The Advent and Development of Chanties

Subject: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 12:33 PM

Recently there has been some good discussion and research on the emergence of chantey (shanty) forms in the 19th century. Much of it has been going on in this thread:

From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?

Because that thread has other specific goals and because it is just getting too large due to the related but more general, theoretical discussion of chantey origins, I am initiating this one.

By focusing on some of the aspects of chanties that have not been considered much before, and by digging deep into the now-more-than-ever available references, we are getting a more detailed picture of how chantying may have emerged.

Please note that the focus here is not on the ancient origins of work-songs, shipboard or otherwise. It is not on the origins or earliest references to singing/chanting to coordinate labour at sea.

Rather, it works from a hypothesis that at some point in the first half of the 19th century, a distinguishably new paradigm for maritime work-songs appeared or was developed. This paradigm corresponded most closely to what was to be known by a new term, "chanty." Factors such as the demographics of workers on ships and in port cities, labour flow (especially with regards to geography, like rivers, plantations), and the advent of new kinds of labour or new needs in style of conducting pre-existing labour (e.g. the need to run large packet ships with square sails, quickly, but with small crews) all look to have played a role in the advent of a new-ish method of work-singing. The idea is that, though singing at work aboard ship existed prior, at this time a huge new body of repertoire, of a particular form, was introduced/developed. Moreover, while it was introduced over a certain period of time, and then developed for another, within the span of a few decades it also stabilized. After that "generative period," the notion of chanties had perhaps become very broad and mixed, and few new songs were developed of the same form. The earlier-developed chanties were perpetuated, while new songs adopted/adapted for sea labour tended to be of a different form. The latter were "chanties," to be sure, but according to an expanded concept.

I hope it is obvious that the preceding are only my views (while nonetheless piggybacking on others'). People who have been and who would like to discuss this will definitely have others; perhaps they will refute the hypothesis altogether. However, it was necessary for me to lay out some working model to begin this thread and give a sense of the focus.

One of the methodologies has been to take stock of and analyse the known references to various instances of chanties and chantying. With this detail, I feel confident that a picture will emerge that shows the changes decade by decade.

Most likely, we will have to add links to or copy-paste from some of the other postings, to this thread, in order to get discussion rolling, but I just wanted to get it started. Plus, my slow Internet/browser at work doesn't like loading up that ginormous other thread -- which is particularly inconvenient when I am trying to skylark from my paid duties for a quick peek.

Happy discussing! And please: spell "schantee" any way you like! (Sometimes I try to use all the different spellings in one post.)

Gibb

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 01:35 PM

Thanks, Gibb. This gives me the chance to blather on.

The real mystery of the rise of shantying is probably the invention of the halliard shanty. Any song could be sung at the capstan, and the short-haul and bunt shanties could easily have developed from a single chanted line followed by a single syllable indicating the pull. Such "songs" would not have been noted by writers because they were just one trivial line repeated no more than once or twice.

As for the halliard shanty, here's my theory:

A sailing vessel large enough to require a crew of at least a dozen or so men is preparing to leave port in the year 1820 or so. One group is heaving anchor at the capstan, singing some song or another that has a chorus. The paractice of singing at the capstan is not universal but is not considered odd or peculiar either.

While one team heaves the anchor, another team is pulling on halliard to raise sail. It is usual for there to be a leader in such a group who calls out something trivial, like "One! Two! Three! Haul!", the sort of cry that no writer would consider to be of the slightest interest.

At some point, the leader of the halliard gang gets tired of "One! Two! Three! Four!" and starts to call out something arbitrary but amusing because it isn't just counting, something like, "Sally Brown, O Sally Brown O!" and everybody hauls at the end.

Because the capstan gang is singing, the leader at the halliards decides at some point to sing too. He sings something like "Sally Brown, O Sally Brown O!" to a simple rising and falling tune, almost the simplest possible. At some point, maybe that day, maybe the next time a yard or sail had to be handled, during a pause for breath between hauls, somebody else decides to chime in with a line like "Way-ay-ay-ay!" Eventually the leader develops his tune a little further and eventually a second refrain gets added.

Just why that should have happened is not clear, but if it hadn't, maybe the halliard shanty would still be thought of as a mere "chant." The four-line structure could have encouraged the development and importation of more or less stable verses as the "chant" became a real "song."

By the end of the voyage, at least one shanty has been composed. The chants of cotton-screwers may have inspired the first shanty or not: they certainly contributed to the practice.

This could easily have happened more than once in a period when more than one gang had to work at once so as to get a big clipper underway. That polygenesis would help explain the rather sudden rise of shantying and the rapid rate at which individual shanties seem to have appeared. An important contributing factor was the singing that was already semi-customary at the capstan. Thus the first halliard shanty developed in the spirit of a singing contest.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 01:56 PM

I guess many sailors came from a community in which singing was much more common than today. Most people leading or driving some kind of work on board would have access to a store of songs and tunes on which to draw?

L in C

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 11:23 PM

Ooh, this is fun! -- So, we start off, not with the nitty-gritty evidence, but with some sketches of how we might imagine it all happening. I am in total agreement with Lighter's opening statement,

The real mystery of the rise of shantying is probably the invention of the halliard shanty. Any song could be sung at the capstan, and the short-haul and bunt shanties could easily have developed from a single chanted line followed by a single syllable indicating the pull. Such "songs" would not have been noted by writers because they were just one trivial line repeated no more than once or twice.

and with some of what immediately follows. However, here is my imagined scenario of the rest.

First, I'd push it forward into at least the 1830s. There may be evidence I al overlooking that says it would have had to have been earlier. However, I want to argue that that may have been reflecting some of the earlier work-singing ("cheerly man" era, during which, yes, maybe a "Sally Brown" chant had also come into use). In my scenario, it was an *adoption* of chanties, followed of course by further development -- as opposed to an initial development. I don't think the halyard chantey was invented so much as revolutionized by a new method.

In my scene, I envision a small crew in the 1830s, one with a Black watch.   This was a high point for African-Americans in the merchant service; after the Civil War, their numbers had greatly declined. When confronted with the halyard hoisting, the hands found it only natural to raise a song. On shore, these men would never have done labour without a song, which was as much an inseparable tool of work as anything else. In light of the constant labour experience through slavery, work had developed in a way where pacing and coordinated exertion were particularly important. Men were familiar with the technique of working in gangs, as in the cotton-screwing gangs, and they knew with their familiar method they could make short work of this task.

One man, perhaps an ex-cotton hoosier "chantyman," called out, "Stowmy's gawn, that good ol' man...!" To which the others instinctively responded, "WAY storma-LONG john!," giving two coordinated pulls, steadily. The chantyman called "Oh Stowmy's gawrn, that good ol' man!" And again they pulled, "WAY hey mister STORMalong, john."

It quickly came apparent that this was a superior method for raising halyards, and the many previously created songs that fit this style of work -- whether from rowing, cotton-screwing, or loading up steamboat furnaces -- were called into play.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 12:42 AM

In addition to these sort of hypothetical mock-ups -- that we can test as the evidence is presented-- I have an idea how to move forward. I propose we trace the trajectory of chanties by presenting information from each decade. We could start with the 1810s (although there will be very little). Confining ourselves to that decade, we cite references to chantying generally, specific songs, etc., perhaps along with relevant details of geography, demographics, and technology of merchant sailing.

To start off the 1810s:

LANDSMAN HAY, though not published until 1953 (?), consists of the memoirs of one Robert Hay, 1789-1847. In them, Hay is supposed to have reported seeing/hearing stevedores in Jamaica in 1811. To me the reference (which I've not seen first-hand) is vague, but it seems like they are using a capstan to work cargo. Hay notes their in chanty-like song "Grog time of day," which turns out to have been a popular song associated with the Caribbean region through the early 19th century.   

Grog time of day, boys
Grog time of day,
CH: Huro, my jolly boys,
       Grog time of day

[I don't know if the chorus marking is in the original. I've taken this from Hugill. In other references to this song, this whole bit makes up the chorus]

It's possible that such a form was at that time distinct (or fairly distinct) to either the specific region or the specific ethnic group (Afro-Caribbeans). I say this because the way in which it is described, it is as if only "others" (with respect to the author) were engaged in the practice.

For some framing context, the packet ship trade began after the War of 1812 (I don't have specific dates), with the Blackball Line for example starting in 1816. The packet ships are thought (e.g. Hugill) to have necessitated a different way of handling work with smaller crews.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 11:01 AM

Excellent work, lads!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: doc.tom
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 12:06 PM

Just to help set the context, may I quote from the Short, Sharp Shanties presentation that BB & I have been doing - quoting greater authorities than us!

"Hugill tells us that: 'the cessation of the American War of 1812 and of the Napoleonic Wars brought about a great impetus in merchant shipping. The early packet ships, not clippers by any means, began to come to London. They carried, in the main, emigrants to the New World'."

"The wooden walls of the Napoleonic period were now obsolete. America built faster, new design ships, and peace led to an economic boom as trade expanded world-wide. And with it the great period of the development of shantying had begun".

"According to Kinsey, the most creative period of shanty-singing was between 1820 and 1850. Doeflinger agrees, saying that: 'Most seem to have originated between about 1820 and 1860. They were the product of a revival in shantying in the peaceful decades between the war of 1812 and the Civil War which saw the swift rise of the United States to leadership in the deep-water shipping trade.'"

"But the British soon caught up, building ships with hardwoods rather than softwoods. Ships that would outlive the Yankee packets by decades! The glorious years of shantying were actually very short-lived. Cicely Fox-Smith points out that: - 'Shantying was at its best roughly between 1850 and 1875.' Hugill that: - 'It can safely be said that from 1860 onwards the production of new shanties ceased completely', and Whall says: 'Since 1872 I have not heard a Shanty or Song worth the name.'

The other Shanty Short heard in Québec was Cheer'ly Man. He told Cecil Sharp it was – "One of the first shanties ever invented - and the one I learned first." Hugill does not disagree, saying: 'Cheer'ly Man is only just faintly removed from singin'- out and is probably the most primitive, and one of the oldest shanties'."

Great thread - let's carry on!

TomB

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 01:03 PM

Thanks for that important context, TomB.

I have been finding that the statements of Hugill and Doerflinger about a "creative period" (or what I called "generative period" etc) are supported by the evidence. So I am hoping to take that as a starting point, and see how it is born out as we look at the evidence again and find more. In addition, I'd like to break down that "creative period" into chunks to really see the trajectory.

If anyone can speak specifically to the mechanics of sailing at specific moments, that contribution would be most welcome. I myself am unclear whether the shift in sailing methods -- specifically with respect to raising yards -- was a matter of new vessels or of new conditions aboard those vessels. In other words, did the packet ships in and of themselves (in their design) require/inspire a different approach to raising yards (e.g. due to size)? Or was it the conditions aboard them: smaller crews and the need for speed? And, in which years precisely did this kind of shift begin? I realize that generally it is after the War of 1812, and that 1815 is often a date used to mark the beginning of this new "Golden Age." However, specifics would be helpful. I think it is quite probable that when Robert Hay heard the Jamaican stevedores sing "Grog time of day," there was not yet any precedent aboard ship with which to compare it.

To add to the 1810s:

I forgot to note the other Jamaican stevedore song from 1811, in HAY:

Two sisters courted one man,
CH: Oh, huro, my boys
And they live in the mountains,
CH: Oh, huro boys O.

Next,

In SERVICE AFLOAT (published 1833), a British sailor describes observations from during his service during the Napoleanic Wars. So, 1815 or earlier (probably not much earlier). In Antigua, he observed a song for rowing. It was another version of "Grog time of Day," showing that that song was spread through the West Indies. His transcription gives a better idea of the complete form of this work song:

Massa lock de door, and take away de key
Hurra, my jolly boys, grog time a day
CH: Grog time a day, my boys, grog time a day,
       Hurra, my jolly boys, grog time a day

To give a sense of how that form MAY have worked, I've created this example (no melody was given, but I set it to the matching tune of "Doodle Let Me Go":

Grog Time of Day

And in the Virgin Islands, the same author observed another boatmen's song:

Jenny go to market for buy me yarrow prantin,
Heigh me know, bombye me takey.
      Chorus—Heigh me know &c.
               Heigh me know &c.

Me nebur know before Jenny bin a bad gal,
Heigh me know, bombye me takey.
    Chorus—Heigh me know, &c.
             Heigh me know &c.

Remarking on the practice of New World Blacks, the author has this commentary. Note that he describes the basic call and response format of a chantey, though he does not compare it to anything in his own tradition.

Some of their airs are exceedingly plaintive, and the manner of singing in chorus evinces no small degree of natural taste : rowing in boats or other kind of labour, when a simultaneous effort is required, they have generally a song formed of extempore verses, the improvisatore being the stroke oar, the driver, or one supereminent among the rest for the talent. He in a minor key gives out a line or two in allusion to any passing event, all the rest taking up the burthen of the song, as a chorus, in a tenor, and this produces a very pleasing effect.

Note also the emphasis on improvisation. This is important to note re: the aesthetic of this music as well as something to remember when looking for references.

It would be great to find more references to work-songs (maritime, or, of similar form) in the 1810s. With the slim evidence so far, my contention would be that work-songs of this type had not yet found their way aboard ships in the early 1810s. It doesn't say much, but is notable nonetheless, that the British Naval officer does not compare the songs to practice on his ships even by the time of publication, 1833.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: mikesamwild
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 01:23 PM

When I worked in Sierra Leone in the 1960s I lived by a beach near Freetown and when the village was hauling in nets which stretched right across the bay they sang call and response'shanties'.I wish I'd had a portable tape recorder


In the 1950s I heard some railway workers near sheffield shifting steel rails and they were singing a work song . I wonder if any railway shanties got to sea?

I've lawaysthought a lot of shantioe shave tunes reminiscent of Irish Polkas from the Cork area e.g. Yellow Girls


Could it have been a fusion of cultures?

All I've seen about 'shanties' from earlier English times were songs like Cheerly Men and Off She Goes

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 05:21 PM

Hi,
Excellent thread. Keep it going. As soon as I get some time I'll look out my early articles on the history of shantying. You might already have them but I'll offer them anyway. I know I have a series printed in 'Mariners Mirror' somewhere, and some articles in Sea Breezes. They may or may not be useful. I often come across snippets in Victorian nautical novels, such as those by W H G Kingston. In Hull, Yorkshire where I am I've spent a lot of time in local history records
and the Maritime Museum, though have not come across any shanties or references, some bits and pieces of ballads though and things to do with whaling customs.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 08:33 PM

Bullies, I will go out on a limb to say that no earlier commentator, including the great Hugill, Whall, Colcord, and Doerflinger, knew anything significant about shantying before the 1830s (its rise or anything else) that we have not already covered on the "SF to Sydney 1853" thread.

Even Whall and Robinson were far too young to have observed the early years of shantying-as-we-know-it. The same goes for Sharp's and Carpenter's singers. Dana might have learned something useful at second hand if he'd thought to ask.

Everything they say about it is hypothetical. (Which is not to say it is necessarily wrong.) When Doerflinger writes of a "revival of shanty-singing" after the War of 1812, he's making the unwarranted assumption that shanties (songs, not singouts, made specifically for shipboard work) were well-known before the war - a statement for which we have no evidence at all. I believe these authorities were placing too much significance on the scattered references to sailors chanting or singing in ancient and medieval times.

Patterson (who gives some unique and therefore questionable info)claimed that "Whisky, Johnny" was originally sung in Elizabethan times as "Malmsey, Johnny." He gave no evidence, and there doesn't seem to be any.

Hugill showed that while the "anatomical ptogression" of the bawdy "A-Roving" did appear as a song in Heywood's "Rape of Lucrece," Heywood's song wasn't presented as a sea song and there's no reason to assume that it was. The song itself is not identical to "A-Roving."

Gibb, my placement of the dawn of the shanty around 1820 may well be a few years too early, but shanties seem to have been frequent enough on the brig Pilgrim in 1834. With no media coverage, telephones, or downloads, it must have taken at least a few years for the practice to become a custom. My guess is that that happened during the mid to late 1820s, but admittedly that's just a guess based on insufficient evidence.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 08:59 PM

Great to have a lot of voices here.

A couple things I encourage here:

1) Though I am very often guilty of "vagueing up" my statements, particularly when I'm unsure... let's to to specify time period when we talk about things, when possible. A couple decades in either direction could make a huge difference (e.g., a couple decades ago, I wasn't using the Internet). I personally I looking for "Ground Zero" of what I think was a "new" phenomenon --post-Cheerly Man. Perhaps it was not, but still I've got to "zoom in" to see.

