CD Review: “Captains & Cowboys” by Mike Aiken

Mike Aiken, “Captains & Cowboys”

“Come on, Virginia, I hear you calling me.” The plea of singer/songerwriter Mike Aiken,  and ‘Virginia’ in the romantic song could be either a favorite woman or his favorite state. It’s that emotional. Turns out, Aiken wrote it for his home state.

The 12 songs on Aiken’s new CD, “Captains and Cowboys,” are all reflections of the influences in his life, whether those were developed when he raised quarter horses or later, after he became a licensed sea captain.

“I grew up very rural and spent a lot of time raising horses and around rodeos,” Aiken said recently. Then, he moved from the farm to a boat on the ocean, and has lived on it for the past two decades.

“It’s the same type of spirit and person,” Aiken, said, comparing the two lifestyles. “Not quite a loner, but somebody who doesn’t need the rest of the world to tell them they are OK to be OK.”

There’s a gross similarity between these two types of individuals, Aiken said, talking about the captains and the cowboys.

“Night Riders Lament” is one of only three cover songs on this CD. “Probably the first I heard it was Jerry Jeff (Walker), his version, and it spoke to me about that type of person, the cowboy, who could be on the boat as well. I played with changing a couple of lines to put him on a boat, but I just couldn’t improve the song.” It was important for Aiken, a prolific songwriter himself, to include this and the others enhancing the mood of the CD.

Aiken said it took a couple of years to put the CD together. He’s cut other CD projects in the past, but as he moved through this one, he realized this was different, that there was a theme involving, and that theme needed to be honored and developed.

“I wanted this to take some time so I could do a better product,” Aiken said. He cut some songs in July, and went back in September to lay down some more. That’s when he realized “this CD is taking life and going in a direction. So I waited and went back in January this year. I thought it was ready last summer, and we started (in January) vetoing some of it and re-writing. We let it grow as it went, giving it a chance to take on a life of its own.”

On the “sea” side of this conceptualized project, is “Save The Whales,” and Aiken said it’s a reflection of his very early influence by the late Stan Rogers and the many sea chanties Rogers created. “’Hooray, up she rises,’ is the traditional chant of old-time whalers. When they would see the whale, the man on top was to point, and they would drop the small boats. The sea and whaling, that’s ’a real part of Americana.” He explained he has spent a lot of time sailing up to Nova Scotia and back, “that’s the slice of life we used to have in this country.”

Courtesy Photo
Mike Aiken

One song, “Your Memory Wins,” is a true country song, co-written by Austin Cunningham. Aiken’s voice haunts, “when the whiskey wears off, you’re still gone.” Brad Davis, from Celeste, Texas, and Aiken co-wrote the title song, “Captains & Cowboys,” with a bit of Texas mixed with life on the sea, bringing the two lifestyles into plain view… “With the captains and the cowboys is where I fit in.” And they wrote it the modern way… using computers, back and forth, from their respective homes.

Another powerhouse song on this project is “Get Down River,” a song Aiken said he dedicated basically to those affected by Hurricane Katrina, which backed up the Mississippi River, but it could just easily apply to the James River floods he witnessed in Norfolk. “The city of Norfolk is actually an island surrounded by the sea and two rivers. You have to take bridges or go in tunnels to get to the city. I’ve seen those tunnels full of water. It came in so hard and so fast. I can relate on a personal level.”

Aiken takes his music out sometimes with a trio and sometimes a full band. “Toby Keith’s bass player, and my wife on harmony and percussion, and me. Then sometimes adding Nashville steel and mandolin.”

This man with a lifestyle some others envy sings of aging sailors, of youth, of rodeo idols, of the shrinking Appalachian Mountains and the disappearance of the magnificent whale, of the romance of life.

“Captains & Cowboys” is available at Best Buy stores, through Birdland Records, and by downloading it from iTunes, CDBaby, and other favorite internet sites.

Category: - CD Reviews