Gordon Bok (born October 31, 1939) is an American folklorist and singer-songwriter, who grew up in Camden, Maine and is associated with music from New England.

Career

Bok's first album, self-titled, was produced by Noel Paul Stookey (Paul of Peter, Paul, and Mary) and released in 1965 on the Verve Records' Verve Folkways subsidiary. His second album, A Tune for November, was released on Sandy Paton's Connecticut-based Folk-Legacy label in 1970. His association with Folk-Legacy has continued since that time, though his more recent work (from the early 1990s on) has been released on his own label, Timberhead Music. Some of his best-known work was done as part of a trio with Ed Trickett and Ann Mayo Muir, Trickett accompanying with the hammered dulcimer and guitar and Muir with the harp and flute. Bok is a deep bass and plays six-string guitar (both the steel-string acoustic guitar and the nylon-string classical guitar) and 12-string guitar. He also plays a self-built instrument he calls the "cellamba," a six-string, fretted cello. As a songwriter, Bok draws on his experience in and around the working boat culture of the Gulf of Maine. His lyrics include stories of fishermen and other sea-folk. At times (especially in the 1970s), he reaches into the wealth of sea myth of the North Atlantic. In addition to writing songs, he is also a folklorist and gatherer of songs. His repertoire includes contemporary songs from North America, Australia, and the British Isles. Additionally, Bok sings, in the original languages, folksongs from Italy, Portugal, Mongolia, French Canada, Latin America, and the Hebrides, among other places, and knows a huge body of old anglophone folklore. Bok is also an artist mainly dealing with sea themes done in wood carvings.

Personal life

Bok is the grandson of Edward Bok, the cousin of Derek Bok, and the uncle of Gideon Bok. He is married to Carol Rohl.

Discography

Works alone and with friends

Works with Ed Trickett and Ann Mayo Muir

Other appearances