2) Let's use previous writers' thoughts as springboards or reference points, but not accept their assumptions. Let the evidence speak fresh.

mikesamwild--
By "Yellow Girls" do you mean the shanty AKA "Doodle Let Me Go"? That may be something to pursue.

And I am sure it was a fusion, but then again, what is not? The tunes may very well be of Irish derivation. The challenge will be distinguishing what precedents are most relevant to the historical context. The melodic influences on, say Jamaican stevedores, may have included Irish polkas, since what is "Jamaican culture" --or any culture-- but a fusion of past influences?   This influences become relevant when they suggest something of significance at that historical moment.

In my working sketch, the most important aspect of it all at this "moment" was a paradigm for singing while working. The non-Black commenters have remarked on Black work-singing as if it were a practice distinct from their own. My contention is that there was something culturally remarkable about African-American work-song practice. One aspect, for example, was the feature whereby a gang of workers might have an individual who *only* sings (and gets paid for it!). Another aspect is the specific *form* of these songs.

So I've an open bias towards looking to African-American work-singing for some answers, at this point. This does not mean I think "chanteys are African"; on the contrary, I think they are fusion. However, my hypothesis is that the "new phenomenon" of "chanties" was based in what at the time was a work-song practice of the African-American community.

Looking for antecedents --in a different world than The Complaynt of Scotland -- we have for example the account (published 1800) of Scotsman Mungo Park, who visited the area of Africa that is now Mali in the 1790s. He observed of the people there that, "They lightened their labour by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I myself was the subject of it."

That was in Africa. Here's an observation from the New World a decade later, on the island of Martinique, in BELL'S COURT AND FASHIONABLE MAGAZINE, May 1806:

"The negroes have a different air and words for every kind of labour; sometimes they sing, and their motions, even while cultivating the ground, keep time to the music."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 09:14 PM

Lighter,

Our posts crossed a bit.

my placement of the dawn of the shanty around 1820 may well be a few years too early, but shanties seem to have been frequent enough on the brig Pilgrim in 1834.

I follow. My present belief is that the worksongs on the Pilgrim may not have been of the "new" (later to be called "chanties") type. So for that reason, that date is not as significant to me just yet; I am leaning towards the 1830s cotton-stowing observations as indications that things had not come together yet ship-board. But that is also why I think it may be fruitful to review and search the hell out of the 1810s-20s-30s!

If we've not any more 1810s stuff for now, we can move onto the more plentiful 1820s.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 09:12 AM

Here is another reference to add to the possible context from which these chanty forms emerged.

It is John Lambert's TRAVELS THROUGH CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES...VOL. III, published in 1810.

The event referred to, I believe, happened in 1806. The narrator is going by boat down the Savannah River.

We started from Purrysburgh about two o'clock and were rowed by four negroes, for canoes are not paddled here as in Canada. They seemed to be jolly fellows, and rowed lustily to a boat song of their own composing. The words were given out by one of them, and the rest joined chorus at the end of every line. It began in the following manner:

Chorus.

" We are going down to Georgia, boys,
CH: Aye, aye,

To see the pretty girls, boys ;
CH: Yoe, yoe.

We'll give 'em a pint of brandy, boys,
CH: Aye, aye.

And a hearty kiss besides, boys.
CH:Yoe, yoe.            
&c. &c.

The tune of this ditty was rather monotonous, but had a pleasing effect, as they kept time with it, at every stroke of their oars. The words were mere nonsense ; any thing, in fact, which came into their heads. I however remarked, that brandy was very frequently mentioned, and it was understood as a hint to the passengers to give them a dram.

Note again the incidental nature of the text. It is impossible to identify this as the progenitor to any one specific chantey, however the basic form is that of a chantey and the ad-libbed nature is also in keeping with the tradition. Again, no analogy is made to other work-song practices in the author's own tradition or aboard sailing vessels.

More boat/rowing references to come, as that seems to be where these sorts of songs were used at this point in time.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 09:34 AM

A great discovery. In form it looks indistinguishable from a halliard shanty. Such rowing songs almost certainly influenced shanty development. The transference of such songs to halliard work as needed may have been inevitable and must have happened independently a number of times.

Interesting that these early travelers found the rowing songs notable despite the unanimous comments that they were unmelodious, with improvisational and trivial lyrics.

It certainly does support the idea that call-and-response rowing songs were not native to Britain and were presumably an African holdover.

One can move plausibly from African call-and-reponse work songs to New World call-and-response rowing songs to cotton-screwers' chants to halliard shanties.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 11:20 AM

See the end of my last post to the "SF to Sydney" thread.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Morris-ey
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 11:41 AM

Call-and-response goes back to ancient Greek theatre: it is, as a form, very old.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 09:03 PM

More descriptions from the decades before I allege the "new chanties" came in.

The first reference is not very insightful re: chanties, however, such early references to African-Americans singing during work are hard to locate, so I give it FWIW. It comes from "Abridgment of the Minutes of the Evidence Taken Before a Committee of the Whole House," including depositions from 1789. In one passage, the following bits of info are given with respect to African slaves working sugar cane fields in Grenada.

The cutting of canes is not very hard, tying them easy; the feeding the mills and sires are the most laborious. The rest of the work is very easy. On the whole, thinks the negroes are most healthy in, and like the crop best. Never knew them complain of work then. The mill- gang commonly sing all night. Certainly labour in crop is the hardest, as 1/2 their time, out of crop, is weeding. Holing is the most severe work out of crop.
...They often give holers weak grog twice a-day. Holing does not occasion sickness. Negroes seem fox'd of it, and commonly sing at at.

Of course, the assumption that the slaves were having fun --more so because they were singing-- was probably misguided. (Many years later, Frederick Douglas attempted to correct this assumption, arguing that the singing was not to express joy but rather to overcome sorrow.)

Next reference is to another rowing song reference. It is interesting for what seems to have been a transitional part-English/part-African dialect singing, and for the spread of this practice throughout the African Diaspora.

NOTES ON THE WEST INDIES... VOL. 3, by George Pinckard, pub. 1806.

The author's observations appear to be from the English West Indies Expedition of the 1790s.   He is traveling by boat down the Demerara River towards Georgetown (then known as Stabroek). Black slaves are manning the oars. Here is the passage, pg. 322:

Observing that they rowed with languor, and that we made but little progress, the cockswain was desired to exchange the helm for an oar, and to enliven his comrades with a song, encouraging them to join in chorus, and to pull together in musical time. This operated with magic effect. Every slave was inspired, and forgetting all sense of fatigue, they again pulled with unwearied vigour. We were not more pleased with the result of the expedient, than amused by ihe ready ingenuity with which our wizard cockswain composed his appropriate song, and gave it all the effect of enchantment. Resigning the helm to the weakest slave, he placed himself amidst the crew in the centre of the boat, and pulling his oar stronger than the others, he invented extempore lines for a favorite African tune, finishing each stanza with "gnyaam gnyaam row" "gnyaam gynaam row" in which all were to join by way of chorus; and we found that " gnyaam gnyaam row," never failed to give additional force to the oar—and consequent head-way to the boat.

The names of the slaves, their wives, their food, drink, and all their pleasures were introduced in song, and tuned to the pulling of the oar : likewise the names of each of the party whom they were rowing, their professions, qualities, and occupations, and their several intentions towards the crew, all made a part of this inspiring air, which, however ridiculous in the words and music—in its effect succeeded even to a wonder. The pulling of the oar, the directing of the helm, even the position of the slaves in the boat, and the compensation each might expect as the reward of his exertions were all adroitly included, and "gnyaam gnyaam row" accompanied each stretch of the oar in chorus. Led on by these persuasive themes, each seemed to emulate the exertions of the all-animating cockswain, and, throwing off the heavy marks of fatigue, they conducted us merrily and speedily to "Garden-Eden."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 09:22 PM

A NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO SURINAM.., by Albert Sack, pub. 1810. Translated from German notes.

The place is Surinam, 1805.

We continued our journey very easily. The tides in these rivers
flow, five hours and a half, and ebb six hours and a half. The
spring tides are twice a month, at the new and full moon; the
tide runs at the rate of about seven miles an hour, and as we only
pursued our course by it, our boatmen in these short stages were
not in the least fatigued: they are eight stout negroes, who sing in
chorus all the way.

In the following decades, more rowing references will come.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 09:51 PM

In tracing the advent of the "chanties," it is important to distinguish the songs used for halyards from those used for capstan. For as a chantey designed for halyards, with modifications, might work for capstan, it rarely goes the other way. The forms are different. Halyards required quite a strict form; most of those chanties are of uniform...er, form. Capstan work could use material from many sources. This is what makes halyard chanties distinctive and potential revealing with respect to their origins. The form of the rowing songs appears to lend itself better to halyards this was the song format that appeared relatively new to the scene, from the perspective of the Euro-American commenters.

Capstan songs, on the other hand, had been around longer, though I cannot say specifically what their form may have been like from one period to the next.

I suggest we maintain a distinction between the songs for capstan and the ones potentially used for halyards, lest we muddle the stream of development of these different kinds of work-songs.

Here is a reference to singing at the WINDLASS from the beginning of the 19th century.
It is found in an edited volume of a poem THE SHIPWRECK by a sailor, William Falconer. This edited edition is from 1806; seems the first edition was probably 1803. It is a footnote reference to the old spoke windlass, in which one must continually remove and replace one's handspike.

As the Windlass is heaved about in a vertical direction, it is evident that the effort of an equal number of men acting upon it will be much more powerful than on the Capstan. It requires, however, some dexterity and address to manage the Handspec, or Lever, to the greatest advantage; and to perform this the Sailors must all rise at once upon the Windlass, and, fixing their bars therein, give a sudden jerk at the same instant; in which movement they are regulated by a sort of Song pronounced by one of the number. The most dexterous managers of the Handspec in heaving at the Windlass, are generally supposed to be the Colliers of Northumberland; and of all European Mariners, the Dutch are certainly the most awkward, and sluggish, in this manoeuvre.

[Was the action anything like cotton-screwing?]

For an illustration of this kind of windlass (not sure just how realistic?) see here, at 2:40:
old fashioned windlass

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 10:15 PM

That is it for my 1810s and earlier references, for now. I am moving on to the 1820s. Please join in! I imagine many of these will be pilfered from the Sf-Sydney thread, including one that Lighter mentions a few posts up.

The first rowing reference comes from TRAVELS IN NORTH AMERICAN IN THE YEARS 1827 AND 1828, by Basil Hall. It's March 1828, and the author has headed into the interior of Georgia from the sea islands area.

On reaching Darien, a neat little village on the left bank of the gigantic Alatamaha, one of the largest rivers in America, but the name of which I had never even heard of before, we were met by a gentleman we had formerly known, and at whose invitation we were now visiting this part of the country. Under his escort we proceeded down the current in a canoe some thirty feet long, hollowed out of a cypress tree. The oars were pulled by five smart negroes, merry fellows, and very happy looking, as indeed are most of their race, in spite of all their bondage. They accompanied their labour by a wild sort of song, not very unlike that of the Canadian voyageurs, but still more nearly resembling that of the well-known Bunder-boatmen at Bombay.

Interesting comparisons: "Canadian voyageurs" and "Bunder-boatmen at Bombay."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 10:23 PM

This is great stuff, Gibb! I like the approach and am rowing fast to catch up. I'm afraid I wasn't paying attention and you got launched without me realizing it. Thanks for doing this and for keeping this very important discussion alive and well.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: doc.tom
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 05:28 AM

Just chuck this in to test others' opinions - it derives from analysis of dear old John Short's repertoire (which he aquired between 1855 and 1875): The capstan/windlass stuff seems to tend (yes, deliberately imprecise) to utilise shore-song narratives (often Anglo-Irish except where they derive from contemporary American popular song) whereas the shorthaul stuff seems to use much more discontinuous texts deriving from hoosier/river sources (the latter also being the opinion of Short himself given to Sharp).

We're also currntly having fun with the fact that A Hundred years Ago and Tommy's Gone Away effectivly use the same tune. And have you noticed that Santy Anna, Whip Jamboree and the Irish tune King of the Fairies (A-phrase) all share a majority of melodic phrases too!

TomB

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: mikesamwild
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 06:17 AM

The song I mentioned, Yellow Girls is the Doodle let me go one.

'It's of a Captain's daughter belonged to Callao etc'

I have been struck by the similarity of some shanty tunes to Irish polkas which came in during the mid 19th century boom of Quadrilles across society worldwide. London, Bristo, Liverpool and Cork could be jumping off points


Dan Worrall has just produced a good book (2 vols)on the Anglo Concertina which explores playing in various comunities amongst which is the work on black African players who use songs as an essential part of all aspects of life.


He has done a lot of work , based in Texas.using digital archives . The section on the concertina at sea is excellent ( no evidence of concertina accompaniment to shanties but used in 'forebitters')

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 09:16 AM

Next reference from the 1820s. I am suspending my judgement as to how "Cheerly Man" fits into all this! Where did it fall along the hypothetical "transition"? It was used for halyards, and had the "extempore" quality, yet its form was not like later halyard chanties. Had it really been around a VERY long time, or was it perhaps among the earliest of the newer songs? Are there any earlier references (i.e. that I'm overlooking) for "Cheerly Man"?

The text is JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO QUEBEC IN THE YEAR 1825, by P. Finan.

The narrator is leaving Quebec in a brig in July 1825.

A ship getting under weigh displays a lively, active scene. "Man the windlass !" was the first order of the mate: the windlass was quickly manned, and the seamen commenced weighing the anchor—and, as the great chain cable clanked along the deck, and the sailor sent forth his long and slow-toned "yeo— heave — oh!" the sounds reached the ear with more important meaning than merely that the anchor was raising from the bottom.

...

"Man your topsail sheets, and overhaul your clue-lines and buntlines!" cried the mate; the seamen sprang to their places with the greatest alacrity, and the command was soon executed. The topsail haliards, or rope by which the topsail is hoisted, was next ordered to be manned, and the hoisting was accompanied by a lively song, the words of which, being the extemporary composition of the seaman who led, afforded me a good deal of amusement.— One.man sung, and the rest joined lustily in the chorus. The following is a specimen:—

Oh rouse him up, .
Chorus—Oh, yeo, cheerly ;
Newry girls,
Oh, yeo, cheerly;
Now for Warrenpoint,
Oh, yeo, cheerly;
Rouse him up cheerly,
Oh, yeo, cheerly;
Oh.mast-head him,
Oh, yeo, cheerly;
Oh, with a will,
Oh, yeo, cheerly;
Cheerly men,
Oh, oh, yeo,
Oh, yeo, cheerly ;
Oh, yeo, cheerly.

I'm not sure if I have parsed the verse/chorus structure as intended. See the original on pg. 329, HERE

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 12:32 PM

Another early rowing reference that I think is really important --perhaps the earliest setting so far-- is one I've discovered in this article:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/895685

(I don't have access to read it all. If someone else does, perhaps they'd like to scan it for other gems.)

It refers to observations by W.J. Grayson (born 1788) of South Carolina, who "from his boyhood" --1790s or 1800s-- remembers African-American oarsmen that would bring people to Charleston. He describes their call and response canoe-rowing songs as "partly traditionary, partly improvised" and goes on to relate their incidental themes, as have the other authors.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 02:58 PM

The most significant "gem" follows. I'm taking it directly from its original appearance in James Kennard, Jr.'s article, "Who Are Our National Poets?" (Knickerbocker, Oct. 1845, p. 338):

"One day during the early part of the Indian war in Florida [i.e., 1835] we stepped into a friend's boat at Jacksonville, and with a dozen stout negro rowers, pushed off, bound up the St. Johns with a load of muskets, to be distributed among the distressed inhabitants, who were every where flying from the frontier before the victorious Seminoles. As we shot ahead, over the lake-like expanse of the noble river, the negroes struck up a song to which they kept time with their oars; and our speed increased as they went on, and become [sic] warmed with their singing. The words were rude enough, the music better, and both were well-adapted to the scene. A line was sung by a leader, then all joined in a short chorus; then came another solo line, and another short chorus, followed by a longer chorus, during the singing of which the boat foamed through the water with redoubled velocity. There seemed to be a certain number of lines ready-manufactured, but after this stock was exhausted, lines relating to surrounding objects were extemporized. Some of these were full of rude wit, and a lucky hit always drew a thundering chorus from the rowers, and an encouraging laugh from the occupants of the stern seats. Sometimes several minutes elapsed in silence; then one of the negroes burst out with a line or two which he had been excogitating. Little regard was paid to rhyme, and hardly any to the number of syllables in a line: they condensed four or live into one foot, or stretched out one to occupy the space that should have been filled with four or five; yet they never spoiled the tune. This elasticity of form is peculiar to the negro song."

