Belize City, Belize » Salt Lake City residents Greg and Karen Funseth don't consider themselves cruise people. Until last year, they hadn't ever boarded a vessel bigger than a dive boat, and definitely never an ocean liner.

Yet in the past 12 months, the landlubbing music lovers have been on two cruises. "If it weren't for the musicians, and this particular set of musicians, we wouldn't be going," Greg Funseth says.

The draw on last month's Cayamo Cruise, which sailed out of Miami, was the lineup of alt-country talent, including Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle. Musicians played nearly round-the-clock concerts at venues throughout the 1,000-foot Norwegian Dawn for five days.

The February trip is part of a national trend of rock 'n' roll cruises profiting off an ingenious idea:

If you book musicians, music lovers will come.

Utahns ... on a boat

The Funseths were part of a delegation of 17 Utahns on the February cruise, sponsored by the Atlanta-based Sixthman company.

The lineup of musicians is the main attraction of the rock n' roll cruises, but there's also the experience of attending concerts without dealing with the hassles of parking or traffic and the friendly liquor laws on the pool deck.

And, if you find yourself between the devil and the deep blue sea at any point, you can just stumble about a hundred yards to your cabin to relax and recharge -- and order free room service while you're at it.

Kevin Kingdon and his sister Kathy Tatum, of Salt Lake City, booked passage on the Cayamo Cruise to spend time with their brother, who lives in Houston, and to celebrate his 60th birthday. "The musicians are the common thread that led to the idea of us doing this together," Kingdon said.

Ogden's Shaney McCoy, a singer-songwriter, sailed on her second cruise, and this time she brought along her guitar, which she played in an open-mic competition.

She didn't win, but the experience was especially memorable because McCoy learned afterward that Emmylou Harris was in the audience. "Thank God I didn't know that before," McCoy said. "I wouldn't have been able to sing. I would have just stared at her."

A wedding for music fans

The biggest stress for passengers attending this seagoing music festival? Finding time to eat and sleep in between wall-to-wall shows, taking place on the pool deck to the 11 bars and lounges onboard, including the 1,037-set Stardust Theater.

It's "a wedding for bands and their fans," says Andy Levine, a former rock band manager turned Sixthman cruise organizer.

Marrying the idea of music to cruises isn't a new concept. After all, Elvis impersonators have made a living as cruise headliners for years, as have jazz musicians. Locally, cruises have offered a pipeline of steady employment for Brigham Young University musical-theater graduates and Utah Shakespearean Festival alumni.

What's new is how rock 'n' roll cruises are attracting Baby Boomers and younger crowds to an industry desperately seeking customers beyond retirees and families.

"The cruise lines need to fill their ships, and group cruising is good for selling cabins," said Monty Mathisen, reporter and Web editor for the trade magazine Cruise Industry News . "It's cultural or multigenerational. There are group cruises for everything, from music to knitting to motorsports."

Niche-market cruises are apparently successful at filling ships even in these economic times. Evidence? Sixthman's Kid Rock Cruise, which sails in late April, has sold out a 2,000-passenger trip. And local travel agents are seeing rising numbers of Utahns asking about specific-interest cruises, says Rolayne Fairclough, spokeswoman for AAA Utah.

Why musicians -- and labels -- like it

Record labels are pushing musicians to participate. "These are innovative ways to market these acts," says Derek Simon, vice president of marketing and artist development at Stroudavarious Records, which is promoting the up-and-coming band Blackberry Smoke.

Blackberry Smoke played on a cruise headlined by Lynyrd Skynyrd in January and will perform with the Zac Brown Band on a cruise over Labor Day.

"We are cruise-happy," said Blackberry Smoke's guitarist and singer Charlie Starr. "A lot of people all over the world say they first saw us on a cruise. And where else do you get molten lava cake and lobster tails after shows?"

Other, more-established artists appreciate the knowledgeable and passionate music fans that cruises draw. Musicians can mingle with fans while both are waiting in the buffet line, or grab drinks together after shows.

"The audiences know the music and are real fans of the songs," says Emmylou Harris, who performed on the February cruise. "I'd like to put it on my schedule every year."

Musicians, used to grueling touring schedules, like bringing their partners and families along. "My wife and I get to get out of Tennessee for a week and play in the Caribbean," John Hiatt says.

Jamming with friends, fans

To music fans, especially appealing is the idea that musicians, all stuck on the same boat, might spontaneously jam with each other whenever the mood strikes -- and with alcohol likely to be flowing freely, the mood seems to strike often. During February's Cayamo cruise, the casino provided a nightly gathering place that sparked late-night jam sessions that lasted well into the early mornings, as musicians and fans watched the sun rise at sea.

On the last night, Buddy Miller played a scheduled show, and his lineup of friends joining him onstage was impressive, including Harris, Steve Earle, Darrell Scott and Sara Watkins. Even more surprising was when singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin joined the fun, even though she wasn't on the cruise's lineup, but was simply on the ship for a vacation.

Oh, and there's one more thing that the musicians say they love. "I'm getting an embarrassing amount of money for being in the Caribbean in the middle of winter," Earle says. "What sucks about this?"

Changing of latitudes ...

Once your oceanliner is on the high seas, cruises aren't immune to some of the innate challenges of sailing, such as hatch-battening swells and angry Beaufort Force-measured winds. Sometimes wind can make the temperatures low enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey -- to employ some nautical slang.

Even if seasickness doesn't cause your body to unfurl your sails, just being at a show on a ship can seem surreal. Before one of Hiatt's Cayamo cruise sets, it sounded as if the ship's music lovers were stomping their feet in anticipation. Then word passed through the crowd that those thundering sounds were actually the churn of the capstan and the bowthruster maneuvering the ship away from its anchorage.

Salty mariners always tell wet-behind-the-ears sailors to never whistle on board a ship, because whistling brings on stormy seas.

That legend has since been disproven by music cruises. If you're not whistling while you're on a music cruise, you must be a fathom under.

dburger@sltrib.com