The Last Ship (Original Broadway Cast Recording) Sting

• 1 Island Of Souls 06:36
• 2 All This Time 03:17
• 3 August Winds 02:27
• 4 Shipyard 05:43
• 5 If You Ever See Me Talking To A Sailor 04:14
• 6 Dead Man’s Boots 02:56
• 7 The Last Ship 02:10
• 8 Sail Away 02:12
• 9 The Last Ship 02:37
• 10 What Say You Meg? 03:54
• 11 We’ve Got Now’t Else 03:26
• 12 When We Dance 04:25
• 13 The Night The Pugilist Learned How To Dance 04:06
• 14 So To Speak 03:17
• 15 Show Some Respect 04:03
• 16 It's Not The Same Moon 04:29
• 17 Underground River 02:38
• 18 Ghost Story 04:44
• 19 The Last Ship 02:05
• 20 What Say You Meg? 04:02
• Total Runtime 01:13:21

Info for The Last Ship (Original Broadway Cast Recording)

The Last Ship - the new musical with music and lyrics by 16-time Grammy Award-winner Sting and book by Tony Award-winner John Logan and Pulitzer Prize-winner Brian Yorkey opened on Broadway on October 26 with overwhelming praise for its emotionally powerful score. Produced by the Emmy-Award winning and multi-Grammy-nominated producer Rob Mathes. The play is directed by Tony Award-winner Joe Mantello and choreographed by Olivier Award-winner Steven Hoggett, with musical direction, orchestrations and arrangements also by Rob Mathes.

In the fall of 2013, Sting introduced some of the selections heard in the musical on his own album of the same name, The Last Ship, released on Cherrytree/Interscope/A&M Records. The new Broadway Cast Album will include some of those original compositions performed by the acclaimed Broadway cast, as well as selections exclusively written and recorded for the stage production. Highlights include the title track 'The Last Ship,' show favorites 'We've Got Now't Else' and 'If You Ever See Me Talking to a Sailor' plus 'When We Dance,' a beloved song from Sting's catalog. The Original Broadway Cast Recording will also include two versions of the stirring ballad 'What Say You, Meg?' – one sung by the character Arthur Millburn and one recorded by Sting which will appear as a bonus track, available exclusively on the cast album for the first time anywhere.

The Last Ship – which marks Sting's debut as a Broadway composer – is set in the English seaside town of Wallsend, a close-knit community where life has always revolved around the local shipyard and the hardworking men construct magnificent vessels with tremendous pride. But Gideon Fletcher dreams of a different future. He sets out to travel the world, leaving his life and his love behind. When Gideon returns home many years later, he finds the shipyard's future in grave danger and his childhood sweetheart engaged to someone else. This love triangle ignites just as the men and women of Wallsend take their future into their own hands and build a towering representation of the shared dream that defines their existence. And in the end Gideon comes to understand that he had indeed left behind more than he could have ever imagined.

The Last Ship is inspired by the Wallsend community where Sting was born and raised and people's homes were often houses that existed in the shadows of the massive vessels in the shipyards. The Last Ship also reflects real-life incidents, including a history-making 'work-in' at a Scottish shipyard in the 70's, and a recent project in Poland for which a priest commandeered supplies and financial support so a group of laymen could not only have work, but also reclaim their pride and dignity by assembling a ship meant to sail the world.

The principal cast of The Last Ship includes Michael Esper, Rachel Tucker, Jimmy Nail, Fred Applegate, Aaron Lazar, Sally Ann Triplett and Collin Kelly-Sordelet.

'A seductive, haunting beauty of a score that ranks among the best composed by a rock or pop figure for Broadway' (The New York Times)

'Sting's songs are lovely and theatrical -- vivid barnburners, dramatic anthems and vigorous ensemble numbers' (New York Magazine)

'Thrilling with powerful performances, outstanding songs and real heart…simply beautiful' (Associated Press)

The Last Ship ensemble includes:
Eric Anderson, Ethan Applegate, Craig Bennett, Dawn Cantwell, Jeremy Davis, Bradley Dean, Alyssa DiPalma, Colby Foytik, David Michael Garry, Timothy Gulan, Shawna M. Hamic, Rich Hebert, Leah Hocking, Todd A. Horman, Sarah Hunt, Jamie Jackson, Sean Jenness, Drew McVety, Johnny Newcomb, Matthew Stocke, Cullen R. Titmus and Jeremy Woodard.

