With ice caps melting and folkloric Mumford pop on the rise, volume two of this maritime music project – produced partly by pirate-booster Johnny Depp and fantasy-band builder Hal Willner – is even more timely than the first. The mood varies wildly: Beth Orton incants lonely blues ("River Come Down"), Iggy Pop fends off butt bandits ("Asshole Rules the Navy"), Frank Zappa gets jazzy (a late-Sixties "Handsome Cabin Boy"). Michael Stipe sounds great with pal Courtney Love on "Rio Grande," and Tom Waits wrings boozy pathos from "Shenandoah," which features Keith Richards on guitar. Yes, there are duds among these 36 tracks. But they pass the time. Boat trips can be really fucking long.

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."