In other words, a halliard shanty without the halliards. Such rowing songs must have been just as important to shanty development as were the cotton-screwing chants.

I'll revise my theory of shanty creation. Regardless of how later shanties were "composed," the first "halliard shanty" may have been nothing more than a rowing song sung in a new context. And maybe "Cheerly Man!" was that song!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 04:03 PM

Okay, I've managed to get time to start looking at some of my references. One interesting and tantalising reference I have comes from the Times Aug 15th 2008. It refers to a sailor's journal up for auction, George Hodge, and covers the period 1790 to 1833. Apparently he was in the RN from 1790 to 1815 then joined the MN. Quote 'It includes everything from the lyrics of sea shanties to a picture of the first ship on which he served.' The auction was at Northeast Auctions in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and the whole collection of his memorabilia was estimated to fetch about $50,000. I didn't manage to find out anything further, but Googling might bring up something. It would be great if the journal had been published???? or was on its way to being published.
Anybody else spot this one or know what happened to the journal?

I must add that journalists and those with a passing interest often mistake sea songs for shanties, so it may be a red herring. Even if it is it would be interesting to see what the sea songs were.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 04:43 PM

Here is a link to Dena Epstein's book. Only parts of it are on line, but if you scroll down to Chapter 9, you will find that it is on "Worksongs" and has many of the quotes and references that we have been working with so far.

http://books.google.com/books?id=WUHaLYzhiSoC&pg=PA68&dq=Worksongs&cd=5#v=onepage&q=Worksongs&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 04:59 PM

With regard to Steve's note on "George Hodge", I came across this on Google Books. However, the very page referred to is "not available". Perhaps someone has this book and can take a look.


ENTER THE PRESS-GANG: NAVAL IMPRESSMENT IN EIGHTEENTH -CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE‎ - Page 140
Daniel James Ennis - Literary Criticism - 2002 - 219 pages
"The case of George Hodge, as related in his unpublished diary, is instructive.
... By the late eighteenth century, the Royal Navy began showing signs of ..."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 05:10 PM

I just Googled Hodge but all that came up were references to the auction, nothing on what happened to it after the auction. I doubt if the Ennis mentions give any detail on what's in the diary. It seems to be dwelling on impressment and his time in the RN which would not include refs to shanties. It's the 1815-33 period refs that would be of most interest.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 06:26 PM

Just been rereading the articles by L G Carr Laughton in Mariner's Mirror for 1923 Vol 9 No 2. He sets out an excellent case for the slaves' shanties origin and the whole custom originating with the cotton ships coming across from the southern states post 1815 to Liverpool and then it spreading from there into the packet ships. He mentions several examples of 'Cheerly men' in use as possibly the earliet example. He also postulates there may be something more to Stevenson's 'Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest' it being a Caribbean island. I assume you have the references from the United services Journal for 1834 which give the account of shantying on a revenue cutter. Here 'Cheerly men' as with Dana is given as an example. The author claimed then that CM had been attached to revenue cutters 'for time out of mind', 'and sometimes the burden is not celebrated for its decency'.
Later Carr Laughton suggests the approximate order of development for the shanty being, the cotton trade as already mentioned; then the Packet service; the emigrant ships to America; the California gold rush round the Horn; the Blackwall East Indiamen; the tea clippers, and finally the Colonial clippers. he then goes on to link individual shanties with particular periods, largely according to their origins and content.
In a later article (1952) another writer puts forward an extremely strong case for the development of the word 'shantying' from the French in New Orleans, quoting 2 contemporary accounts. I can post this if required.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 07:40 PM

Steve, I for one would love to read the etymological conjecture on "shantying."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 08:58 PM

1820s, continued.

Capstan shanty description!

Fiction, from 1829: "Tales of a Voyager to the Arctic Ocean" -- excerpts discovered in THE LADY's MAGAZINE. Full context not given; a whaling vessel. :

Our visitors were particularly animated in their extemporaneous effusions, and ran round the capstan rapidly, to words signifying their hope of soon sharing an allowance of spirits; a luxury of which our prudential regime had deprived them whilst we remained beset, occasionally varying their exclamations with anticipations of the other benefits which they expected to obtain by the deliverance of the vessel from her icy fetters. The limit of the choral expression is always marked by the velocity with which the leader of the band, that is, the individual who first gives out the stave, completes a circle on the deck as he heaves round his bar, and he recommences his chant at the same spot at which it was begun. Hence, when the circumvolutions of the performers are quickened by the yielding of the obstruction to the winding-in of the warp, and the velocity of the turns will not allow the repetition of the canticle first set up, the choir break into a more brief outcry, suited to their movements; and at times, especially when reinforced by an accession of hands, they whirl round the capstan with the utmost swiftness, shrieking, laughing, dancing, and flinging out their heels, like a company of savage revelers capering about some object of convivial worship with extravagant demonstrations of mental and bodily excitement. Such was the glee of our Hialtlandmen, when they found the Leviathan, so long immovable, and consequently unprofitable, now gliding onward with increasing speed toward freedom and the possibility of exercising her whale-capturing functions. No sooner had they got the ship under weigh, and felt her yield to the impulse of their warp, as if she gradually awoke from a deep lethargy, and slowly resumed her suspended faculty of motion, than they began their song, one of them striking up, seemingly with the first idea that entered his imagination, while the others caught at his words, and repeated them to a kind of Chinese melody; the whole at length uniting their voices into one chant, which, though evidently the outpouring of a jovial spirit, had, from its unvaried tone and constant echo of the same expression, a half-wild, half-melancholy effect upon the ear. The foreign accent of the singers contributed not a little to invest their music with a strange imposing character, while the strong contrast between the import of their exclamation and its somewhat dirge-like accompaniment of voice, gave their stave a serio-comic air, well illustrated by the ludicrous display of joyous feelings depicted on the habitually grave and simple countenances of the performers. As the vessel advanced, the momentum she had received from the previous exertions of the capstan-heavers, and the strain upon the warp, yielding readily to the increasing resolution of the men, allowed them to run round with their bars at a more soulstirring pace, and the song grew fast and furious. It had begun with "Yah! yah! here's a full ship for the captain, and a full pannikin for Peytie Pevterson, la— la—lalla—la—leh; but this sentence, after many repetitions, was changed for others of briefer duration and more expressive import, as they coursed after each other with intoxicating rapidity; their steps grew frolicsome, and their voices were elevated till they cracked with energy; they shouted, shrieked, and capered ; and at length they wanted nothmg requisite to make them true representatives of a troop of roaring bacchanalians but old Silenus perched upon the drumhead of the capstan, and some of that good liquor whose very expectation had thus inspired them with frantic mirth.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 10:39 PM

There are several interesting ideas brought in here so far that I want to pursue. I will be traveling soon, however, so please don't mind me if I seem dis-engaged while just adding a boatload of historical references. I am try to get them up while I still have my "bookmarks" handy!

Here is a poem supposed to have been written aboard a frigate during the tail end of the Napoleonic Wars (i.e. pre 1815). (from an 1825 publication.) Though we know this from elsewhere it serves to reinforce the common use of fife (and drum?) rather at the capstan in that era. There is a line that also might have belonged to a chantey.

"Sailor's Song"

When the topsails are set, and the bars are all shipp'd,
And the drums and fifes merrily play,
Round the capstan we dance, till our anchor is tripp'd,
When the Boatswain bawls, "Heave and away!"
To the fife's shrill sound,
While the joke goes round,
We step with a pleasing delight;
Dry nippers clapp'd on,
We soon hear the song,
"Heave, heave, rny brave boys, and in sight." [ETC.]

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 11:08 PM

Continuing with 1820s, here are examples already dredged up by folks on the SF-Sydney thread, which I'd like to file here. We begin with another Afro-Caribbean rowing song.

WEST INDIA SKETCH BOOK, vol 1, by Trelawney Wentworth (Published 1834 or earlier?). It appears to refer to events possibly of 1822 or earlier. They are headed for the island of Saint Thomas.

For some distance they had pulled at an easy rate and in silence, as if made unconscious of the work they were engaged in, by the absorbing interest of the passing scenes, but at length they were roused to activity by the word of preparation for a song having been passed among them, and the negro pulling the oar nearest to us, began a singular prelude which sounded between a grunt and a groan, like a paviour's accompaniment to his labour, or the exordium of a quaker, when " the spirit" begins to move. He became more energetic with each succeeding stroke of the oar, which produced a corresponding ardour, and greater precision in pulling among the other rowers, and when this was effected, another negro, whose countenance bore
the stamp of much covert humour and sagacity, and who appeared to be a sort of improvisatore among them, commenced a lively strain which accorded exactly in time with the motion of pulling, each line of the song accompanying the impetus given to the boat, and the whole crew joining in chorus in the intervals between every stroke of the oars. The subject matter of the song was as discursive and lengthy as Chevy Chase; and it showed an aptitude at invention on the part of the leader, as well as a tolerable acquaintance with the weak side of human nature, on the score of flattery: a small portion of it will suffice.

Hurra, my jolly boys
CH: Fine time o' day
We pull for San Thamas boys
CH: Fine time o' day
Nancy Gibbs and Betsy Braid
CH: Fine time o' day
Massa come fra London town
CH: Fine time o' day ETC
Massa is a hansome man,
             Fine time o' day.
Massa is a dandy-man,
             Fine time o' day.
Him hab de dollar, plenty too,
             Fine time o' day.
Massa lub a pretty girl,
             Fine time o' day.
Him lub 'em much, him lub 'em true,
             Fine time o' day.
Him hunt 'em round de guaba bush,
             Fine time o' day.
Him catch 'em in de cane piece,
             Fine time o' day.

It includes musical notation. Incidentally, Roger Abrahams reprinted the score in his whalers' shanties book, and Finn & Haddie used that, I presume, to work up this interpretation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DwR-ADStXQ

****

Back in the United States, this 1820s rowing reference is courtesy of Lighter on 22 March, 2010. [copy/pasted]

*SNIP*
From James Hall, "Letters from the West: Letter III," The Port Folio, XII (Sept., 1821), p. 446. Judge Hall made a trip down the Ohio from Pittsburgh to Shawneetown, Ill. This comes from a letter about Parkersburg, Virginia:

"To the admirers of the simplicity of Wordsworth, to those who prefer the naked effusions of the heart, to the meretricious ornaments of fancy, I present the following beautiful specimen verbatim, as it flowed from the lips of an Ohio boatman:

"It's oh! as I was a wal-king out,
One morning in July,
I met a maid, who ax'd my trade,—
Says I, 'I'll tell you presently,'
'Miss, I'll tell you presently!'"

Obviously the first stanza of a predecessor of the capstan shanty "New York Girls/ Can't You Dance the Polka?"

When Hall revised his article for book publication in 1828, he added a second stanza:

And it's oh! she was so neat a maid,
That her stockings and her shoes,
She toted in her lilly [sic] white hands
For to keep them from the dews, &c., &c.

So it isn't quite "New York Girls." And that unfortunately is that.

Except that Hall also quotes "the words which the rowers are even now sounding in my ears as they tug at the oar,

Some rows up, but we row down,
All the way to Shawnee town
Pull away - pull away!"

I believe Hall makes the earliest reference to the "Shawneetown" rowing song. Its form and the "pull away" chorus brings it very close to the apparently soon-to-evolve halliard shanties.
*SNIP*

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 11:17 PM

More 1820s...

*SNIP*
"Waldie's select circulating library", Volume 1 (12 March 1833)

It's an account of an Italian visitor to London, observing sailors singing in a pub, circa 1826, I believe. Apparently they were singing this idly or for fun. The impression is made that it was a work song. However, it does seem a bit highly developed for that. And the lyrics say "haul," whereas such a long form suggests to me a task like capstan work. It may have been that this was a hauling song, just not a timed-pull one -- i.e. it was a stamp 'n' go. Quite probably these were navy men, as the sentiments suggest.

Here's the first verse.

British sailors have a knack
      Haul way, yeo ho, boys!
Of pulling down a Frenchman's jack,
    'Gainst any odds, you know, boys
Come three to one, right sure am I
If we can't beat 'em, still we try
To make old England's colours fly,
    Haul away, yeo ho boys

The rest can be found here, pg. 133
*SNIP*

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 11:23 PM

And from Lighter again. The publication date is 1826, but Lighter's biographical info suggest the singer might have learned this Sally Brown "sailors' chant" anytime between 1808 and then.

*SNIP*
Isaac Starr Clason, "Horace in New-York," 1826, p. 46: "The present Manager of the Chatham Garden Theatre, was formerly a Lieutenant in the British Navy. He was afterwards on the boards of the Norwich Company in England. He was principally applauded for singing a common sailors' chant in character, having a sort of 'Sally Brown, oh, ho,' chorus; and requiring the action of pulling a rope, spitting upon the hand, and the accompaniment of a horrid yell. In private life, both Mr. and Mrs. Wallack were much respected."

Clason's use of the word "chant" is almost as significant as "Sally Brown," "pulling a rope," and "a horrid yell." This could be the earliest clear reference to a "sea shanty as we know it," complete with Hugill-style "hitch"!
*SNIP*

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 11:53 PM

That does it for the references I have, at present, to "shanty sightings" attributed to the 1820s and a few decades earlier. More could turn up if one searches creatively with different criteria. I realize it is not a lot to go on, but I would be interested, at this point, to try to think about the scene only based on the available evidence (there must be a bit more I am overlooking?), and try to block out our later impressions. Pretend the 1830s have not happened yet. What do we have?

1780s-90s:

General references to African and New World Black work-songs, from Mali, Grenada.

1800s:

General references to African-American work-songs and their style, from Martinique;
Rowing songs from Georgia, South Carolina, Guyana, Surinam;
Windlass songs, aboard vessels with sailors incl. from Northumberland and Holland.

1810s:

2 stevedore songs from Jamaica that resemble chanteys;
African-American rowing songs from Antigua, Virgin Islands;
Singing and fife-playing at the capstan on a British war ship.

1820s:

Rowing songs, from Georgia, Virginia, St. Thomas;
A version of "Cheerly Men" for topsail halyards on a brig near Quebec;
Fictional capstan shantying in the Arctic; capstan (?) song of British tars in London; chant for pulling known to an ex-British navy man. [I've also seen another reference to the phrase "British capstan song" from 1825.]

Anything more, strictly from these time periods?
Analysis to come later! ;)

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: IanC
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 04:58 AM

Not sure why people don't read the previous threads here (and there are a lot of good ones about shanties). Here's an entry from then 1540s.

Complaynt

;-)

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 06:45 AM

Here is some excellent and extended bibliography in AFRICAN-AMERICAN TRADITIONS IN SONG, SERMON, TALE, AND DANCE 1600s - 1920, by Southern & Wright:

   http://books.google.com/books?id=GQC7pBjAsCAC&pg=PA45&dq=Aaron,+The+Light+and+Truth+of+Slavery&lr=&cd=7#v=onepage&q=Aaron%2C%20T

This link gives you the beginning of the section on "The Song", which includes many references to worksongs.

The title of Dena Epstein's book, referred to above is SINFUL TUNES AND SPIRITUALS: BLACK FOLK MUSIC TO THE CIVIL WAR. See Chapter 9.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 09:08 AM

Here's a reference to singing of Black cotton-stowers in Savannah, in a letter from 1818. No detail, just that,

No business being done in Savannah during the summer, or sickly months, it is now all activity; nothing is heard near the water but the negroes' song while stowing away the cotton...

REMARKS MADE DURING A TOUR THROUGH THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...(1817-1819), published 1821, by William Tell Harris, pg. 69

So at least we know that as early as the 1810s, the singing whilst cotton-stowing was going on, albeit nothing of its form.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 09:21 AM

Last post was me, sorry.

John M. -- Thanks for that link to Epstein's book. The section on worksongs that you referenced gives nice context to these late 18th/early 19th sightings of New World Black work-songs. It also provides even earlier references that are very similar. At this point, I don't feel the urge to reproduce any more from these years (unless they have lyrics or great detail.) In fact, they are amazingly consistant (redundant!?). And I don't think I've ever seen the word "extempore" used so many times!

