Geez, anonymous 'Guest,' I'm sorry that Martin didn't
live up to your expectations. He's a fine musician and
a companionable chap in his own right, and I'm sure his
Dad approves from up where St. Peter's awarded him his
harp, and where he's probably having a great big celestial
p*** on your pate. I'll be happy to spend your allotment of
time with he and his lovely lady on any occasion.

I am with you on one thing, however: we need to do a great
deal more to foster the preservation of this music in deed,
rather than in word, than we have been.

Stan was always very good at that. I treasure the memory of
him taking me in hand at a fife-rail and showing me how the
chanteyman played a key role not just in the hoisting of a
yard but in the belay. If not for him, I'd never of had the
nerve to hold the weight of a yard while a mate took that first
turn. I also treasure his gift for the teaching of volume...like
him, I'm not physically pre-disposed to being loud enough to be
heard across a deck...I'm no Don Sineti. But Stan was able to
show how any chanteyman can be heard as far as need be.

After Stan passed, we spent some years looking back, sort of
with no direction. It was as if every passing year was one
more A.S. (Anno Stan).

Finally, I said "Look, mates, if this stuff is to survive we
have to stop looking back at Stan and start being Stans...it's
really up to us now, to carry on. We need to bring about the next
generation of chanteymen who'll be wheeling us about in our dotage
and telling stories of how we made them stop in some rum shop until
eight bells said we were late for another gig."

Thus came about the Mystic Seaport Friends of the Festival, in the
hopes that the torch would be carried on there. At the time Mystic
had a full-time chantey staff of four and more, and was the center
of the universe in keeping the art alive.

My personal dream was of a 'Sea Music Week' which culminated in the
more public display of the 'art of the chanteyman' in the weekend.

It didn't happen. Due, I think, to what I might call 'institutional
hubris.' Or ossification.

I still maintain the hope that 'Blue Peter' will be hoisted
somewhere for the chanteymen, and the chanteymen-to-be and
the chanteymen-(and women)-to-be at some maritime institution
who sufficiently values this cultural artifact to give to its
preservation.

I think it quite natural to react to the Liverpool event with a
sort of wistful despair for the future. It was, after all, yet
another looking back at Stan, and all he gave us.

But I believe that when we steel ourselves to our duty, we must
ask "how are WE to accept and carry, and pass this torch entrusted
to us by Stan, by our friend Bill Doerflinger, by Colcord, by
Huntington, by a host of others who've committed to our care not
just notes on a page but rather the cadence of a work song being
sung at halyards, at a capstan, at a windlass, the pumps, or a
foot-rope, or in the f'oc's'l'e?"

Are we to be 'performers' or 'custodians?' Are we to be show-people,
or 'curators?' This is where I find a few of my peers bloody
tiresome. Efforts to bring 'art' or 'swing' or heaven help us,
back-beats to the music to make it more 'palatable.' And I include
myself in some of that. 'Kick it up a notch' and stick some garlic
in the salmon, like musical TV chefs. Feh! Sing the damn song, and
sing it well, as intended. And for gods sake make it more about
the choruses than the bloody verses. It's a 200-to-one odds, mates.

And I'm not much of a chauvinist, but I'll tell you that my all-time
favorite chantey-woman (and number two, and three, and no I ain't
saying who but those who know me well can figger it out) feel no need
to swing their lovely 'booties' even to Bahamian rhythms. Funny,
that, the ones with the best ones keep 'em still.

What I'm saying, in my offensive way, is for Stan's sake, let us
get somewhat less ego-involved and take seriously the preservation
of these cultural artifacts. Stop trying to 'jazz them up' and one-up
the rest of the world in order to get booked into the ultimate
festival in some far-flung museum.

So that when those among us who survive are up on stage warbling
out a gen-u-ine version of 'Andrew Rose' in a quavering and blown
voice, 250 people will back us on the chorus because we've bloody
well EARNED it.

Then we can go hijack a beer and take a piss on the topsides of
a distinguished vessel and everyone will find it amusing.