Bono, Waits And Cave On New Pirate-Themed Album
Wednesday May 10, 2006 @ 07:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Bono

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest probably doesn't need much outside promotion to make it one of the summer's biggest movies, but its star is taking an extra step to get people into a swashbuckling frame of mind.

Johnny Depp is the executive producer of an album of sea shanties recorded by an impressive group of artists that's expected to arrive in stores via Epitaph Records sometime around the movie's July 7 premiere.

Producer Hal Willner, who's probably best known for his 1985 Kurt Weill tribute, Lost In The Stars, is overseeing the project. The former Saturday Night Live music supervisor has also been responsible for all-star musical tributes to Nino Rota, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus and music from Walt Disney animated films.

Willner has assembled an extraordinary cast of contributors to the new album, including Bono, Bryan Ferry, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Antony And The Johnsons, Richard and Linda Thompson, Loudon Wainwright III and former Virgin Prunes singers Gavin Friday, Guggi and Dave-id.

Friday described his recording session in Dublin, Ireland as very "rum, sodomy and the lash" on his website. He sang a song called "The Baltimore Whores" that includes these bawdy lyrics: "Roly poly, tickle my holey, smell of my slimey flue, then drag your nuts across my guts."

The three former Prunes vocalists reunited for the first time since the mid-1980s to sing "Bully In The Alley."

"It was Dave-id as head pirate on lead vocals, and myself and Guggi as his shipmates on backing vocals," said Friday. "Hal said it was probably closest to what pirates really would have sounded like."

Friday recorded another song called "Tommy's Gone To Hilo" with Andrea Corr of The Corrs, whom he previously duetted with on 2003's "Time Enough For Tears" from the In America soundtrack.

"It's not really a duet, though," explained Friday. "They're all chanteys, which are call and response songs. Except Andrea's 'Caroline And Her Young Sailor Bold' and Bono's song, which are both sea songs or seamen's songs."

Bono was apparently able to get involved in the project because of the postponement of U2's antipodean tour. Friday said that he performs a song called "The Dying Sailor To His Shipmates."