The "extempore" quality was clearly (to my reading) something foreign (or at least very notable) to the observers. I wonder if, in the coming decades, when non-Blacks adopted some of the Black songs/practices, this *aesthetic* was transfered as well. We know there was much *variation* in the chanties shared by later sailors, but was it quite to this degree? Did the process of petrification of verses begin only in the 20th century revivals, or had a sort of standardization already begun as soon as the genre crossed cultures? Something to think about when looking at later 19th century examples of chanties.

John, thanks also for the Southern & Wright volume. I'd found that one earlier, and I've been gradually breaking out the various relevant bits, which I will try to sort by decade as they come.

Gibb

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: mikesamwild
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 09:22 AM

I've just been reading 'Origins of the Popular Style' about popular music by Peter van der Merwe, Oford Clarendon press, 1989


He gives some interesting links to Arab and African worksong and also seesm to think that the middle eastern influence would have spread widely in Europe and Africa and he thinks older Hebridean work songs woud be tied ino that tradition.


So when indentured Irish and Scottish 'servants' met African slaves in the camericas there could have been fertile ground for work songs.

Does anyone remember work songs when Michael Palin was on that Slow Boat from Arabia to India?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 05:25 PM

Gibb,
See my post above. It would appear that the revenue cutters were using 'Cheerly Men' for 'time out of mind' prior to 1834. I interpret that to be at least as far back as 1800.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 05:34 PM

Jonathan,
I just typed out the first paragraph of the MM article, wisely posted it and it vanished. I'll try once more and if it vanishes again I'll have to email it to you.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 05:39 PM

Shanty term origins.
Letter by John Lyman in MM vol 38 (1952) answering the query of 1911.

This query asked for info. on the source of the word and the date of its first use for a working song afloat. the NED's oldest example is 1869 but Capt Whall recalled its use from his first going to sea in 1861. in vol 9 of MM L G Carr laughton traced the development of shantying to the Gulf cotton trade in the period 1830-60, but was forced to accept rather unconvincing connexions with shanty in the sense of a crudely built house or tavern as the origin of the term.


Fingers crossed!!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 05:45 PM

Okay so far, next paragraph.

One of the arguments against deriving shanty as a song from the French 'chanter' is the change in pronunciation; another is the difficulty of explaining how a French word could have crossed the channel as alate as 1830. However, shanty as a houseis from the French 'chantier' (timberyard), via the wood-choppers' cabins in Fr-Canadian logging camps, so there need be no doubts about French 'ch-' becoming English 'sh-'. Mencken, in 'The American Langiage', derives shanty as song from French 'chanter' but calls it 'not American', and the word is not in the 'Dictionary of American English'.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 05:46 PM

Thanks, Steve, that is useful to have it stated with that phrase, vague though it may be. I have been assuming, too, from other secondary sources, that "Cheerly Men" is "older." However, I would like to build up a picture from the ground, too. I am trying to hold both things in play: intuitive sense of how old things might be, and corroborating evidence.

No doubt as I turn to more literature from later decades there will be additional suggestive phrases such as "time out of mind" that add to the "intuitive sense" side. As for the hard evidence side, I am at least pleased so far to the 1825 reference with lyrics to "Cheerly" which e.g. does not appear in Hugill's work.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 05:55 PM

I wonder how that article by Lyman compares with his later one:
"Chantey and Limey"
Source: American Speech, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Oct., 1955), pp. 172-175. It may be more accessible on-line, FWIW

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 06:33 PM

P3
The two principal Gulf cotton ports from 1830 to 60 were New Orleans and Mobile, both settled by the French; both still celebrate Mardi gras. I have not found any accounts of loading at New Orlaeans in this period, but there are two of Mobile that illustrate clearly both the source of the term and the circumstances of its transfer to a working song afloat. the first is from 'Twenty Years at sea, by F S Hill (1893), describing a visit to Mobile in 1844;

'the cotton....was now to be forced into the ship, in the process of stowing by the stevedores by very powerful jackscrews, each operated by a gang of four men, one of them the 'shantier', as he was called, from the French word 'chanteur', a vocalist. this man's sole duty was to lead in the rude songs, largely improvised, to the music of which his companions screwed the bales into their places....
'A really good shantier received larger pay than the other men in the gang, although his work was much less laborious. their songs which always had a lively refrain or chorus, were largely what are now called topical, and often not particularly chaste.'

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 06:55 PM

I'll assume it's still worth giving the full letter even though we have a later article by him.

The second account is by Charles Nordhoff in 'The Merchant Vessel' (1855) of loading at mobile about 1848:
'Five hands compose a gang, four to work the screws, and one to do the headwork.....The foreman begins the song, and at the end of every two lines the screw is forced to make one revolution, thus gaining perhaps two inches. Singing, or 'chanting', as it is called, is an invariable accompaniment to working in cotton, and many of the screw- gangs have an endless collection of songs, rough and uncouth, both in words and melody, but answering well the purpose of making all pull together, and enlivening the heavy toil. the foreman is the 'chanty-man' who sings the song, the gang only joining in the chorus, which comes in at the end of every line, and at the end of which again comes the pull at the screw handles. One song generally suffices to bring home the screw, when a new set is got upon the bale, and a fresh song is commenced.
'The 'chants', as may be supposed, have more rhyme than reason in them. the tunes are generally plain and montonous, as are most of the capstan tunes of sailors....The men who yearly resort to Mobile Bay to screw cotton are, as may be imagined, a rough set. they are mostly English and Irish sailors, who, leaving their vessels here, remain until they have saved a hundred or two dollars, then ship for Liverpool, London, or whatever port may be their favourite, there to spree it all away, and return to work out another supply.'

Thus, in 1844, Hill recognised 'shantier' as a french word; in 1848 Nordhoff found the term as 'chanty-man'; neither used 'shanty' for the song itself, although Nordhoff commented on the similarity of the screw-gang songs to the capstan songs afloat. By 1861 the shanty-man's song had become the shanty. the word 'shantyman' and ;shanty' are ceretainly American in origin, and belong in the 'Dictionary of American English'.                         JOHN LYMAN

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 07:05 PM

Thanks, Steve. The article by Lyman that Gibb cites is pretty well known (well, to some people). Presumably it incorporates some later thoughts.

So far as it relates to "shanty/ chantey," Lyman's later article chiefly reports his discovery of the word "chantey-man" in Nordhoff. He offers only two bits of evidence to support a French derivation. First, "chantey-men" were known to Nordhoff in N.O. at the same time as the hoosiers were singing their own chants. (N.O. makes a French influence conceivable.) Second, Frederick S. Hill in 1893 recalls that fifty years earlier, in Mobile, the singing cotton-screwers were led by a man they called the "shantier," which Hill derives from

It is possibly significant that the first English appearance of "shanty/ chantey" is in the apparent compound "chantey-man" rather than standing by itself, but with so little evidence available it may mean nothing.

It would be much more impressive if there existed a French word in use in N.O. or the Gulf or Caribbean area that sounded something like "chanteyman" or "chantey gang" and also meant something vaguely related or relatable. In that case, "chantey" could have been a back formation from, say, "chanteyman." But there seem to be no candidates.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 07:25 PM

Damn! That got away from me in the middle of an important sentence! While I was revising it too!

Hill recalls that in 1843 the soloist among cotton-screwers was called the "shantier," which he derives "from the French word chanteur, a vocalist."

The more I think about this, the better it sounds. (Disregard the final paragraph of my last post as needlessly hypothetical.) *If* Hill is right about "shantier" in Mobile in 1843, and *if* the word "shantier" came from N.O. (I don't know how many French speakers were screwing cotton in Mobile in the 1840s - presumably very few), an anglicization of "chanteur" might be the source.

In that case, "shanty" would be a back formation from "shantier," on the assumption that a "shantier" was one who "shanties" and that the special songs he sings are properly called "shanties."

That would neatly explain the troublesome sound change from "ch" to "sh," and would replace the improbable idea that English-speaking seamen would have mysteriously adopted a French command to "Chantez!"

Lyman doesn't explicitly endorse the "chanteur" etymology, which is why I missed it the first time through. But yes, I think "shanty" could have come from "chanteur" through "shantier." (Hill seems to be the only writer to use "shantier," but since "chanteur" is indeed French for a male singer, the etymology of to "shanty," etc., is quite plausible.)

Case closed? It's tempting to say so.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 07:39 PM

Case NOT closed in my books. :)

But I don't wish to get into it just now, ha ha!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 10:08 PM

Stan Hugill, who had taken stock as well of his shanty-collecting predecessors, too, had turned up no shipboard work-song accounts from the 18th century. However by the beginning of the 18th century, we might suppose sailing vessels with European crews were singing songs at the capstan, though this work was also done to fife-playing. The earliest references I have seen to that is the supposedly 1810s mention of the phrase "Heave, heave, my brave boys, and in sight," from the poem, "Sailors' Song." However, work at the spoke windlass to a song is referenced even earlier, 1803-ish, in which the European crews "fixing their bars therein, give a sudden jerk at the same instant; in which movement they are regulated by a sort of Song pronounced by one of the number."

Actually "singing" at halliards may have been less frequent. Elsewise it was just shouting, chanting, or otherwise too "primitive" to inspire mention. The first I am seeing may well be the "Cheerly" reference from Quebec, 1825. I also put stock in the claim from the UNITED SERVICES MAGAZINE, 1834, piece mentioned by Steve, which claims "Cheerly Men" was a hauling song in use for some time. Rather than assume that this means there was a repertoire of "halliard shanties" (plural(, I am inclined to believe that "Cheerly" was one of only very few chants that were standard material for this operation, e.g. aboard war ships of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars era. Let us not assume that "halyard shanties" as a class necessarily even existed yet. There may have only been "sing outs," for hand-over-hand hauling, or fife and drum playing for the stamp and go maneuver.

My contention is that "halyard chanties" constituted a major, new class of work-song. It was one that added tons of repertoire to shipboard worksongs AND, I think, probably inspired the paradigm by which one was expected to customarilly sing whilst doing any work aboard ship -- i.e. "chanties." I think this particular kind of shanty, which is clearly distinct from capstan songs and perhaps even from the "barely removed from a sing-out" style of "Cheerly Men," was introduced concurrently with the term "chanty" and, as I said, with this new notion of songs as an essential "tool" of sailing. With that paradigm in place, the repertoire of songs continued to grow until it flattened out and, finally, shanties were killed by steam.

So while they were preceded by the distinctly different heaving songs of capstan and windless, and, I believe presently, also distinct from the few standardized hauling chants, the halyard chanties (which I like to call "chanties, proper")came about later. The aim here is to discover when / how/ from where they came about. The sense it that the time period was early 19th century, so I am trying to steer this course from he early end of that.

So far, it is African Diaspora rowing songs that are shaping up as closest progenitors to "chanties, proper" in this time period and geographic setting. However, because of my prejudices, I may be turning up more links to those.

If anyone has any other references from this time period, 1800s-1820s, from a likely geographic area, that could suggest *immediate* progenitors to the new halliard chanties, I would love to see them. So far, with respect to pulling chanties from this period, I only see definite references to "Cheerly Men" and to the "Sally Brown, oh, ho." In my opinion at this point, those may not represent the classic halyard chanty forms that were to emerge. According to another interpretation, they may be among the very earliest, which were to develop as time went on. (As I stated earlier, I tend to think that at this point in history, the new halyard chanty form did not so much evolve as it was taken over wholesale from another work activity. And for that reason, I don't feel a need for continuity between "Cheerly" and the later songs.) Incidentally, "Cheerly" and "Sally Brown" -- considering that we've no basis to assume the Sally Brown of this reference was the latter-day chanty -- may be closely related. "Cheerly" (along with "Haul Her Away," "Nancy Fanana" etc) mentions nam

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 10:13 PM

cont...

...women's names as per its custom. It could have been "O Sally Brown, oh oh, CHEERLY MAN!" "Oh Polly Walker oh oh, CHEERLY MAN!"

Let's move on to the 1830s and see how the picture evolves. Again, I don't think we can say for sure that the new halliard shanties were there yet (i.e. as per my criteria). We are yet in the realm of interpretation, where common sense suggests that something must have been around "a while" before it is mentioned in literature. Still, let's see what the literature has to say...with respect to 1830s now.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 12:05 AM

errata:

"However by the beginning of the **19th** century, we might suppose sailing vessels with European crews were singing songs at the capstan..."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 08:20 AM

Here is a reference to a rowing song from Fanny Kemble's JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE ON A GEORGIA PLANTATION IN 1838-1839:

http://books.google.com/books?id=w34FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA128&dq=%22Jenny+gone+away&cd=3#v=onepage&q=%22Jenny%20gone%20away&f=false

The setting is a boat trip across the Altamaha River from the Georgia coast to the St. Simon's island. Kemble gives a detailed description of the boat, the process of rowing and of the singing, and offers these words:

"Jenny shake her toe at me,
   Jenny gone away;
Jenny shake her toe at me,
   Jenny gone away.
Hurrah! Miss Susy, oh!
   Jenny gone away;
Hurrah! Miss Susy, oh!
   Jenny gone away."

A bit further on she quotes a fragment from another song:

   "Fare you well, and good-by, oh, oh!
   I'm gin' away to leave you, oh, oh!"

The "Jenny gone away" reminds me of the song "Ginny's Gone to Ohio". Here is another reference to the "Jenny" song from a little later (sorry to jump the gun a bit) in 1843, on the occasion of a corn-shucking. Here you have a good description of a "corn-shucking shantyman"! (my label) :

http://books.google.com/books?id=cYAAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA244&dq=Jenny+gone+away&cd=6#v=onepage&q=Jenny%20gone%20away&f=false

And here's a footnote about the reference to Jenny "shaking her toe":

http://books.google.com/books?id=bFLiWrJo5_MC&pg=PA261&dq=Jenny+gone+away&lr=&cd=11#v=onepage&q=Jenny%20gone%20away&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 09:15 AM

Thanks, John M., for starting off the 1830s with such an appropriate quote. It connects nicely to Basil Hall's reference to rowing in the same part of Georgia from 1828. And now we've lyrics -- plus a connection to the similarly-paradigmed (my notion) corn-shucking.

I am going to file in another rowing reference from the 1830s.

This is the one from TRANSATLANTIC SKETCHES (1833) by JE Alexander, in which a river trip in Guiana in 1831 is described )(cf. Pinckard's 1790s observation, above). There is a rowing song which is a variation of what is now known as "The Sailor Likes His Bottle O".

    De bottley oh ! de bottley oh !
    De neger like the bottley oh !
Right early in the marning, de neger like the bottley oh !
    A bottle o'rum, loaf a bread,
    Make de neger dandy oh!
Right early in de marning, de neger like de bottley oh !

The passage seems to also refer by title to "Velly well, yankee, velly well oh" , which may be the "Bear Away Yankee," which Abrahams
collected in the Caribbean in the 1960s.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 12:30 PM

Also from the early 30s is this reference:

"Waldie's Select Circulating Library," II (Dec.
24,1833), p. 581:

"The pirates pulled merrily for their schooner, singing in chorus the
well known West Indian canoe song:

"The captain's gone ashore;
The mate has got the key;
Hurrah! my jolly boys,-
'Tis grog time o' day!"

This "Grog Time of Day" is the song sung by the Jamaican stevedores in 1811. John M. has just demonstrated an instance of the same work-song being used for both rowing and corn-shucking. Here, there is something important, I think: a song being used for rowing and also for loading cargo. The next step in the "chain" may have been using such a song aboard ships.

In the 1811 Jamaica case, the capstan in vaguely alluded to. However, I am unclear why the stevedores would be using a capstan to load cargo. I can imagine it working, but, unless it was extremely heavy, that would seem less efficient than hauling the cargo to a height, in halyards fashion. In point of fact, another reference I've seen (it may come later) talks about loading in this hauling/hoisting fashion. And, even better, Lydia Parrish has a photo of chantey-singing stevedores from her Georgia Sea Islands community performing such an action, just as one would haul halyards on a ship.

It would be "nice" to imagine the 1811 stevedores were also doing that when singing "Grog Time", as it would establish a firmer link between the idea of a rowing action and a halyard-hauling action. However, I'm not sure that can be established. If the stevedores were singing "Grog Time" at the capstan, then it would not indicate any necessary or special "timed action" section to the song that helped it to jump from one similar task to another. No, it would just be a song, perhaps especially associated with work among West Indians, and with a steady rhythm to be sure, but not necessarilly bound to specific jobs. Of course, as has been noted, a song with special "timed points" is nonetheless easily adapted to capstan, regardless.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 01:41 PM

Would the French, Metis, Iriquois, Hawaiian etc. voyageurs made any contribution?