The Last Ship is produced on Broadway by Jeffrey Seller, Kathryn Schenker, Kevin McCollum, Sander Jacobs, James L. Nederlander, Roy Furman, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss.

Sting
Born 2 October 1951, in Wallsend, north-east England, Gordon Sumner's life started to change the evening a fellow musician in the Phoenix Jazzmen caught sight of his black and yellow striped sweater and decided to re-christen him Sting. Sting paid his early dues playing bass with local outfits The Newcastle Big Band, The Phoenix Jazzmen, Earthrise and Last Exit, the latter of which featured his first efforts at song writing. Last Exit were big in the North East, but their jazz fusion was doomed to fail when punk rock exploded onto the music scene in 1976. Stewart Copeland, drummer with Curved Air, saw Last Exit on a visit to Newcastle and while the music did nothing for him he did recognise the potential and charisma of the bass player. The two hooked up shortly afterwards and within months, Sting had left his teaching job and moved to London.

Seeing punk as flag of convenience, Copeland and Sting - together with Corsican guitarist Henri Padovani - started rehearsing and looking for gigs. Ever the businessman, Copeland took the name The Police figuring it would be good publicity, and the three started gigging round landmark punk venues like The Roxy, Marquee, Vortex and Nashville in London. Replacing Padovani with the virtuoso talents of Andy Summers the band also enrolled Stewart's elder brother Miles as manager, wowing him with a Sting song called 'Roxanne'. Within days Copeland Senior had them a record deal. But the hip London music press saw through The Police's punk camouflage and did little to disguise their contempt, and the band's early releases had no chart success. So The Police did the unthinkable - they went to America.

The early tours are the stuff of legend - bargain flights to the USA courtesy of Freddie Laker's pioneering Skytrain; driving their own van and humping their own equipment from gig to gig; and playing to miniscule audiences at the likes of CBGB's in New York and The Rat Club in Boston. Their tenacity paid off though as they slowly built a loyal following, got some all important air-play, and won over their audiences with a combination of new wave toughness and reggae rhythms.

They certainly made an odd trio: guitarist Summers had a career dating back to the mid-60s, the hyper-kinetic Copeland was a former prog-rocker, and Sting's background was in trad jazz and fusion. The sound the trio made was unique though, and Sting's pin-up looks did them no harm at all. The band returned to the UK to find the reissued 'Roxanne' single charting, and played a sell-out tour of mid-size venues. The momentum had started. The debut album 'Outlandos d'Amour' (Oct 78) delivered three sizeable hits with 'Roxanne', 'Can't Stand Losing You' and 'So Lonely' which in turn led to a headlining slot at the '79 Reading Festival which won the band some fine reviews, but it was with 'Reggatta de Blanc' (Oct 79) that the band stepped up a gear.

Reggatta's first single, 'Message In A Bottle', streaked to number one and the album's success was consolidated further when 'Walking On The Moon' also hit the top slot. The band was big, but about to get even bigger. 1980 saw them undertake a world tour with stops on all continents - including the first rock concerts in Bombay - and the band eventually returned to the UK exhausted, for two final shows in Sting's hometown of Newcastle. Much of this groundbreaking tour was captured on the 'Police Around The World' video and a BBC documentary entitled 'The Police in the East'

Within weeks, the band were in a Dutch studio recording new material but Sting's stock of pre-Police songs and ideas were wearing out. When 'Zenyatta Mondatta' was released (Oct 80) although it sold well and produced another number one single in 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' and a top five hit with 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da' a rethink was required. Sting later admitted that he felt 'Zenyatta' was the band's weakest album but by the end of 1980 the band were undoubtedly the biggest-selling band in the country selling out two shows in a huge marquee on Tooting Bec Common in London. For more please visit www.sting.com

Booklet for The Last Ship (Original Broadway Cast Recording)