While Lee Murdock always strives to present a varied yet balanced “slice” of Great Lakes heritage in each of his CDs, still this CD, more than any other, has a decidedly Irish emphasis, and includes some of the classic Beaver Island traditional classics from the Ivan Walton Collection. Cold Winds & Safe in the Harbor are a “matched set” of vintage Murdock, from the “must have” archives.

Released 1993
Total Playing Time: 63:52
Cover art: Jay Steinke

Starting with two traditional tunes from Irish settlers of Beaver Island, Michigan, (The Gallagher Boys and Yankee Brown), add an instrumental tune by 17th century Irish harper, Turlough O’Carolan, Eleanor Plunkett. The Carolan tune is appended to a song written by contemporary songwriter Andy Mitchell, Indiana, singing of an Irish immigrant in Indiana who can’t get past his longing for his homeland, and so has decided to leave the riches and opportunity of “Amerikay” to return to Ireland.

Follow that with the Henry Clay Work classic, Lost on the Lady Elgin, another amazing piece of Irish-American history. When the sidewheel steamer excursion boat, Lady Elgin, went down off Evanston, Illinois, in 1861, it took the lives of many people — mostly Irish-Americans from the city of Milwaukee, who were returning from Chicago where they went to support their candidate, Stephen A Douglas, in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

This CD also includes Lee’s arrangement of Stan Rogers’ song, White Squall, and Safe in the Harbor, a song written by Australian folksinger Eric Bogle to memorialize his friend and colleague, Stan Rogers.