Anita Best was born in a small fishing village with the fairytale name of Merasheen, in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, just before circumstances contrived to bring her native country into union with Canada. Her people came to Merasheen from Somerset in the late 1700s and were engaged in the inshore and bank fishery until Merasheen was depopulated by government in 1968. On both sides of the family there were wonderful singers of old ballads, tragic sea songs and comical ditties, and the occasional storyteller who gathered everyone around on the long winter nights.

Read more about Anita Best on Last.fm.