Songs of the Sea and Shore

It's only been a few months since Thunder and Spice came into existence. Jim, Jerry, Laura, her daughter Elaina met at a rehearsal last winter for singers for the summer Renaissance Faires in North Carolina.
Each loves to sing songs of the sea and shore, which includes sea shanties, pirate and pub songs, as well as melodic harmonies in the Celtic, Folk and Renaissance tradition. Each member puts a variety of theatrical talents and years of musical experience to use in this versatile performance group.
They have so far performed at the Raleigh/Wake Forest and Rocky Mount Faires, Bath Fest (Bath, NC) and later this summer will soon travel to Charlotte for the Faire.
Whether singing bawdy songs at the pub, leading a family crowd in folk sing-alongs, trading sea shanties with pirate crews, these lads and ladies perform with incredible energy and a contagious sense of fun!
Learn a little more about Thunder and Spice via the movie below.

Merry Men (and Women)

For this multi-media (mm) project I'll be focusing on the newly formed folk group Thunder & Spice. This group of Merry men (and women) love the music from the Renaissance period--think the days of King Henry VIII. The group wants to reintroduce the music of days long ago to contemporary society.
I think now -literally- is a great time to talk about and highlight that period of music. The movie "Robin Hood" has just been released and we will hear a lot of this kind of music (both instrumental and with words). Just as the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies have inspired a new era of pirates, the "Robin Hood" movie serves as a great way to highlight this genre of music and maybe even inspire a few singers and musicians to get involved. There are four members of the group, one of whom is a teenager. I'm curious as to why she gives up her weekends for North Carolina Renaissance Faires when she could be at the mall or something with her friends. The other three are adults and also volunteer their weekends at Faires. Why? What is the motivation? What about the music of the period draws them in? I will use audio (like that found here) and photographs. This audio is a little snippet of a song Thunder & Spice call "Lobo." Sung in Spanish and loosely translated, the song tells the story of an encounter of a beautiful young girl and a dangerous and dastardly wolf.

Little Thunder, Big Spice

As a way to take my career to the next level, I'm going to engage in a little multi-media (mm) storytelling over the next few weeks.
I’m going to start my intro to mm with a profile on a rising folk group out of the Raleigh area. When I think about the group, Thunder & Spice, I think about Malcolm Gladwell described how the club kids in the 1990s bought back the Hush Puppies brand. Intentional or not, they reminded a whole new generation of not-quite-as-young people that it’s cool to be retro.
In 2010, a quartet of folk singers is giving retro a whole new meaning. They are trying to revive the maritime and renaissance songs of centuries long ago. The recently formed Thunder & Spice, out of the Raleigh area, spend their available weekends at area Renaissance Faires where visitors are transported to the time of King Henry VIII, when women were Lady’s and Lass’ and curtseyed to a passerby and men were fine gentlemen hopefully of good standing with the King. But the music reflected a time of merriment on land—carousing in pubs, romancing a love (even if only for a night)--and of hard work on ships—turning the capstan or setting a sail.
Over the coming weeks, this blog will profile Thunder & Spice (Laura, Jerry, Elaina, and Jim), as they recall the days of old through song, balancing everyday work, life and family.
So if an underground movement of young club kids can make what’s old new again, Thunder & Spice should have an easy time of restoring a fading art form.