What about the Irish slaves in Jamaica in 1600s? Intermarried and sadly purposly bred with other slaves. But music was supposed to have merged back then. mg

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 04:12 PM

'In the 1811 Jamaica case, the capstan is vaguely alluded to'
How vaguely? Was the word 'capstan' used? Could the writer be confusing it with some sort of windlass, crab winch or even a type of cotton screw?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 05:23 PM

Thanks, Steve, I was intending to revisit the passage to see what had struck me as unclear. I don't have the text with me, so I am entering here the passage as cited in Hugill's SfSS:

Our seamen having left the ship, the harbour work was performed by a gang of Negroes. These men will work the whole day at the capstan under a scorching sun with almost no intermission. They beguiled the time by one of them singing one line of an English song, or a prose sentence at the end of which all the rest join in a short chorus. The sentences which prevail with the gang we had aboard were as follows...

It can be fairly assumed that their songs were sung at the capstan, however it does not say explicitly. (For example, they may have used a capstan but along with other tools, too.) To be honest, I would assume the men working working the cargo by means of a capstan and whilst singing the songs. My only hang-up is the dissonance between the use of capstan here and what seems like a more sensible use of simple hauling on a rope as cited in similar cases (e.g. the excellent photo in Parrish's book). The cargo must have been very heavy, as for example in the sketch of loading timber through the bow-port, by capstan, that appears in Hugill's book. But I can't really say; can only accept with slight disappointment :) that, yes, it was a capstan they were using!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 05:31 PM

Caroline Gillman, in her "Preface" to RECOLLECTIONS OF A SOUTHERN MATRON (1852) says,

"The "SOUTHERN MATRON" was penned in the same spirit, and with the same object, as the "New England Housekeeper" - to present as exact a picture as possible of local habits and manners. Every part, except the "love passages," is founded in events of actual occurrence."   Charleston, S.C., 1837 (p. iii)

On page 76, she gives an account of a boat trip and the singing of a rowing song called "Hi de good boat Neely", with three verses:

"Hi de good boat Neely?
She row bery fast, Niss Neely!
An't no boat like a' Miss Neely,
        Ho yoi'!

Who gawing to row wid Miss Neely?
Can't catch a' dis boat Neely -
Nobody show he face wid Neely,
        Ho, yoi?

Maybe Maus Lewis take de oar for Neely,
Bery handsom boat Miss Neely!
Maus Lewis nice captain for Neely,
        Ho, yoi!

Here is the link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=1bJOTh_yVBcC&pg=PA76&dq=Hi+de+good+boat+Neely&cd=4#v=onepage&q=Hi%20de%20good%20boat%20Neely&f=

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 06:41 PM

Using a capstan and some sort of jib-boom like a crane with heavy cargo would certainly make sense. If it was just the men pulling on the rope through pulley blocks it could slip back. On the other hand it just says 'harbour work' which could easily mean warping large vessels around the docks from one berth to another.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 07:27 PM

A contemporaneous reference to rowing song style in Sierra Leone, West Africa. 1834.

"But from each and all proceeded the rower's song. No negro spins his canoe through the water without a melody, and, if he be not alone, without the long wild chorus. All sing; and on the rivers of these glowing climes, where all is genial and laughing, as the song breaks upon his ear, the traveller forgets to be a critic. The voices may be harsh when near, the words uncouth, the artists terrible to look upon, the music startling from contempt of all artificial rule ; but, as the simple cadence comes floating over the water, and the strong chorus is mellowed by distance, when the unities of time and place are remembered, there is something inexpressibly affecting in the strange song; at least I found it so.

...

The words of these songs are generally extempore. My captain interpreted several for me. The prevailing subjects were love and irony; occasionally, as will be seen in the sequel, revenge and war formed the theme. A stanza is sung in a loud sostenuto recitative by a single voice ; and at its conclusion the whole crew rush into a stormy chorus, at the same instant springing at their oars with renewed vigour. Several of their effusions amused themselves highly; and, as the extempore verse concluded with some pungent and unexpected idea, shouts of laughter delayed their chorus."

THE WHITE MAN'S GRAVE (1836), by FH Rankin.pp199-201.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 07:40 PM

A much later, auxiliary reference to the last. Here the foreign observer is on the Gabon River. RH Milligan writes this in THE JUNGLE FOLK OF AFRICA, 1908.

Their singing, like their instrumental music, has not much "tune" to it, but there is always a stirring rhythm and a certain weird and touching quality, which impressed me the more because I could never quite understand it,—the same elusive charm that characterizes the singing of the negroes of the Southern States. I do not refer to the negro songs composed by white men, which are entirely different, but the melodies that the negro sings at his work. The native songs are of the nature of chants, and turn upon several notes of a minor scale. But it is not quite our minor scale. There is one prominent and characteristic note, which I confess defied me, though it may have been a minor third slightly flat. I found it very difficult to reduce their songs to musical notation.

He seems to refer to "blue" notes. Also raises the issue of what much earlier observers meant when they described "plaintive minor melodies" -- and the issue of interpreting their musical notations nowadays.

The words of most of the songs are improvised by the leading voice, and have a regular refrain in which all join. But if they wish to sing in chorus, as in their dance-songs, any words will serve the purpose and the same sentence may be repeated for an hour. "Our old cow she crossed the road " were luminous with propriety and sentiment in comparison with the words that they will sometimes sing in endless repetition. " The leopard caught the monkey's tail," "The roots grow underneath the ground," are samples of their songs. Their canoesongs I like best of all. The rhythm is appropriate and one almost hears the sound of the paddles. They sing nearly all the time as they use the paddle or the oar, and on a long journey they say it makes the hard work easier. If they should take a white man on a journey and, not being his regular workmen, should expect a "dash"—a fee, or present, in African vernacular—the leading voice will sing the white man's praises on the journey, alluding in particular to his benevolence, while the others all respond, seeking thus by barefaced flattery 'and good-natured importunity to shame the meanness out of him.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 07:57 PM

Another 1830s rowing song. I am taking the liberty of copying this from Lighter's post elsewhere on Mudcat.

*SNIP*

Not quite "Sally Brown," but sung by slave boatmen while rowing on the
Cape Fear River in North Carolina and written down (with a very simple
tune) in 1830. From David S. Cecelski, "The Waterman's Song" (2001):

Sally was a fine girl, ho! Sally, ho!
Sally was a fine girl, ho! Sally, ho!

The "collector," Moses A. Curtis, noted: "repeated ad infinitum and
accompanied by a trumpet obligato by the helmsman."

*SNIP*

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 08:20 PM

From the Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, pub. 1856. The author relates a scene from 1777 (!) in South Carolina.

As evening closed in, we embarked in a good ferry-boat, manned by four jolly, well-fed negroes, to cross Winyaw Bay, a distance of four miles. The evening was serene, the stars shone brightly, and the poor fellows amused us, the whole way, by singing their plaintive African songs, in cadence with the oars. We reached Georgetown in the evening.

"plaintive" again :)

Anyway, this is interesting to note how at the earlier date they were "African" songs (presumably not in English language?). See upthread for Pinckard's 1790s expedition and the rowing song chorus that had seemingly African-dialect words mixed with English. Later it is all English. What I'm hoping to establish is the idea that the style of rowing songs current in parts of West Africa was maintained among African-American rowers in the New World. All this is by way of setting up ONE ASPECT of the work-song context from which "chanties" may have emerged: distinctly African-styled practice of singing while rowing. This is not to say that the melodies, for example, were necessarily maintained "from Africa," but that the paradigm and form persisted.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 08:40 PM

Interesting that although the writers like to use words like "plaintive," none seems to choose the words "minor" (or even "modal"). Once again, this may be an artifact of too few accounts, but it is certainly more consistent with Gibb's idea that "blue" notes were used rather than not. If some later shanty tunes are considered (I'm thinking of one or two of the "Sally Brown" tunes), the early writers could have meant "modal," but my guess is that musical education in the early 19th C. at least mentioned that modes existed or "used to" exist. Maybe a musicologist knows more about that likelihood.

If we had a hundred characterizations instead of just a handful, we might be able to draw a sounder conclusion.

OTOH, if the "blues" scale really is an African importation (is it for sure?), it would be perverse of African-descended rowers not to use it two hundred years ago.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 08:55 PM

Those are my rowing songs for 1830s. Now, some firemen's songs from that decade. I am not sure of the exact nature of work of the (mainly Black) "firemen" on river steamboats. Were they shoveling in coal, as on a locomotive? Was it logs they threw into a furnace, down below? More info, please! Whatever the case, the environment evokes the phrase, "Fire down below."

THE RAMBLER IN NORTH AMERICA, 1832-1833, Vol 2., by CJ Latrobe, 1835.

Of a steamboat on the Ohio River, mentions "the wild song of the negro fire-men." (pg 281).

Next, a dramatic scene in BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY, vol 4, New York, Sept. 1839,
taking place in a steamboat. Here's the song.

"THE STOKER'S CHAUNT.
The ebben tide ib floating past,
Fire down below!
The arrival time ib coming fast.
Fire down below!
Racoon cry in de maple tree,
Fire down below!
The wood ib on fire, and the fire a sea,
Fire down below!
Oo a oo oh ! fire down below!"

A chaunty? It appears to be related to a "fire down below" chantey that will continue to appear in the 19th century. Here is a rendition of the chantey as culled by Hugill, if one would like to fit the above lyrics to the framework:

The Sailor Fireman

Incidentally, Hugill cited it as a possible source for the melody to the chantey "Sacramento."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 09:06 PM

Lighter, the SERVICE AFLOAT reference uses "minor." I swear there are more, but I don't want to look for them, right now. In any case, I have been reading "minor" as some interpretation of listeners who aren't sure where to "file" the blue notes. They are between "major" and "minor," and I figure that, like when one does when he hears a phoneme contrast that doesn't exist in his own language, he files it as one with which he is familiar. I don't think 19th century writers had a clue how to file in "blue notes." The author from 1908, above, shows the beginnings of at least recognizing something that is to be considered on its own. If memory serves, Arnold, in Bullen's collection of 1914, also begins to take "note" of this tonality!

"Plaintive" suggests "minor" to me, even if they are not using the latter word. And I find that at odds with the fact that very few chanties as they have come down to us today are in minor modes. One possible explanation is that, again writers did not have a category for blue notes, and they just notated the songs as if they were in major modes (I realize this contradicts what I just said about "filing as minor," but I think there are different issues between notating and the lay-observers descriptions.) Or, possibly, when such songs were adopted by White sailors, the "blue note" tonality was not maintained; they became tunes in major.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 09:32 PM

Another one of my posts didn't make it through the ether. To sum it up:

"Minor" is more likely to entail "plaintive" than "plaintive" is to entail "minor." "Plaintive," at least as I understand it, could cover minor, modal, and (hypothetically) blusey.

Guesswork: an early 19th C. writer hearing a blues scale and perceiving it as systematic rather than accidental (i.e., sung by someone with a tin ear) would have used words like "weird," "wild," or "savage" to describe it. Otherwise the words would be more like "out of tune," "off-pitch," "flat," "discordant," etc. ISTR "wild" being used in at least one description, though I suppose it could just as easily refer to timing as to tonality.

How far back does the blues scale go? Did it originate in Africa before 1800? Or do we know?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 09:42 PM

Mention of the singing of cotton-stowers/screwers occured in Savannah the 20s, above. Now in the 30s, we get an actual lyric.

John M.'s intro:

*snip*

And here is another early reference, that can be dated as December
31,1838. Phillip Henry Gosse, in his LETTERS FROM ALABAMA (1859), also
mentions the cotton-screwing shanty, "Fire the ringo" (page 305-306,
at the very end of his book):

*snip*

On the Alabama River, here is the passage:

I have been amused by observing the crew stowing the cargo. After what I said of the way in which the cotton is screwed into the bales, you would suppose that these were incapable of further compression. But it is not so. When the stowed bales in the hold are in contact with the upper deck, another layer has to be forced in. This is effected, bale by bale, by powerful jack-screws, worked by four men. When you see the end of the bale set against a crevice, into which you could scarcely push a thin board, you think it impossible that it can ever get in; and, indeed, the operation is very slow, but the screw is continually turned, and the bale does gradually insinuate itself.

The men keep the most perfect time by means of their songs. These ditties, though nearly meaningless, have much music in them, and as all join in the perpetually recurring chorus, a rough harmony is produced, by no means unpleasing. I think the leader improvises the words, of which the following is a specimen; he singing one line alone, and the whole then giving the chorus, which is repeated without change at every line, till the general chorus concludes the stanza:—

"I think I hear the black cock say,
    Fire the ringo, fire away !
They shot so hard, I could not stay;
    Fire the ringo ! fire away !
So I spread my wings, and flew away;
    Fire the ringo ! &c.
I took my flight and ran away ;
    Fire, &c.
All the way to Canaday;
    Fire, &c.
To Canaday, to Canaday,
    Fire, &c.
All the way to Canaday.
    Ringo ! ringo ! blaze away!
   Fire the ringo ! fire away!"

Sometimes the poet varied the subject by substituting political for zoological allusions. The victory over the British at New Orleans — that favourite theme with all Americans—was chosen. Thus:—

" Gin'ral Jackson gain'd the day ;
   Fire the ringo, &c.
At New Orleans he won the day;
    Fire the ringo, fire away!"

I wonder about the possible relationship between the cotton-screwing chants and the steamboat stoker's "chaunt" -- the chorus of "FIRE", on the proper beat, being the connecting feature.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 09:45 PM

re: Blues scale

Sorry, I don't know. I am sure someone had written about its "history." My hunch is that that history would have been established in exactly the way you and I are doing -- i.e., in the absence of recordings and adequate notations, by going by the descriptions of observers.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 10:07 PM

It looks like the current learned opinion is that
"blues scale(s)" are an African-American innovation. Acc. to James Lincoln Collier in the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed.:

"[West African music] used scales roughly similar to European ones, but they tended to be pentatonic and seem to have avoided half-steps, either by skipping over them or by the raising or lowering of one of the pitches to widen the interval; pitches were frequently inexact by the standards of European music....

"[J]ust as some African tribal musicians seem to have avoided half-steps, so the slaves tended to adjust the diatonic scale to similar effect by lowering the third, seventh, and sometimes fifth scale degrees microtonally, thereby creating the so-called blue note...."

I assume this means that nobody found blue notes in Africa before the advent of commercial blues-playing radio. That would have been well into the anthropologically sophisticated 20th C., so if nobody noticed them it would be strong, though not conclusive, evidence for an American origin.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 10:52 PM

So much for rowing, cotton stowing, and firemen's songs of the 1830s (i.e. that I've turned up so far). Now to the shipboard work-songs attributed to that time.

These references are well know, so I will try to be brief.

Here is John M.'s intro to Marryat's text

*snip

April 3, 1837, the ship "Quebec" hoisted her anchor
in the harbor at Portmouth and sailed to New York. At the [windlass] the
crew sang "Sally Brown", according to an eye-witness, Captain Marryat,
a passenger, who recorded the words and the ongoing dialog in his book
A DIARY IN AMERICA, p.38-44.

*snip*

The crew were working at a pump windlass. Dobinson's invention had just been patented in 1832!

patent

I don't know if that was just an "improvement" or if it was *the* new pump style windlass altogether; from Marryat's surprise, it sounds like the latter. The earlier spoke windlass, pictured in the Moby Dick clip up-thread, is the one that required removing and replacing of handspikes into slots after each turn. The pump windlass chanteys tend to be akin to halyard chanties.

Here's the extended passage:

//
10, A. M.—" All hands up anchor." I was repeating to myself some of the stanzas of Mrs. Norton's " Here's a Health to the Outward-bound," when I cast my eyes forward I could not imagine what the seamen were about; they appeared to be pumping, instead of heaving, at the windlass. I forced my way through the heterogeneous mixture of human beings, animals, and baggage which crowded the decks, and discovered that they were working a patent windlass, by Dobbinson—a very ingenious and superior invention. The seamen, as usual, lightened their labour with the song and chorus, forbidden by the etiquette of a man-of-war. The one they sung was peculiarly musical, although not refined ; and the chorus of "Oh! Sally Brown," was given with great emphasis by the whole crew between every line of the song, sung by an athletic young third mate. I took my seat on the knight-heads—turned my face aft— looked and listened.

