The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #119776   Message #2645010
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
31-May-09 - 02:33 PM
Thread Name: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
Whall (6th ed) put seven little known chanteys under the heading "Shakings," all without titles.
The one Hugill called "Ooker John" appears with no comment, solo and chorus with music.

The music is not the same at that given in Hugill for "Hooker John." I could email the music if you pm me.

The solo, O my Mary, she's a blooming lass, is on a descending line, the last three syllables all D, just below the staff.
The short chorus is rather similar, but the full chorus again differs.

Whall does not mention it in his short discussion of black songs.
A comment of interest is that in their singing "appeared many falsetto appoggiaturas, and a sharp rise to a "grace" note a fifth up (a sort of yelp); I can think of no other word to express it.."
He gives examples, and says the "yelp" was paticularly noticeable in the leadman's song.."
"Both these musical tricks were freely used by untutored English ballad-singers of folk-songs and such, and are not solely negro. A similar trick was the long "ah" at the end of a verse, which is as old as Shapespeare. Thus an old-fashioned seaman in singing "The Female Smuggler" would sing-
"By the rolling sea lived a maiden fair-ah," a sort of final groan."
He discusses other "queer tricks" such as inserting a "d" in many words.
He also says that "white seamen in smart ships seldom condescended to sing "Nigger" songs. Perhaps the only one which gained anything like general acceptance was "Let the Bulgine Run," one of the poorest of all." [This seems to have its origin in a minstrel song, as both Whall and Hugill note].