Month: January 2025

New single out now! Listen to “Went To The Sea”

On the surface, Ellen’s career as a folk musician may look like it was confined to the 1950s, since that’s the era when her four albums were released, before she turned her attention to graduate school and a long career as a professor. But Ellen continued to perform and record for decades, giving occasional concerts and sometimes singing during her college lectures. Many of those songs were captured on tape but never released to the public. Today, Ellen has an archive of hundreds of songs that have never been heard by anyone beyond those lucky enough to have been in the original audiences. A big part of why we started this website was to help remedy that, and we are pleased to announce the first of what we hope will be many new releases: “Went To The Sea.”

You can listen to the song on streaming platforms including YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and iHeart Radio by following this link to Ellen’s DistroKid page. To purchase a download of “Went To the Sea,” visit Ellen’s BandCamp page at ellenstekert.bandcamp.com. For updates about further new releases, please follow Ellen’s Spotify or Apple Music profiles, or check back on the Music & Performing page here at her website. Also, follow @ellenstekert on Instagram for updates and interesting stories about Ellen’s life.

About the song

“Went To the Sea” was recorded at a rehearsal in the 1960s. It was written by Ellen’s friend Tracy Powers, who she met in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. Remembering Tracy, Ellen said, “She wrote wonderful songs and sang them with skill and wit. I started singing her songs in the late 1960s. ‘Went To The Sea’ was my favorite of hers. It has only one verse—Tracy said she never finished it. But the one verse it has is enough for it to be textually evocative and melodically haunting. So I learned it.”

The album art for this track depicts Ellen in 1948 in Nova Scotia, Canada, when she was about 13. The photo was taken by her father. Ellen had just contracted polio and could barely walk. Her family wasn’t sure she would survive. Her father and brother had to help her get to the beach where she sits in the photo, looking out over the ocean and the cliffs beyond.

Lyrics

Went to the sea
What’d I spy
I spied a maid, she was afraid
Afraid to cry and afraid to die

You’ll weep, you’ll faint, you’ll die
When in my arms you lie

I knew a girl
And I loved her well
I loved her better, gal, than tongue could tell
One day she loved me, one day she fell

You’ll weep, you’ll faint, you’ll die
When in my arms you lie

Went to the sea
What’d I spy
I spied a maid, she was afraid
Afraid to cry and afraid to die

You’ll weep, you’ll faint, you’ll die
When in my arms you lie

Credits

Released January 17, 2025
Perfomer: Ellen Stekert
Composer: Tracy Powers

Producer: Ross Wylde
Production Assistant: Bates Detwiler 
Editorial & Publicity Manager: Christopher Bahn

Have you seen this guitar?

Ellen was featured on the Friday, January 18 local newscast of Minneapolis TV station KARE-11. The interview gave a nice overview of her career as a professor and folksinger, as well as helped get the word out about Ellen’s “long-lost friend”, as the video says: Her missing guitar!

The instrument was a Martin 00-21, and was bought new by Ellen in 1956. It was lost in 2008 after being sold by someone who was lent the guitar (temporarily, Ellen had hoped, but alas, no) as collateral.

Our thanks to Samantha Fischer for the interview. You can check out the whole four-minute segment at KARE-11’s website. The whole thing got started thanks to a post on the website Reddit by our friend Ross Wylde, who is also producing some of her archival music for re-release later this year. (We’ll be posting more on that very soon, including audio of one of the songs—very exciting!)

We believe the guitar is probably in Minneapolis. It has a few identifying marks, as Ross wrote in his original post: “It has her name carved into the soundboard along the brace with the Martin stamp. Its serial number is SN-150342.” If you think you may have any information about it, please let us know!