The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #58526   Message #929127
Posted By: Celtaddict
08-Apr-03 - 08:52 PM
Thread Name: Watered Down Shanties
Subject: RE: Waterd Down Shanties
At last summer's Mystic Sea Music Festival, a group of older men from the Barrouallie village whalers sang, and had to all appearances a great time. Mixed crowd or not, they sang one of which the refrain was "time for man go cover his wife" and another in which time and time again, most of the group sang "save my money for the girls on shore" but almost every single refrain, the older man directly in front of me sang, "save my money fo' de ho's on shore" until near the end, building to the finale, when he did sing "girls" -- and the rest of the group sang the version they were obviously used to! There is no doubt in my mind that the tradition of men singing bawdier versions among themselves at work, and tidying up here and there onstage or in mixed company, is alive and well.
About tapes: performers at Mystic Sea Music Festival have in their contracts that they permit recording of their performances including workshops for the Archives of the museum, and that material from the archives cannot be released for sale without their permission. I am going to see what I can do here. Of course officially individual recording is not permitted. Of course there are always individual recorders there, often out on the table/bench/grass in front of the singers. These naturally must not be sold and are for personal use only. So drop me a PM.