Song of the Day 6/6: Jim Radford, “The Shores of Normandy”

Certain minds think alike. Mike Dinsmore posted this in the Open Thread while I was writing it up. It’s worth hearing twice.

Jim Radford was a British folksinger and peace activist who was just 15 when he served as a cabin boy aboard a tugboat that took part in the D-Day flotilla 80 years ago today. British folkies knew him as a singer of sea shanties, but he was unknown to the general public until 10 years ago, when he sang this song at a concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall commemorating the 70th anniversary of the D-Day, to great acclaim. It was released as a single in 2019 to raise funds for a memorial at Normandy’s Gold Beach and went to No. 1. Radford died in 2020, age 92, of COVID.