" Heave away there, forward."
" Aye, aye, sir."
" ' Sally Brown—oh! my dear Sally."' (Single voice),
" ' Oh ! Sally Brown.'" (Chorus)
" ' Sally Brown, of Buble Al-ly.'" (Single voice).
" ' Oh ! Sal-ly Brown.'" (Chorus).
" Avast heaving there; send all aft to clear the boat."
" Aye, aye, sir. Where are we to stow these casks, Mr. Fisher ?"
" Stow them ! Heaven knows ; get them in, at all events."
" Captain H.! Captain H. ! there's my piano still on deck; it will be quite spoiled—indeed it will."
" Don't be alarmed, ma'am ; as soon as we're under weigh we'll hoist the cow up, and get the piano down."
" What! under the cow? "
" No, ma'am; but the cow's over the hatchway."
" Now, then, my lads, forward to the windlass."
" ' I went to town to get some toddy-' "
"' Oh! Sally Brown."
" ' T'wasn't fit for any body.' "
" ' Oh ! Sally Brown.' "—
" Out there, and clear away the jib."
" Aye, aye, sir."
" Mr. Fisher, how much cable is there out ?"
" Plenty yet, sir.—Heave away, my lads.'"
"' Sally is a bright mulattar.'"
" ' Oh ! Sally Brown.' "
" ' Pretty girl, but can't get at her.' "
" ' Oh! '"—
" Avast heaving; send the men aft to whip the ladies in.—Now, miss, only sit down and don't be afraid, and you'll be in, in no time.— Whip away, my lads, handsomely ; steady her -with the guy; lower away.—There, miss, now you're safely landed."
" Landed am I ? I thought I was shipped.«' " Very good, indeed—very good, miss ; you'll make an excellent sailor, I see."
" I should make a better sailor's wife, I expect, Captain H."
"Excellent! Allow me to hand you aft; you'll excuse me.—Forward now, my men ; heave away !"
" ' Seven years I courted Sally.'"
" ' Oh! Sally Brown.'"
" ' Seven more of shilley-shally.'"
"'Oh! Sally Brown.'"
" ' She won't wed "—
" Avast heaving. Up there, and loose the topsails ; stretch along the topsail-sheets.—Upon my soul, half these children will be killed.— Whose child are you ?"
" I—don't—know."
" Go and find out, that's a dear.—Let fall ; sheet home; belay starboard sheet; clap on the larboard; belay all that.—Now, then, Mr. Fisher."
" Aye, aye, sir.—Heave away, my lads."
" ' She won't wed a Yankee sailor.'"
"'Oh! Sally Brown.'"
For she's in love with the nigger tailor."_
"'Oh! Sally Brown.'"—
" Heave away, my men ; heave, and in sight. Hurrah ! my lads."
" ' Sally Brown—oh ! my dear Sally !'"
"' Oh! Sally Brown!'"
" ' Sally Brown, of Buble Alley.'"
" 'Oh! Sally Brown."'
" ' Sally has a cross old granny.'"
" Oh ! ' "—
" Heave and fall—jib-halyards—hoist away." " Oh! dear—oh! dear." " The clumsy brute has half-killed the girl! —Don't cry, my dear.''...

//

Note that this "Sally Brown" has the simple call-response-call-response form of a halyard chantey. No "chorus" was needed, though what I call a "mock chorus" (having the same structure as the rest of the song) could be there for this job (it's not in this case).

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 11:10 PM

The famous (i.e. due to being cited by Doerflinger as his earliest chantey reference) passage in THE QUID (1832), containing observations of a passenger in an East India Company ship, is as follows:

//

All who have been on board ship must recollect heaving at the capstan. It is one of the many soul-stirring scenes that occur on board when all hands are turned up; the motley group that man the bars, the fiddler stuck in a corner, the captain on the poop encouraging the men to those desperate efforts that seem, to the novice, an attempt at pulling up the rocks by the root. It's a time of equality; idlers, stewards and servants, barbers and sweepers, cooks' mates and cooks-mate's ministers, doctors' mates, and loblolly boys; every man runs the same road, and hard and impenetrable is that soul that does not chime in with the old ditties, "Pull away now, my Nancy, O!" and the long "Oh!" that precedes the more musical strain of

"Oh her love is a sailor,
His name is Jemmy Taylor,
He's gone in a whaler,
To the Greenland sea:"

or

"Oh! if I had her,
Eh then if I had her,
Oh! how I could love her,
Black although she be."

//

The fiddle player is notable. The singing appears to be "for fun."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: doc.tom
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 07:24 AM

Apropos describing scales:
An untrained ear would not have had an appropriate language to describe out-of-the-ordinary scales - modal, blue, un-tempered or variable - their ear would only have understood the 'normal' contemporary major/minor 'classical' tempered structures which transfered into the likes of Santy Anna, Dixie, etc. Even trained musicians had problems - one classically trained musician reportedly said to Cecil Sharp "I simply do not believe that a peasant singer can sing in the Dorian mode when most musicians don't even know what it is." (!)
TomB

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 08:46 AM

Here is a selection of cotton loading and boat rowing songs (I think), with music, that I haven't come across before now. It's in a piece from 1918, in a larger collection called JAZZ IN PRINT (1856-1929): AN ANTHOLOGY OF SELECTED EARLY READINGS IN JAZZ, by Karl Koenig (2002). The songs seem earlier.

http://books.google.com/books?id=sol334hPuRoC&pg=PA125&dq=cotton+loading+songs&lr=&cd=25#v=onepage&q=cotton%20loading%20songs&f=

It does introduce a genre of songs we haven't really looked at but which are also "call/response" songs, namely religious songs. The author of this article says, "the songs the Negro seems to prefer while working are the religious ones."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 11:58 AM

I'm familiar with the comment, but I believe that the idea that trained musicians were unfamiliar with modal scales in Sharp's day is nonsense. Maybe the commentator meant that many couldn't identify them by name if asked.

My understanding is that trained musicians knew exactly what "modal" meant and more or less what the scales sounded like from the study of music history, but thought they were "primitive" and thus largely unsuitable for "modern" music.

But the question is relatively moot. There are few modal shanties.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 12:35 PM

Also, another word they could easily have used for hypothetically modal or bluesy melodies was "indescribable."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: mikesamwild
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 03:08 PM

A lot of trad tunes that went into odd notes were often called 'Chinese' for similar reasons

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 03:39 PM

Gibb,
Re the Doerflinger reference, I think the use of the phrase 'old ditties' is descriptive enough. I think Doerflinger was clutching at straws. I don't think the East India Company would have been your average merchant vessel, more like RN, being described complete with fiddler. No mention of any sort of worksong!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: shipcmo
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 04:33 PM

Gibb,
Think there is any connection between: here is another early reference, that can be dated as December 31,1838. Phillip Henry Gosse, in his LETTERS FROM ALABAMA (1859), also mentions the cotton-screwing shanty, "Fire the ringo" (page 305-306,at the very end of his book):
and: "Fire Maringo"?
Keep up the good work!
Cheers,
Geo

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 04:36 PM

Here is an account from 1852 of a voyage from San Francisco to New York by way of Panama and Jamaica. While in Jamaica, the ship took on a load of coal in Kingston. There is a description of about 50 men and women carrying coal in tubs on their heads and marching back and forth to load the ship and singing "an old plantation song" the whole time. It is the last paragraph just above the heading "Again on the deep":

http://cdnc.ucr.edu/newsucr/cgi-bin/newsucr?a=d&cl=search&d=SDU18921020.2.28&srpos=11&e=-------en-logical-20--1-byDA---capstan+s

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 05:50 PM

Here are a few references to rowing songs down in Brazil somewhat in the general time frame. I've not had a chance to follow up on any of them.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Om1tx6ZR0hYC&pg=PA49&dq=rowing+songs+1840s&cd=5#v=onepage&q=rowing%20songs%201840s&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 07:44 PM

To finish out what I have for the 1830s, there is the best known source of all, RH Dana's TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST.

Dana shipped as a common sailor in the brig PILGRIM, Aug 1834-Sept1836.

In the various editions of his text, 1840, he mentioned "sailor's songs."

There is a lengthy thread dedicated to Dana's songs HERE

Dana mentioned several songs by name, and also made reference to work-singing generally.

Here are passages.

First is to the elementary "sing-outs:

The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the sailors "singing out" at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains.

The following is frustrating because it does not clearly distinguish (for my taste, at least) the songs for capstan versus the ones for hoisting yards. The reference to "falls," one would assume, is to halyards and not just lighter lines that could be handled with "sing outs." This is important because, up to this point, there are actually few references to singing songs at halliards. Dana groups all the songs (without specifying use) under a certain form, a sort of call and response. This is vague because capstan chanties as we know them today do often have that quality, though they are then followed by a grand chorus (not mentioned by Dana). Because he does not mention it does not mean it was not there and, indeed, the "old ditties" from the THE QUID (thanks, Steve) and earlier are not what one would usually call a call and response type song (i.e. though they may have a soloist followed by chorus). Also, the short "sweating up" chants could also fall under Dana's description, and they are different from later halliard chanties. My opinion is that, given what else we know from the time period, the halliard songs he would have been describing were like "Cheerly Man". A single pull coincides with the chorus' "response," and the form of the "verses" does not have the sane verse form that most halliard chanties have. It sounds to me like Dana is still describing the old-style capstan songs and an old-ER kind of song for halliards, however, that is my interpretation only. Again, it is frustrating because, for example, he names a song with "heave" in the title, but he refers to pulling. Perhaps this is not just negligence; maybe the functions of the songs did not become so clearly demarcated yet. Here's the passage:

The sailor's songs for capstans and falls are of a peculiar kind, having a chorus at the end of each line. The burden is usually sung, by one alone, and, at the chorus, all hands join in,—and the louder the noise, the better. With us, the chorus seemed almost to raise the decks of the ship, and might be heard at a great distance, ashore. A song is as necessary to sailors as the drum and fife to a soldier. They can't pull in time, or pull with a will, without it. Many a time, when a thing goes heavy, with one fellow yo-ho-ing, a lively song, like "Heave, to the girls!" "Nancy oh!" "Jack Cross-tree," etc., has put life and strength into every arm. We often found a great difference in the effect of the different songs in driving in the hides. Two or three songs would be tried, one after the other; with no effect;—not an inch could be got upon the tackles—when a new song, struck up, seemed to hit the humor of the moment, and drove the tackles "two blocks" at once. "Heave round hearty!" "Captain gone ashore!" and the like, might do for common pulls, but in an emergency, when we wanted a heavy, "raise-the-dead" pull, which should start the beams of the ship, there was nothing like "Time for us to go!" "Round the corner," or "Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!"

Significantly, Dana talks about how important all this singing and chanting was by that time.

The next passage makes clear that they were using the spoke windlass (cf. the pump windlass that, a couple years later, came into use of Marryat's vessel). It doesn't sound like they were using songs, just shouts of encouragement there. If they had a windlass for the anchor. And with "Cheerly Men" being used to cat anchor, it confirms the sense of its form that we have today: a sort of jazzed up equivalent to what was basically "one, two, three, PULL!" (i.e. not the same as later halyard chanteys).

Where things are "done with a will," every one is like a cat aloft: sails are loosed in an instant; each one lays out his strength on his handspike, and the windlass goes briskly round with the loud cry of "Yo heave ho! Heave and pawl! Heave hearty ho!" But with us, at this time, it was all dragging work. No one went aloft beyond his ordinary gait, and the chain came slowly in over the windlass. The mate, between the knight-heads, exhausted all his official rhetoric, in calls of "Heave with a will!"—"Heave hearty, men!—heave hearty!"—"Heave and raise the dead!"—"Heave, and away!" etc., etc.; but it would not do. Nobody broke his back or his hand-spike by his efforts. And when the cat-tackle-fall was strung along, and all hands—cook, steward, and all—laid hold, to cat the anchor, instead of the lively song of "Cheerily, men!" in which all hands join in the chorus, we pulled a long, heavy, silent pull, and—as sailors say a song is as good as ten men—the anchor came to the cat-head pretty slowly. "Give us 'Cheerily!'" said the mate; but there was no "cheerily" for us, and we did without it. The captain walked the quarterdeck, and said not a word. He must have seen the change, but there was nothing which he could notice officially.

Work songs of Hawai'ians are there, too. It seems as though the singing of "Mahannah" was a novel scenario that juxtaposed two cultures' practices. In any case, the reference is to singing-out at the windlass, not to songs, per se.

At twelve o'clock the Ayacucho dropped her fore topsail, which was a signal for her sailing. She unmoored and warped down into the bight, from which she got under way. During this operation, her crew were a long time heaving at the windlass, and I listened for nearly an hour to the musical notes of a Sandwich Islander, called Mahannah, who "sang out" for them. Sailors, when heaving at a windlass, in order that they may heave together, always have one to sing out; which is done in a peculiar, high and long-drawn note, varying with the motion of the windlass. This requires a high voice, strong lungs, and much practice, to be done well. This fellow had a very peculiar, wild sort of note, breaking occasionally into a falsetto. The sailors thought it was too high, and not enough of the boatswain hoarseness about it; but to me it had a great charm. The harbor was perfectly still, and his voice rang among the hills, as though it could have been heard for miles.

In lieu of Dana's early characterization of singing as fairly ubiquitous, this next passage is puzzling. If, as we have seen, African-Americans just did not row without a song...and if he is claiming that "Americans" rarely did so...is it possible to infer that the hypothetical African-American influence on shipboard worksongs had not yet occurred? I think this passage is particularly significant.

The Italian ship had a crew of thirty men; nearly three times as many as the Alert, which was afterwards on the coast, and was of the same size; yet the Alert would get under weigh and come-to in half the time, and get two anchors, while they were all talking at once—jabbering like a parcel of "Yahoos," and running about decks to find their cat-block.

There was only one point in which they had the advantage over us, and that was in lightening their labors in the boats by their songs. The Americans are a time and money saving people, but have not yet, as a nation, learned that music may be "turned to account." We pulled the long distances to and from the shore, with our loaded boats, without a word spoken, and with discontented looks, while they not only lightened the labor of rowing, but actually made it pleasant and cheerful, by their music.

I think this final passage is significant for its *lack* of mention of any chanteying besides the old standard "Cheerly men". What's more, at the time, Dana is on a larger brig the CATALINA, which one would think "needed" shanties more -- that is, if they were available.

and, this morning, preparations were made for getting under weigh. We paid out on the chain by which we swung; hove in on the other; catted the anchor; and hove short on the first. This work was done in shorter time than was usual on board the brig; for though everything was more than twice as large and heavy, the cat-block being as much as a man could lift, and the chain as large as three of the Pilgrim's, yet there was a plenty of room to move about in, more discipline and system, more men, and more good will. Every one seemed ambitious to do his best: officers and men knew their duty, and all went well. As soon as she was hove short, the mate, on the forecastle, gave the order to loose the sails, and, in an instant, every one sprung into the rigging, up the shrouds, and out on the yards, scrambling by one another,—the first up the best fellow,—cast off the yard-arm gaskets and bunt gaskets, and one man remained on each yard, holding the bunt jigger with a turn round the tye, all ready to let go, while the rest laid down to man the sheets and halyards. The mate then hailed the yards—"All ready forward?"—"All ready the cross-jack yards?" etc., etc., and "Aye, aye, sir!" being returned from each, the word was given to let go; and in the twinkling of an eye, the ship, which had shown nothing but her bare yards, was covered with her loose canvas, from the royal-mast-heads to the decks. Every one then laid down, except one man in each top, to overhaul the rigging, and the topsails were hoisted and sheeted home; all three yards going to the mast-head at once, the larboard watch hoisting the fore, the starboard watch the main, and five light hands, (of whom I was one,) picked from the two watches, the mizen. The yards were then trimmed, the anchor weighed, the cat-block hooked on, the fall stretched out, manned by "all hands and the cook," and the anchor brought to the head with "cheerily men!" in full chorus.

I'm of the present opinion that the chanteying in Dana's experience was yet of the older sort. I think "Cheerly Man" belonged to that world, and was probably not cut from the cloth of African-American work-songs. With Marryat a few years later --and the pump windlass-- there is possibly a newer kind of chantey. On the other hand, the form of that particular version of a "Sally Brown" is not far from Cheerly Man.

