviews and through hearty friendships, culled from the energy of the earth and burnished by the Chesapeake sun. “They are the songs and stories of the sailing oystermen,” he says, “the sun-tanned, quiet breed of watermen whose lives are bound in the regional traditions to follow on the water.”

Tom Wisner, who has been battling lung cancer over the last year, has long been heralded as the “Bard of the Bay.” His vast repertoire of Bay-oriented songs has been featured on national TV and forms a part of the Smithsonian Folkways Collection. Tom Wisner is the recipient of the 2003 John Denver award of the World Folk Music Association. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007 from the Chesapeake Music Institute, a part of the Annapolis Maritime Museum.

Since the 1960s, Tom Wisner has pioneered the use of original songs and stories to heighten awareness of the national treasure known as the Chesapeake Bay. With Dr. Sara Ebenreck of St. Mary’s College he co-founded the project CHESTORY: The Center for the Story of Chesapeake Life and Culture, designed to encourage artists of many disciplines to heighten awareness of Chesapeake Bay ecology and culture.

FOLLOW ON THE WATER: A Celebration of the Bay’s Life in Story and Song will be performed on Friday, January 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Calvert Marine Museum, Solomons, Maryland, and on Saturday, January 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Annapolis Maritime Museum. To purchase tickets, or to get information on directions and parking for the concert at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, log on to: www.calvertmarinemuseum.com. For more information call 410-326-2042 ext. 32. To purchase tickets, or to get information on directions and parking for the concert at the Annapolis Maritime Museum, log on to www.amaritime.org. For more information, call 410-295-0104. Seating is limited at both venues and advance purchase is recommended.

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Photo: Tom Wisner performed at the “Grand ole Osprey” produced by the Annapolis Maritime Museum and the Chesapeake Music Institute in 2007. Photo by John Bildahl.

 

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