High Seas Honky Tonk

“USED TO SAY, I’d rather eat dirt than go on a cruise,” said Shawn Colvin from the stage of a Carnival cruise ship, “but I’ve never been so happy in my life!”

Crooner Colvin joined Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris and two dozen other artists on a Caribbean cruise. Along with them were 2,000 passengers, including their family members, fans, heaps of professional musicians, an entire roller derby team and me. Like many of the performers and passengers, I had never been on a cruise before. I was curious whether the week at sea would produce music and community, or just nausea.

Carnival’s Cayamo cruise set sail with the hope that the growing trend of music-theme cruises would be successful for the scene of “Americana” contemporary folk music. Various cruise lines now offer every musical permutation imaginable, from hard-rock party boats, blues cruises and pop idol trips to a goth music cruise.

Our ship anchored in Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Jamaica, but the islands were insignificant sideshows to the 12-14 hours of continuous music scheduled each day. Musicians performed everywhere on board, from lunchtime concerts on deck——with passengers watching from lounge chairs——to a 2,000-seat concert hall, small side bars, a casino stage and really any hallway, room or balcony with enough space for a couple of people and a guitar.

Artists freely mingled with passengers, jumping into the pool, riding the water slide and trying their luck in the casino. The sight of Lyle Lovett with a bright orange life vest around his neck for the lifeboat drill was worth the price of admission.

By the time our ship returned to Miami, our sense of community was complete. The ship felt more like a Nashville honky tonk than a corporate cruise line. In the pre-dawn glow, a couple of passengers still strummed guitars on deck, and a bluegrass band performed one last jam in the hallway in front of the duty-free store. Info: carnival.com.