Whereas my hypothesis is that a new paradigm for work-singing -- roughly corresponding to halyard songs, or "chanties," as they came to be known -- was borrowed from African-American practices, I don't feel confident, from these 1830s references, that that borrowing had yet occurred on a large scale. That is, the Afr-American forms existed (rowing, cotton stowing, and fireman's songs), but had yet to be widely incorporated on large sailing vessels.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 07:58 PM

Geo-- YES!

I've been being a big bully, however, and trying to keep things confined to up-to-1830s until now.

But let the 1840s now fly!-- Fire away, my Ringo, Mr. Marengo, you dear old Mandingo of my Kingdom! It's cotton-screwing season!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 10:13 PM

"Maringo!"

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 07:07 AM

Here is one more little snippet from Dana, where he mentions "a set of new songs for the capstan and fall" from the crew of the "California".

"The next day, the California commenced unloading her cargo; and her boats' crews, in coming and going, sang their boat-songs, keeping time with their oars. This they did all day long for several days, until their hides were all discharged, when a gang of them were sent on board the Alert, to help us steeve our hides. This was a windfall for us, for they had a set of new songs for the capstan and fall, and ours had got nearly worn out by six weeks' constant use. I have no doubt that this timely reinforcement of songs hastened our work several days."

Here is the Google Books link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=dS6jsZLYWNAC&pg=PA336&dq=capstan+songs+1840s&lr=&cd=12#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 07:31 AM

Here is a reference to the singing of "Highland Laddie" at the capstan in an effort to move the grounded ship "Peacock" into deeper water on April 22nd, 1835, near the Gulf of Mazeira.

http://books.google.com/books?id=LW_XAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA396&dq=capstan+songs+1840s&lr=&cd=25#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 07:38 AM

And here is a reference to the adaptation of "the lively songs sung by seamen when heaving at the capstan" by Society Islanders on the island of Raiatea, which was visited by a whaling vessel on a voyage around the world from 1833 to 1836, recounted by Frederick Debell Bennett in his NARRATIVE OF A WHALING VOYAGE ROUND THE GLOBE, Vol. I (1840).

http://books.google.com/books?id=xo89AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA141&dq=capstan+songs+1840s&lr=&cd=38#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 04:28 PM

. 'What's more, at the time, Dana is on a larger brig the CATALINA, which one would think "needed" shanties more -- that is, if they were available.,'

Gibb, I may be wrong here but I would have thought the reverse would apply. The larger the ship, the more hands, the less need for shanties. If I remember rightly in the heyday of shantying they came into their own on the clippers and packets notorious for being undermanned.

'yet there was a plenty of room to move about in, more discipline and system, more men, and more good will.'

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 05:08 PM

Gibb,
Have you looked through the old thread currently refreshed 'Origin of sea chanteys'
Look at Barry Finn's post of 25th may 01 at 04.05
particularly the Robert Hay references for the early 1800s. You may have this of course.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 09:06 AM

Here is a reference from 1838 to singing "that good old song 'O! storm along!" from NA MOTU: OR, REEF-ROVING IN THE SOUTH SEAS, by Edward T. Perkins, published in 1854.

http://books.google.com/books?id=1zxCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA99&dq=Storm+along+Stormy&lr=&cd=46#v=onepage&q=Storm%20along%20Stormy&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 10:28 AM

In the 1854 publication of CHRISTY AND WHITE'S ETHIOPIAN MELODIES, in the section entitled WHITES NEW ILLUSTRATED ETHIOPIAN SONG BOOK, there is a version of "Storm along Stormy", as sung by "J. Smith, of White's Serenaders, at the Melodeon." (p. 71) Here is the link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=W2ZCAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA71&dq=%22Storm+along+Stormy%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22Storm%20along%20Stormy

According to Google Book Search, Charles White's NEW ETHIOPIAN SONG BOOK was published in 1848.

http://books.google.com/books?id=n6xRQAAACAAJ&dq=White's+New+Illustrated+Ethiopian+Song+Book&source=gbs_book_other_versions

These little booklets went through many publications and re-publications and combinations at that time. I think there is a good chance that this version of "Storm along Stormy" was around in this blackface minstrel version in the late 1840s.

In his original posting of this song to the "From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?" thread, Gibb said, "I am surprised to find this amongst minstrel songs. It would appear that it was taken from the work song repertoire into popular song; usually (I'd guess) it is the other way around."

thread.cfm?threadid=126347&messages=483#2864123

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 01:03 PM

In THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF WILLIAM REYNOLDS: UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION, 1838-1842, by William Reynolds, Nathaniel Philbrick, and Thomas Philbrick, there is mentioned, on page 97 (Penguin Edition), that

        "Many of the girls at Point Venus [Tahiti] have learned the chorus songs common with sailors in heaving up the Anchor & other work...Their voices were good, and the ditties of "So early in the morning the Sailor loves his bottle oh," "Round the corner, Sally," "Tally Ho, you know" & a dozen others were often heard along the beach for half the night." (sometime between September 18th & 24th, 1839)

Here is the link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=4fUTBBP6xRwC&pg=PA97&dq=%22Round+the+corner,+Sally%22&lr=&cd=18#v=onepage&q=%22Round%20the%20co

Two of these songs are also mentioned by Dana: "Round the corner, Sally," and "Tally Ho, you know".

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 01:25 PM

Here is a somewhat similar account from 1844, from Edward Lucett's book ROVINGS IN THE PACIFIC, FROM 1837 TO 1849. The event is recorded for August 19, 1844 at Huaheine, in the South Pacific. Lucett says,

        "I was desirous of procuring the original [words], and took a person well skilled in the language to write them down for me; when, to my great surprise, I discovered that both the words and the air were a beautiful modulation of our sailors' song of "Round the corner, Sally!" (p. 82)

Here is the link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=XyQ9oaSfaMwC&pg=PA82&dq=%22Round+the+corner,+Sally%22&lr=&cd=20#v=onepage&q=%22Round%20the%20co

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 04:06 PM

Excellent stuff, John.
Do we have any words/tune for 'Tally ho, you know'?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 04:56 PM

John
I think the 'Stormy' song is very significant. It obviously refers to 'stowing or screwing' cotton. The important question arises, is it derivative or imitative/parody/burlesque. In my experience almost all of the early minstrel songs were imitative/parody/burlesque rather than derivative. In other words it wasn't an actual song used for stowing cotton, but using perhaps some of the words and referring to some of the tasks done by the slaves. In which case the possibility arises of yet another shanty derived from a minstrel song.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: meself
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 05:00 PM

FYI: I've started a thread on "Chinese Work/Sea Songs/Shanties", inspired by this thread.

Subject: Lyr Add: TALLY-I-O
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 06:08 PM

Steve, the retired seaman James Wright sang the following for James W. Carpenter about 1928. The recording is awful and what's in brackets is solely my conjecture:

                              TALLY-I-O

                Tally-I-O was a jolly old soul,
                        Tally-I-O! Tally-I-O!
                Tally-I-O was a jolly old soul,
                        Come tally-I-O, you know!        

                What should I do with my rum, Tally-O?
                        Tally-I-O! Tally-I-O!        
                What should I do with my rum, Tally-O?
                        And sing tally-I-O, you know!

                We'll tell [?them we're sober] O Tally-O!
                        Tally-I-O! Tally-I-O!        
                We'll tell [?them we're sober], O Tally-O!
                        And sing tally-I-O, you know!

                Tally-I-O was a [?drunken] old soul,
                        Tally-I-O! Tally-I-O!        
                Tally-I-O was a [?drunken] old soul,
                        And sing tally-I-O, you know!

I think I posted this earlier, but it doesn't hurt to reprise it here.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 07:25 PM

. 'What's more, at the time, Dana is on a larger brig the CATALINA, which one would think "needed" shanties more -- that is, if they were available.,'

Gibb, I may be wrong here but I would have thought the reverse would apply. The larger the ship, the more hands, the less need for shanties. If I remember rightly in the heyday of shantying they came into their own on the clippers and packets notorious for being undermanned.

'yet there was a plenty of room to move about in, more discipline and system, more men, and more good will.'

You may be right, Steve. I missed the part about "more men," though that doesn't necessarily mean that on this brig there was a better ration of men:size than there was on the brig PILGRIM. However, you suggest another idea. If, say, the emergence of such shanties was very closely tied to packets specifically (clippers were not yet existing, as far as I know), then it may be that Dana is not so great a source. Though it is one of the few sources for its time period, it may be that more stuff of interest was going on elsewhere, which we don't see.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 08:01 PM

With regard to the NA MOTU reference that I posted above, I forgot that there was another reference to "Stormy" on p. 97. Here is what Lighter had in a note that first called this to my attention:

1854 Edward T. Perkins, "Na Motu, or Reef-Rovings in the South Seas" p. 97 [ref. to 1848; Perkins had served on an American whaling ship]:

         I dug his grave with a silver spade;
                O! bullies, O!
       And I lowered him down with a golden chain,
                A hundred years ago!


P. 99: "I jumped onto a rock, swung my tarpaulin, and sung that good old song—

                'O ! storm along !
                O! my roving blades, storm along, stormy!'"

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 08:17 PM

(oops, messed up the HTML in my last post.)

In my reading of Dana, from a few days ago, I did not feel confident that what I envision to have been a new class of shipboard work songs (i.e. chanties) had necessarily been adopted (not developed, as per my hypothesis) -- not at least from the evidence of Dana -- in a major way, if at all.

Whereas my hypothesis is that a new paradigm for work-singing -- roughly corresponding to halyard songs, or "chanties," as they came to be known -- was borrowed from African-American practices, I don't feel confident, from these 1830s references, that that borrowing had yet occurred on a large scale. That is, the Afr-American forms existed (rowing, cotton stowing, and fireman's songs), but had yet to be widely incorporated on large sailing vessels.

However, I forgot to acknowledge the two songs mentions which there is some good reason to believe had African-American roots. One is "Round the Corner, Sally," which, as will be seen in later decades, was used by Black Americans for rowing and corn-shucking. There is no proof of where it originated, but, as I said, some good reason to associate it with that culture. The other song is "Grog Time a Day." Thanks to John M.'s critical inquiries and Lighter's scholarship, we know that Dana's original manuscript was supposed to have included "Grog Time of Day" (and not just "Round the Corner," but "Round the Corner, Sally). We have already fairly established "Grog Time" as a song popular through the Caribbean and performed by Blacks. I offer this possible reasoning for why the existence of "Grog Time" does not contradict my earlier interpretation.

"Grog Time" seems to have been widely known across cultures as, perhaps, a popular song in those days. My evidence for this is that a play, TELEMACHUS, OR, THE ISLAND OF CALYPSO (a play, republished in 1879) was first performed in 1834, which gives a stage direction for: "Music – Grog time of day, boys" Set off the coast of "a West India island." It is followed by newly composed lyrics follow. The song's appearance in another fictional work, TAR BRUSH SKETCHES by Benjamin Fiferail, 1836. (FWIW, Lighter says elsewhere, "Given the date, one can probably assume that "Fiferail's" is the song Dana heard. If so, it doesn't seem to have been a one-line, one-pull shanty. I suppose it would have belonged to capstan work.")

So, I argue, "Grog Time" had entered the sphere of "popular music," by then, as opposed to being just a "folk" song that one would only pick up from hearing a "folk" from Culture X singing it. As for "Round the Corner," I don't know. It is mainly Dana's description of the format of these songs, along with some of what he doesn't mention (i.e. whereas otherwise he is very descriptive) that leaves me skeptical that "chanties, proper" had by then a wide spread among seamen.

I don't have the figures at hand -- so please take this with salt for now -- but I seem to remember from the book BLACK JACKS (there are tables/stats in the appendix) that 1820s-1830s were some of the peak years for Blacks in the Euro-American sailing trade. I still think this must have had some bearing on how chanties came to be adopted. However, if the available evidence so far is not showing great influence of African-American songs on the shipboard work-songs, then perhaps either: 1) The idea is overstated or 2) references to the proper contexts are just not available -- In other words, these Black seamen may have brought their musical influence to the (fully rigged) packet ship trade, especially via Gulf Coast ports rather than to Boston-California brigs like Dana's!

I have to check out the since-added 1830s references, now, to see what they add to the picture.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 09:36 PM

John Minear has added some 1830s references. Here (and following) is more commentary.

Here is a reference to the singing of "Highland Laddie" at the capstan in an effort to move the grounded [United States] ship "Peacock" into deeper water on [September] 22nd, 1835, near the Gulf of Mazeira. [coast of Arabia]

It's from an officer's journal. Here's the passage:

"On Tuesday morn, the 22d, the work of lightening was continued, and we saw, with feelings of regret, one half of our guns cast into the sea. The ship was lightened aloft by sending down the upper spars, and unbending the sails; and, on renewing our efforts, we had the pleasure to find that the ship moved and got into rather deeper water. The moment she began to move, new life was infused into all hands, and the men broke forth in a song and chorus, to which they kept time as they marched round the capstan, or hauled in the hawser by hand.
" ' Heave and she must go,' sang one as a leader in a high key, and all the men answered in chorus, in deep, manly tones ' Ho! cheerly.'
" ' Heave, and she will go.'
"'Ho! cheerly.'
" When she moved more easily, those at the capstan, sang to the tune of the ' Highland Laddie,'
"' I wish I were in New York town,'
    Bonny laddie, Highland laddie,' &c.

The shouts of "heave and go" sound like what Dana and others have described. This is exciting, however, in being the earliest (?) such reference to "Highland Laddie." Notably, the lyric uses the "places round the world" lyrical theme that turns out to be of major importance in chanties. This is a really significant piece of evidence! It foreshadows the appearance of "Highland Laddie " as a cotton-screwing chant. It sounds like they started singing Hieland Laddie once the load got lighter and they were able to shift to a march-like tempo.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 09:58 PM

In THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF WILLIAM REYNOLDS: UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION, 1838-1842, by William Reynolds, Nathaniel Philbrick, and Thomas Philbrick, there is mentioned, on page 97 (Penguin Edition), that

       "Many of the girls at Point Venus [Tahiti] have learned the chorus songs common with sailors in heaving up the Anchor & other work...Their voices were good, and the ditties of "So early in the morning the Sailor loves his bottle oh," "Round the corner, Sally," "Tally Ho, you know" & a dozen others were often heard along the beach for half the night." (sometime between September 18th & 24th, 1839)

Great to have corroborating evidence that "Round the corner, Sally" and "Tally Ho" were shipboard songs of the 1830s! Too bad it is vague, i.e. "in heaving up the Anchor & other work" -- i.e. were these capstan "ditties"? (The "Round the Corner" handed down via Hugill is a halyard chanty, but I am not getting a strong sense of that from these mentions.)

The other correspondence to note is between the 1831 Guyanese rowing song, "Right early in the marning, de neger like the bottley oh!" and this 1839 ship-transmitted "So early in the morning the Sailor loves his bottle oh."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 09:13 AM

Here is what may be a crossover between "Round the corner, Sally" and "Cheerily, Men". It comes from ETCHINGS OF A WHALING CRUISE, by John Ross Browne, and is dated 1846. The events described take place in October of 1842 (I think). The song is being used at the windless. (pp. 133-134)

        "Heave him up! O he yo!
                Butter and cheese for breakfast
        Raise the dead! O he yo!
                The steward he's a makin' swankey.
        Heave away! O he yo!
                Duff for dinner! Duff for dinner
        Now I see it! O he yo!
                Hurrah for the Cape Cod gals!
        Now I don't. O he yo!
                *Round the corner, Sally!*
        Up she comes! O he yo!
                Slap-jacks for supper!
        Re-re-ra-ra-oo-we ye yo ho! Them's 'um!"

http://books.google.com/books?id=AmtGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA134&dq=%22Round+the+corner,+Sally%22&lr=&cd=27#v=onepage&q=%22Round%20the%20c

Here is some discussion of "Cheerily, Men" as used by Melville, and there seems to be a connection between the song above and "Cheerily", at least in Melville.

http://books.google.com/books?id=I4fBI3yuj7MC&pg=PA22&dq=%22O+he+yo!%22&cd=9#v=onepage&q=%22O%20he%20yo!%22&f=false

The other interesting thing about this song is the phrase "O he yo!" A Google Book Search will lead you to seeing this as "O-hi-o".

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 11:30 AM

Here's an oddity of a shanty:

From Black Hands, White Sails, by Patricia C. McKissack & Frederick L. McKissack, published by Scholastic Press, New York, US, © 1999, p. 85.

Hi Ho My Dandy-oh

Oh a dandy ship and a dandy crew,
Hi Ho My Dandy-oh!
A dandy mate and a skipper too,
Hi Ho My Dandy-oh!

