Dart Music Festival: Tom Mason & The Blue Buccaneers

Credit: Jeff Lange

Tom Mason and the Blue Buccaneers play with the fervour of the Pogues and the sensitivity of the Buena Vista Social Club.

Their songs transport you to the wildest pub in Port Royal at the turn of the eighteenth century.

Tom’s theatricality and musicianship make for an explosive mix. His songs conjure up a life on the seas in an era when the only hope for destitute sailors was to go “on the account”, to become pirates.

The songs on 'The Blue Buccaneer' CD are all new, yet the mastery of the songwriting gives them the feel of classic sea shanties and world-worn ballads. There are rousing sing-along drinking songs, piratical rave-ups, and ballads that bear out the harsh realities of life on the sea. Whatever song you are listening to, the excitement of Tom Mason & the Blue Buccaneers’ live show is apparent - whether it be at a theatre, on a festival stage, at a beach-side tavern, at a rowdy street party, or, of course, on the deck of a brigantine sailing through the Caribbean...!

Credit: M Dobo

Tom Mason has released seven CDs and numerous collaborative CDs, including two by the Big Happy on Western Beat Records and one with Nashville’s Lower Broadway stalwarts Swampgrass.

He has been featured on many compilations, and in addition to being a solo artist and bandleader, Tom has played lead guitar for a multitude of artists.

He toured the US and Europe with Phil Lee, played with D.C. favorites Last Train Home, and with Supe Granda of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils.

As an actor, Tom treads the boards from coast to coast. He’s performed in the National Tour of “Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash”, and played Clarence in Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Richard III”.

He has also acted in countless other regional productions, was a guest artist at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s Cabaret Conference and is also active in film. He has played many roles including kidnappers, drug dealers, the devil, pirates, and Dolly Parton’s Dobro player in a Lifetime television movie.

“The Blue Buccaneer” CD is a rollicking account of privateer life that brings together the many aspects of Tom Mason’s storied career: singer, songwriter, actor, conjuror, and, yes,a PIRATE!

Their new CD "The World is Ablaze" draws on the fact that pirates sailed the world around and pirate crews were an international lot, so their music would be a medley of styles plundered from all over.

We look forward to hearing Tom and the Boys perform a selection of the songs from it when we welcome them to Dart Music Festival.