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Thursday
Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” which tells the story of a 1975 calamity in which 29 men died, is probably the most famous Canadian shipwreck song, but for sheer dramatic punch, the Mel Fisher gold chest of this microgenre is “Captain Torres,” from James Keelaghan’s 1999 CD, Road. The freighter Captain Torres was caught in a storm off Cape Breton in December 1989. With no hope of rescue, the crew members, one by one, called their families to say goodbye. As wrenching as the chorus, “La mer ne pardonne pas” (“The sea is unforgiving”), is the lament Keelaghan voices for a family member: “Do I count myself lucky/I was home the phone was ringing/What of other’s wives who missed it/Came home to red lights blinking…” Keelaghan brings his storytelling gifts to far-flung Burke tonight; bring your sextant. At 8 p.m. at the “Medium Rare Café” coffeehouse at Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church, 10125 Lakehaven Lane, Burke. $12. (703) 924-8992. (PMW)