Janie Meneely, a songwriter, wrote a poem some years back on Grandma Polly, a true story from the Radcliffe clan, and Senator from Maryland describing their feisty relative.  Apparently, Grandma Polly was upset when she found out the British commandeered the family merchant vessel and took her husband with it.  She rowed out to the anchored British ship and demanded to speak to Admiral George Cockburn.  The Brit was so impressed, he gave audience.  After tea, Cockburn bade Grandma Polly farewell with her husband in tow.  Days later, Cockburn proceeded to march 4500 troops into battle and burned down Washington, D.C.  Oh, and the poem is about Polly hiding the family silver under her cantankerous goose as she knew the Brits had no match confronting an egg protecting fowl.

A conversation with Janie brought a smile to my face. Our zoom interview caught her in England on the North Sea.  I had the pleasure of getting to hear some of her songs from her songbook ‘Sing The Bay Fantastic’ which were upbeat and optimistic.  Her partner, Rob van Sante, added the bass as well as a lower octave or two on the harmony of”Susquehanna Suzie” where we can all join in on the chorus to celebrate the thrill of buying a first boat.

Janie’s songbook, ‘Sing The Bay Fantastic’ is a time capsule filled with things about her growing up on Chesapeake Bay.  Born in Annapolis, Maryland, Janie threads her childhood through personal jealousies of friends’ home-cooked seafood stews, soups, and everything served up raw bar. It also pulls from her experiences gleaned from her job as a journalist.  In all, she was a sea sponge having anything to do with water on the Chesapeake.

Songs like ‘The Oysterman’s Wife’ was created while reporting a story in Deltaville.  Her most popular sea siren series is Nasty Nell.  Her fictitious character gives plenty of opportunity to explore the depths of the Chesapeake as well as the shallows.  Janie likes to focus her songs on anything that life on the water can make you happy.

Her love of oysters has an indelible environmental impact where there is great debate between power dredging versus hand tonging.  Indeed the Chesapeake has its own regeneration initiative of oysters that rivals the efforts of New York Harbor’s Billion Oyster Project.  As Janie is a true romantic, the arduous but eco-friendly method of tonging may have its return. Janie is eager to see these old bay vessels repurposed.

Janie participated in a ZOOM concert workshop on Sunday night February 21st, as part of a Folklore Society of Greater Washington program on local waterways.  The webcast featured Janie, George Ward, of New York and Lee Murdock from the Great Lakes.

So, while the harbors await Janie’s return, her newly released songbook is a great way for any musician to learn a new tune and share the language of song telling first hand.  The songbook is available to interested folks for $25 through Janie’s website janiemeneely.com.

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“Behind The Scenes Making Of Ascending A Ladder To The Stars” not only gives viewers clear meaning to the song lyrics through images and narration, but it also gives us an interesting inside look on how it was created in the studio. Pedulla, who is the audio mixer says “I tried to get a nice foundation and Joe filled in the instrumentation. It was nice that we were able to use the B3 and the fender Rhodes through the Leslie that added a nice kind of vintage vibe to it.”  Pedulla, who is also visually impaired uses a screen reader to help lay the audio tracks for the song.  You can hear it 8 mins and 40 seconds into the video.  Joe Mayer, who is the melody composer, focuses on his choice to use the mandolin, fiddle, and organ as the instruments to be used in the the song ; “What I tended to do was take the chords structure and I just kind of like to move around with one or two notes within those chords, slide them up and down and then I just hear something in my head and I try to follow it.”  True words of an artist!  

Singer, songwriter Marc Hittner, explains, “I wrote this song to pay tribute to the workers of New York Harbor.”  His reference to “A sister’s acrobatics trapeze, backflips of the gymnast” depicts the everyday workers who literally bend over backwards to do their jobs, such as ship painters dangling off the sides of ships too boat pilots climbing up accommodation ladders; workers we often tend to forget about.  The song also focuses on the dangers of the accommodation ladders that ship pilots need to climb up in order to dock ships.  

Ascending A Ladder To The Stars is available when you click here for streaming platforms of your choice. NYHC intends to feature a new artist every month with these docu-scensory videos.  Want to share your songs backstory or even need help recording a song?  Look no further because NYHC is here to help. Reach out to our content department at [email protected]. Of course, the musical themes should be marine related to appeal to our water-loving audience but we are always open to creating content for any musician.

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