For those looking for a fitting way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 is their lucky day.
Séan McCann is hitting the road in Ontario for his first tour in more than two years, and he’s bringing The Shantyman Sings for the Saint: A Celebration of Irish Song with Séan McCann to the Orillia Opera House on March 17.
The stop comes on the heels of the release of the Great Big Sea co-founder’s sixth solo album, Shantyman.
The Newfoundland and Labrador-born musician who now resides in the Ottawa suburb of Manotick has been singing shanties — work songs traditionally sung by sailors at sea — since he was a toddler.
That style of music and song is woven throughout his latest album, though it is combined with more modern guitar and drum sounds — a deliberate move by the musician.
A child of the ’80s, McCann’s mixtapes included everything from The Chieftains to The Police.
The fusion of traditional and contemporary, folk and rock, can be heard on Rolling Sea, the third single off of Shantyman.
He was inspired to revisit shanties earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic. There was something therapeutic about belting them out.
At his wife’s urging, he began to record them.
While he was recording, the sea shanty burst into the global spotlight thanks to videos that went viral on YouTube and TikTok, many of which were created by those of younger generations.
It was McCann’s 16-year-old son who brought the new trend to his attention.
“I did see that as a sign that I should finish the record,” McCann told OrilliaMatters, “but that whole thing lasted a second; sea shanties have been my entire life.”
It’s a passion he is eager to share with an audience in Orillia.
Many like to hit the bars on St. Patrick’s Day. McCann used to be among them, but now he gets his fix through music after being sober for a decade.
“This is what keeps me sober — being vulnerable in front of people and sharing my stories and songs,” he said, adding he has never gone to meetings like Alcoholics Anonymous. “This is the best meeting an alcoholic or drug addict could have.”
It wasn’t until he left Great Big Sea that McCann publicly acknowledged his alcoholism, which he used to “mask the pain of sexual abuse by a priest” when he was a kid.
“I found myself in a dangerous spot with Great Big Sea, being an addict and the type of band we were,” he said. “Music saved my life. Music is the best way to deal with these hard things. I have been drawn to difficult, challenging things because I have the weapons to deal with them: my guitar, my songs.”
And, a little help from his friends.
For Shantyman, McCann enlisted fellow Canadian musicians Hawksley Workman, Gordie Johnson, Jeremy Fisher and J.P. Cormier to be featured on some of the tracks.
“They brought their A game. They just blew the record up,” he said. “My biggest concern was they probably wouldn’t like it.”
Workman helped to alleviate that concern when he told McCann it was his best work yet.
It was a thrill for McCann to get to work with Johnson, too. He had been wanting to team up with the Big Sugar frontman since his Great Big Sea days.
“He was on my bucket list for 15 years,” he said.
All of McCann’s music can be accessed for free on his website.
Tickets to his concert in Orillia can be purchased here.
