For the past two decades ten men from Cornwall”s Port Isaac have met on the village quayside every Friday summer evening to sing rousing sea shanties and traditional folk songs for little more than free beer. Then, in March 2010, everything changed when stardom came to this bunch of friends who had sought neither fame nor fortune. Within weeks of a record producer hearing their passionate, harmonic singing, they had a million-pound deal and were booked to appear at Glastonbury. By the end of that month a world tour was underway and Ealing Films had bought the rights to their story.
Their first commercially produced album went gold almost immediately and they have now played live to hundreds of thousands of people, raising the roof everywhere with ballads such as ”The Cadgwith Anthem” and ”South Australia”. The book will tell the full story of how the boat came in for this group of burly middle-aged men, each of whom are or have been fishermen, lifeboatmen and coastguards (as well as builders, artisans, hoteliers and shop keepers) in their beloved Port Isaac. Each member of the group has his own story, and individual family histories tell of Cornwall”s rugged, harsh landscape and the ever-present danger and bounty of the sea. The Fisherman”s Friends have found a huge and ready audience and have rekindled interest in traditional music, striking a chord in the hearts of men and women, young and old, across the English-speaking world. With a new album due out in summer 2011, this is an affectionate and timely autobiography.