Greg Stephens wrote on 8 Apr 03:-

"... Edric Connor(I speak from memory, I may be wrong), the Trinidadian singer. sang Hill and Gully Rider in "Moby Dick", while rowing in a whale-boat (or possibly while pulling on one of those rope things that figure so heavily in films of that nature)."

Take a bow that man!

Melville, as Lighter correctly noted, never mentioned "hill and gully" in Moby Dick, nor is it in the least a nautical phrase.

The story of how Edric Connor, in the role of Daggoo, introduced the song into the film of Moby Dick is quoted from an interview with his widow Pearl Connor Mogotsi in the book Black in the British Frame by Stephen Bourne:-

'Hill and Gully Rider' is about the undulating land in Jamaica, but it was the undulating sea of Moby Dick, the ocean where they were looking for the whale, where Edric introduced the song. And it is a lyrical, lilting song, a beautiful thing that the director John Huston loved straight away. And Edric was always trying to do that, introduce Caribbean music into the films he worked on, and letting people know about our songs. So Huston allowed him to have an input, which was very good for Edric, and good for the film, also, I should think.

Matthew Edwards