Mark Lovewell is a journalist and photographer who has traveled all over the world and the Vineyard writing stories and chronicling aspects of the sea. He writes a fishing column and has charted his own course throughout his life, while keeping an Island base. More than anything, Mr. Lovewell wants to see the traditions and history of the seafaring community stay alive, which he does through his shanty songs and storytelling. As he likes to say, the kids he performs for will someday be in charge of the Vineyard.

“We have a common obligation to connect our kids to the legacy behind it, to cultivate their imaginations,” Mr. Lovewell said.

Mr. Lovewell’s newest children’s recording features his signature true and clear voice and a few nature sounds here and there, too. The CD is aptly titled A Child’s Island. It contains plenty of familiar songs but it also includes stories. Mr. Lovewell will peform songs from the CD on Tuesday, July 23, at 4 p.m. at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown.

Mr. Lovewell descends from a whaling family and his songs and stories bring those days to life. In his story Quahog, a Tale, Mr. Lovewell asks the listener to ponder the life of a quahog — a lonely life indeed. They were eaten long before “candy bars and lemon meringue pie,” he says.

He said he gets a kick out of playing to a crowd of children.

“I love doing children’s shows, getting them excited. Music is participatory, not a spectator sport.”

He’s been playing for his own children, now grown, for years. It is their picture on the cover of A Child’s Island. He played at their birthday parties and now they ask him to play for their friends when they come to visit and he’s happy to oblige.

“I come from a musical family,” he says.

His music next Tuesday won’t be lost on the adults in the room, either. Mr. Lovewell said he enjoys watching the generations interact. “Why not celebrate the songs that connect generations?” he asks.

Phil DaRosa will join Mr. Lovewell at the concert. He recorded his CD in Mr. DaRosa’s studio and has him to thank for incorporating the sounds of the Flying Horses and the ocean to the music.

Billed as a concert “for the young and the young at heart,” the event begins at 4 p.m.

Tickets at the door are $10 for adults and $5 for seniors. Children 12 and under can come for free when they bring an adult with them.