Freshwater Highway (1991)
58:05 playing time
The Great Lakes Song [shel silverstein/pat dailey]
Heave Her Up And Bust Her [traditional]
No Nets Will Be Found [lee murdock]
The Scow Netty Fly [traditional]
Fire On The Water** [charlie maguire]
Haul Away Joe [traditional]
The Illinois And Michigan Canal [kevin o'donnell]
Requiem For The Mesquite* [lee murdock]
The Glendy Burk [stephen foster]
The Ghost of Red Monroe [lee murdock]
It’s Time For Us To Leave Her [traditional]
The Cold Freshwater Trade [warren nelson]
*Thanks to Frederick Stonehouse for inspiration and information for this song, about the wreck of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mesquite in November, 1989
**Accident aboard the freighter Cartiercliffe Hall (June 1989)
Liner Notes
Lee Murdock’s songs create an unforgettable image of commerce and recreation as they coexist on the Great Lakes today, with huge cargo ships traversing vital shipping lanes while pleasure craft of all types and sizes share the waters along America’s fourth coast.
Continuing the saga of Great Lakes heroes, ordinary seamen, ghost stories, fish pirates, shipwrecks and rescues, this CD opens with the same tune that is often featured as the opening song in his live shows, The Great Lakes Song. (read more, below)
Released 1995
Total Playing Time: 49:04
Cover Art: Ron Ceszynski
Other highlights of this recording include The Illinois and Michigan Canal, a song which encapsulates the classic story of the immigrant’s hard life, hope and struggle to make a home in a new country. Written by Kevin O’Donnell, a first-generation American of Irish descent, it tells the saga of building of a canal to connect Lake Michigan with the Illinois River, connecting to the Mississippi River, and “to wed the Great Lakes waters with the Gulf of Mexico.”
“Freshwater Highway has so much genuine history, so much variety in the arrangements, and such respect for the material that this disc has earned a place among those most listenable few we keep in a crate next to the CD drive… “ www.acousticmusic.com