About
James Frederick Keel was an English composer of art songs, baritone singer and academic. Keel was a successful recitalist and a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music. He combined scholarly and artistic interest in English songs and their history. His free settings of Elizabethan and Jacobean lyrics helped pioneer the revival of interest in the genre. He was also an active member of the English folksong movement. During World War I, Keel was held in the civilian internment camp at Ruhleben in Germany, where he played an active role in the camp's musical life, giving many recitals to help boost the morale of his fellow detainees. Keel was one of the few singer-songwriters of English art songs of his day. Among his better-known compositions are settings of Salt-Water Ballads by the poet John Masefield, including "Trade Winds", the popularity of which has given Keel a reputation for being a "one-song composer".
Keel was one of the few art song singer-songwriters of his day. However, he composed only a relatively small body of original work. Indeed, the popular success of "Trade Winds" has given Keel a reputation for being a "one-song composer". Nevertheless, Keel's other Salt Walter Ballads settings used to enjoy considerable popularity, with one critic finding them "almost perfect". Noting Keel's preference for minor keys, another contemporary critic remarked on the "lively gait" of his melodies which made them sound as bright as in the major. Keel's unsigned obituary in The Times spoke of his compositions as being "graceful and melodious rather than robust or profound". In their heyday, Keel's songs were well represented on record, but the number of available recordings has shrunk. Currently, Three Salt Water Ballads can be heard on a recording sung by Bryn Terfel. "Trade Winds" can also be heard on CD, as sung by Jonathan Lemalu.