Say, that was a nice gathering, especially for those of us who have not been able to attend for a couple of months. Nice to do some chatting as well as singing. Now if I could only remember what Jeri's first song was, other than I'd like to see the words and hear it again. And I'm terrible at remembering people's names.

It was fun to actually draw a few bar flys over who obviously enjoyed the music. If they return in October we'll have to encourage them not to chatter so much while we are singing but they were clearly swept up in what we were doing.

Bruce was encouraged to do "Precious?" which is a lovely song. Tom led things off with "All for Me Grog" which I followed with a Portland parody called "Concrete and Glass." Tom later did a wonderful rendition of "Leaving of Liverpool." Linn did "Nine Times a Night," Jerry Bryant's "Old Shantytown," and "Fathom the Ball." Dave and Bruce did "Limehouse Reach." Nor and Eli were both there for a change and did "Mary L. McKay" "Blood-Red Roses," and "Nova Scotia Farewell"(as did Bruce when he stopped in later). Eli led "Mexico," "Roll the Woodpile Down" and "Haul-Away Joe." Judy led John Warner's wonderful ballad of "Kitty Kane," an intripid woman in the Australian goldfields in the 19th century who worked her way to financial security as a lady of pleasure. Barbara led a spirited rendition of "Cape Cod Girls" and who was it that led "Huckleberry Hunting"? Jeri sanf "Fire Down Below" with a whole troop of volunteer hula-hula dances jumping up on the table on cue and swinging their hips and making graceful gestures with their arms.

Some new songs we were introducing include Nor's rendition of my arrangement of the John Masefield poem "Hell's Pavement" and I led my arrangements of the C. Fox Smith poems "Port of Dreams" and "Outward Bound." Linn also requested that Nor sing Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar"; I'm not sure who set that one to music but it's quite lovely.

Nor and I will unfortunately be missing next weekend's Sea Music Festival in Portsmouth and it's our understanding that there will be at least one open shanty sing at the Press Room during the weekend. We encourage people to attend and to revive the Festival thread and demand updates of what's actually happening.

Looking forward to attending the October Shanty Sing which should be happening October 16th, the weekend of the Great Getaway.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble