''Sea Shanties'' is the debut album of English rock band

High Tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables c ...

. It was one of the first albums to use violin as a rock instrument. The cover artwork was drawn by

Paul Whitehead Paul Whitehead is a British painter and graphic artist known for his surrealistic album covers for artists on the Charisma Records label in the 1970s, such as Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator. __TOC__ Life and work England: Liberty Records ...

Production

Denny Gerrard (of Warm Sounds) produced ''Sea Shanties'' in return for High Tide acting as the backing band on his solo album ''Sinister Morning''. The recording sessions for the two albums overlapped, with ''Sinister Morning'' being finished in late June 1969,(1970). In ''Sinister Morning'' leeve notes and ''Sea Shanties'' being started on the 2nd of that month.

Reception

Though it met with a scathing review in ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...

'',Shaw, Adrian. (2000
"Tony Hill interview"
''Perfect Sound Forever magazine''. reviews in the underground press were universally positive, and sales were just enough to convince Liberty to give the green light to a second album.Powell, Mark (2006). "High Tide - Sea Shanties". In ''Sea Shanties'' (pp.8-10)

D booklet D, or d, is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''dee'' (pronounced ), plural ''dees''. History Th ...

London: Eclectic Entertainment Ltd. The

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

retrospective review by Wilson Neate stated "On Sea Shanties, there's nothing fey and flowery in Hill's bleak lyrics or his doomy

Jim Morrison James Douglas Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was an American singer, poet and songwriter who was the lead vocalist of the rock band the Doors. Due to his wild personality, poetic lyrics, distinctive voice, unpredictable and err ...

-like delivery, and psychedelia's melodic whimsy is supplanted by a physicality more in line with the visceral heft of metal progenitors...High Tide weren't a power trio, though, and it was the interplay of Hill's guitar with Simon House's violin that created the band's unique signature. Showing that rock violin needn't be a marginal adornment, House whips up an aggressive edge that rivals the guitar... High Tide had the muscularity of a no-nonsense proto-metal band, but they also ventured into prog territory with changing time signatures and tempos, soft-hard dynamics, multi-part arrangements, and even some ornate faux-Baroque interludes... Far from the collection of nautical ditties its name suggests, Sea Shanties is an overlooked gem encapsulating the shifting musical currents in late-'60s British rock."Neate, W.
Allmusic Review
accessed February 2, 2011 It was voted number 5 in the All-Time 50 Long Forgotten Gems from

Colin Larkin Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British writer and entrepreneur. He founded, and was the editor-in-chief of, the '' Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', described by '' The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". Along w ...

's ''

All Time Top 1000 Albums ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'' is a book by Colin Larkin, creator and editor of the '' Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. The book was first published by Guinness Publishing in 1994. The list presented is the result of over 200,000 votes cast by t ...

''.

Track listing

All tracks written by Tony Hill except where noted.

2006 Remaster Bonus Tracks

Personnel

;High Tide *Roger Hadden - drums *Tony Hill - guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals *

Simon House Simon House (born 29 August 1948 in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England) is a British composer and classically trained violinist and keyboard player, perhaps best known for his work with space rock band Hawkwind. Career Before his time with Ha ...

- violin, organ *Peter Pavli - bass

References

{{Authority control 1969 debut albums High Tide (band) albums Liberty Records albums albums recorded at Olympic Sound Studios