Oh what shall I do for my dandy crew?
Hi Ho My Dandy-oh!
I'll give them wine and brandy too,
Hi Ho My Dandy-oh!

Notes:

From a whaling ship's log (date unknown) transcribing the singing of the Black cook "Doctor" while the crew were "cutting out" a whale, according to the historian A. Howard Clark.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 02:30 PM

Trying to summarize a bit, so far....

1780s-90s:

General references to African and New World Black work-songs, from Mali, Grenada.

1800s:

General references to African-American work-songs and their style, from Martinique;
Rowing songs from Georgia, South Carolina, Guyana, Surinam;
Windlass songs, aboard vessels with sailors incl. from Northumberland and Holland.

1810s:

2 stevedore songs from Jamaica that resemble chanteys;
African-American rowing songs from Antigua, Virgin Islands;
Singing and fife-playing at the capstan on a British war ship.

1820s:

Rowing songs, from Georgia, Virginia, St. Thomas;
A version of "Cheerly Men" for topsail halyards on a brig near Quebec;
Fictional capstan shantying in the Arctic; capstan (?) song of British tars in London; chant for pulling known to an ex-British navy man. [I've also seen another reference to the phrase "British capstan song" from 1825.]

1830s:

African-American rowing songs in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Guyana, and "West Indies"
African-American firemen's songs on the Ohio and in general
Cotton stowing songs in Mobile Bay
"Ditties" at the capstan on an East India Company ship
A song at the pump windlass on a transatlantic voyage
Songs "for capstan and falls" and for catting anchor, on brigs off the coast of California
A capstan song on a ship off the coast of Arabia
The adoption of capstan songs and sailors' "ditties" by locals of Tahiti and the Society Islands

Summary:
Through the 1830s, references to African-American work-songs for rowing continued to appear. Since the 20s and continuing through the 30s, cotton-stowing had work-songs. The work-songs of the Black firemen/stokers in steamboats emerge in the 1830s. These all seem share some features, though it is difficult to say how similar they actually were; some songs crossed occupations.

At the same time, there is increasing reference to the songs/ditties for capstan. Though the practice was older, new songs were being added, some of which were probably popular songs of the time, for example "Grog Time of Day," which crossed cultures. By the end of the 30s, there were songs for the pump windlass that may have shared a form with what is ow thought of as a halyard chanty form. At least one instance of the jump from Black rowing songs to (perhaps from?) deepwater sailors' songs --and then to Pacific Islanders! -- is found at the end of this period in "Bottle O." "Round the Corn/er" is another song that seemed to float around between cultures and occupations; it is quite unclear to me whether it had any sort of definite form at all, or if it was a common catch-phrase.

I still wonder if, by the 1830s, the African-American style work-songs that would come to typify much of the "chanty" repertoire had yet any significant influence on the deepwater sailors.

I'd love to hear more opinions on this subject -- on whether one feels that the sort of chanty forms typified by "Roll the Cotton Down" and "Blow the Man Down" and "Whiskey Johnny" and "Hanging Johnny" etc etc had entered the scene by the 1820s or 1830s.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: mikesamwild
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:33 PM

i think the melodeon mentioned in one reply on Stormy was a harmonium type instrument not a squeezebox and not sung at sea anyway ( neither with concertinas)

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: mikesamwild
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:38 PM

Has anyone gone into any real detail on the impact of minstrel show music. It seems to have a massive impact on popular music in its day
and likely into shanties

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:55 PM

Hi Mike,
Yes I agree the impact of the minstrel stuff from about 1844 onwards is dramatic. They were the Beatles songs of their day and had enormous influence both at sea and on land.

Gibb,
Am in complete agreement on the later arrival of halyard shanties.

'Round the Corner Sally' comes from the minstrel influence. Lady of easy virtue. see Hugill p389. Its use as a reference to Cape Horn, if ever used in that way, probably came later.

Charley, what evidence is there to suggest that the cook's song was a shanty?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:59 PM

Gibb,
What I meant to imply by the 'Round the Corner, Sally' statement is that it is a well-worn phrase with a meaning and is used elsewhere other than shanties so if its name crops up at random it doesn't necessarily mean it is anything to do with the shanty of that name.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 04:12 PM

See this note and the one that follows it for more on "Round the Corner Sally":

thread.cfm?threadid=126347&messages=488#2874274

I think that it is unclear which way the influences went on this song. It could just as easily have gone from chanty to blackface minstrel. Emmett wrote his song "Ole Aunt Sally", which contains the single line in the chorus about "round the corner, Sally", in 1843, and we have at least one earlier reference to the chanty (1839) that assumes that it has been out there for a while (Reynolds).

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 06:36 PM

Absolutely, the direction of influence between the different sources is a minefield. In most cases I would imagine influences were flying back and forth between the different genres at quite a rate. Some channels of influence are more obvious than others.

African-American culture parodied/utilised in minstrel genre.
Land-based work song on water-based worksong.
Once the minstrel craze took off - universal influence.
To mention but a few.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 02:34 PM

I'd like to begin pulling together the references to stuff going on in the 1840s. This means culling from posts already made. Well, here goes a start.

To begin with rowing songs again.

This was posted by Lighter, 1 March 2010. I hope my copy-pasting is not objectionable; I prefer to do that rather than link, here, so we can see all the texts in one place.

//
The American Journal of Music and Musical Vistor (Feb. 25, 1845), p.
53, gives what may be the earliest ex. of an American shanty printed
with its tune. After several verbosely chatty paragraphs typical of
the period, the anonymous writer offers "Heaving Anchor. A Sailor
Song. Furnished by N. C.," a "lad who, several years since, used to
fold our papers" and who has "recently returned from a voyage to
Smyrna, up the Mediterranean." The text:

Then walk him up so lively,
Ho, O, heave O,
Then walk him up so lively, hearties,
Ho, O, heave O.

I'm Bonny of the Skylark,
Ho, O, heave O,
Then walk him up so lively, hearties,
Ho, O, heave, O.

I'm going away to leave you,
Ho, O, heave O,
Then walk, &c.


The writer then notes that in "rowing, the words are slightly altered,
as follows":

Then walk him up so lively,
Row, Billy, row,
Then walk him up so lively, hearties,
Row, Billy, row.

I'm Bunny of the Skylark,
Row, Billy, row,
Then walk, &c.

I'm going away to leave you,
Row, Billy, row,
I'm going, &c.

Sorry I can't reproduce the modal tune, but it isn't much. Its shape
resembles that of "Bounty was a Packet Ship," but I wouldn't say
they're clearly related. The solo lines, "Then walk him up so lively,
hearties" interestingly fit the meter of Dana's "Heave Away, My Hearty
Bullies!" (Plus the word "hearty" appears, FWIW.)

What I think is more important than a possible connection to any of
Dana's shanties is the sheer primitiveness of this. Of the various
shanties "N.C." presumably heard on his voyage to Smyrna, why would he
remember this one? Or to put it another way, if tuneful shanties with
interesting lyrics were being sung (like "Rio Grande" and
"Shenandoah"), why report only this one? Surely the editor of the
magazine would have preferred to print a better song. The magazine
appeared several years before the possible "shanty boom" of the
California Gold Rush, though that too may mean nothing.

It doesn't pay to overinterpret, but one does get the feeling that
"Ho, O, Heave O" (which almost sounds like a Hebridean waulking
song)may be close in form to one of the earliest sea shanties "as we
know them," and that Dana's lost shanties may have been not much
better (a possible explanation of why he didn't offer any lyrics).
//

I want to call attention between the alleged shift (whichever direction) between rowing and capstan songs. The shape of the lyric is like a typical halyard chantey. That that makes sense for rowing, too. It is not "typical" for capstan, however, due to the nature of capstan work, it is no less likely IMO. FWIW, the song strikes me (without having seen the tune) as similar to "Blow, Boys, Blow." In support of that impression, I offer this rowing text recently discovered by John M.

Row, bullies, row

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 02:39 PM

The firemen's songs continued in the 1840s, too.

THE BALTIMORE PHOENIX AND BUDGET, 1(11), Feb 1842, carried a story with this line in reference to a steamboat on the Ohio:

"The half-naked negro firemen busily casting huge sticks of wood into
the mouths of the row of yawning furnaces beneath the serried boilers,
accompanying their labor by a loud and not unmusical song;"

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 03:07 PM

And, of course, stevedore songs continued. One might suppose there was a flow of these songs between the firemen on the steamboats and the stevedores that loaded those boats. The following is a description of the songs of stevedores loading a steamboat in New Orleans in 1841. The "extempore" text makes topical reference to two Austrian ballet dancers that were in town at the time.

from, THE ART OF BALLET (1915)

"Fanny [one of the dancers] was an especial favourite, and when the
sisters left New Orleans, some niggers, who were hoisting freight from
the hold of an adjacent steamboat—and niggers are notoriously apt at
catching up topical subjects—thus chanted, as the vessel bearing the
dancers left the wharf:

Fanny, is you going up de ribber?
       Grog time o' day
When all dese here's got Elssler feber?
       Oh, hoist away!
De Lor' knows what we'll do widout you,
       Grog time o' day
De toe an' heel won't dance widout you.
       Oh, hoist away!
Day say you dances like a fedder
       Grog time o' day
Wid t'ree t'ousand dollars all togedder.
       Oh, hoist away!"

It is "Grog time of Day" appearing again, however, the form really does not match the previously seen versions. My belief is that the phrase "Grog time of Day" had become a free floating one (perhaps like "round the corner, sally") and separated from the tune and framework of the widespread "West Indian" song. Here, actually, the form is much more like a halyard chantey (cf. the 1811 Jamaicans, probably at the capstan). And from the words "hoist away," one imagines that they were using a hauling technique for loading. Personally, this, too, looks like a close fit to the "Blow, boys, blow" framework, but that match is not so significant, because very many songs fit that mold.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 03:26 PM

In the interest of getting the actual texts into this thread, here is the information on the "rowing text" that Gibb refers to above. My transcription in the other thread is skewed and has been corrected here.

"Here is a version of "Row, Bullies Row" from 1857. It is in THE KNICKERBOCKER, VOL L., 1857, in an article entitled "The Life of a Midshipmen", by "John Jenkins" (?).

http://books.google.com/books?id=ybXPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA11&dq=%22O+Shenandoh+my+bully+boy%22&lr=&cd=10#v=onepage&q=&f=false

He is at the Brooklyn Naval Yard and is being rowed out to his first assignment on board the US Frigate "Shenandoah". It is presented as a rowing song:

"Oh! I do love that good, old bottle!
   Row, bullies, row!
Oh! I do love that good, old bottle!
   Row, my bullies, row!
Why do you love that good, old bottle?
    Row, bullies, row!
Why do you love that good, old bottle?
   Row, my bullies, row!
I love it 'cause it suits my throttle!
   Row, bullies, row!
I love it 'cause it suits my throttle!
    Row, my bullies, row!

   After singing five more verses in the same elegant strain, we happened to pass a bum-boat, in which were seated a fat, old white woman and a negro boy, whereupon the singers roared out with great glee, and in a higher key than before:

'Yonder sits a dear old lady!
   Row, bullies, row!
Yonder sits a dear old lady!
   Row, my bullies, row!
How do you know she is a lady?
   Row, bullies, row!
How do you know she is a lady?
    Row, my bullies, row!
I know her by her nigger baby!
    Row, bullies, row!
I know her by her nigger baby!   
    Row, my bullies, row!"

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 03:39 PM

Let's segue from that sort of stevedore-ing to another: the cotton-stowers. Charley Noble, on 16 Feb. 2010, shared the source SOME RECOLLECTIONS by Captain Charles P. Low, 1906.

The author had shipped as a seaman in a packet ship TORONTO from New York to London circa 1844-1844.

Here is a passage noting the connection between "hoosiers", deepwater sailors, and singing chanties:

The Toronto was double the size of the Horatio and every spar and sail was heavy, so as to stand the heavy weather of the North Atlantic. She was fitted to carry one hundred cabin passengers and three or four hundred in the steerage. In those days there were no steamers and as every one had to go to Europe in these packets the cabins were beautifully furnished and the fare was as good as at any hotel in New York. We had a crew of thirty seamen and four ordinaries, no boys. The crew
was made up of the hardest kind of men; they were called "hoosiers,"
working in New Orleans or Mobile during the winter at stowing ships
with cotton, and in the summer sailing in the packet ships. They were
all good chantey men; that is, they could all sing at their work and
were good natured and could work hard, but they did not care much
about the officers and would not be humbugged or hazed. Besides this
large crew, we had as steerage passengers twenty men from the ship
Coromandel, an East India ship that had come home from a two years'
voyage, who were going to London on a spree. The steerage passage cost
only "fifteen dollars and find themselves." They were also a jolly set
of fellows and when we reefed topsails or made sail they all joined in
with us, so that our work was easy and we could reef and hoist all
three topsails at once, with a different song for each one. In the dog
watch, from six to eight in the evening, they would gather on the
forecastle and sing comic songs and negro melodies. There were two or three violins and accordions with them, and the time passed very much more pleasantly than on board the Horatio, where gambling was the order of the day; besides, after being on short allowance for two months I had as much as I could eat.

Whilst unloading cargo in London:

The sailors discharged the cargo and hove the sling
loads up by a winch at the mainmast. If very heavy we took the load to
the capstan; and while we were heaving away, at eleven in the morning,
the sailors struck up "Roll and go for that white pitcher, roll and
go," and the steward would come up with a great pitcher filled with
rum, and give each of us a drink. The same thing was repeated at four
in the afternoon. This was varied when we were taking in cargo, which
consisted of a great deal of railroad iron and we had to pass it in
from a lighter alongside and then down the hold. It was terribly hard
work, and instead of the rum, a quart of beer from the tap room was
brought to each one at eleven in the morning and four in the
afternoon. I do not think we could have held out without it.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 04:16 PM

Time now, then, to add the hoosier / cotton-stower song references about the 1840s.

About the first, John Minear says this:

"There is a book by Charles Erskine entitled TWENTY YEARS BEFORE THE MAST - WITH
THE MORE THRILLING SCENES AND INCIDENTS WHILE CIRCUMNAVIGATING THE
GLOBE UNDER THE COMMAND OF THE LATE ADMIRAL CHARLES WILKES 1838-1842.
This book was not published until 1896, but it would seem to record
events that happened much earlier. Erskine is in New Orleans on board
the ship "Charles Carol". I think that this was sometime in September
of 1845 (scroll back up several pages until you come to Erskine's
departure from New York and there you will find a date - I realize
there is a discrepancy between the title and this date). He gives two
cotton-screwing songs: "Bonnie Laddie" and "Fire Maringo". The overlap
with Nordhoff [BELOW] is interesting."

It is perhaps the most personal account of cotton-screwing, and underscores the flow between occupations of sailor and stevedore. Erskine had arrive on a ship at New Orleans. Here is the passage, with song texts.

///
The day after our arrival the crew formed themselves into two gangs and obtained employment at screwing cotton by the day. We accepted the captain's offer to make the ship our home, and slept in the forecastle and ate our grub at the French market. As the lighter, freighted with cotton, came alongside the ship in which we were at work, we hoisted it on board and dumped it into the ship's hold, then stowed it in tiers so snugly it would have been impossible to have found space enough left over to hold a copy of The Boston Herald. With the aid of a set of jack-screws and a ditty, we would
stow away huge bales of cotton, singing all the while.
The song enlivened the gang and seemed to make
the work much easier. The foreman- often sang this
ditty, the rest of the gang joining in the chorus:

"Were you ever in Boston town,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie?
Yes, I've been in Boston town,
Where the ships sail up and down,
My bonnie Highland laddie, ho !

"Were you ever in Mobile Bay,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie?
Yes, I've been in Mobile Bay,
Screwing cotton by the day,
My bonnie Highland laddie, ho 1

"Were you ever in Miramichi,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie?
Yes, I've been in Miramichi,
Where you make fast to a tree,
My bonnie Highland laddie, ho !

"Were you ever in Quebec,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie?
Yes, I have been in Quebec,
Stowing timber on the deck,
My bonnie Highland laddie, ho!'

At another time we would sing:

"Lift him up and carry him along,
   Fire, maringo, fire away;
Put him down where he belongs,
   Fire, maringo, fire away;
Ease him down and let him lay,
   Fire, maringo, fire away;
Screw him, and there he'll stay,
   Fire, maringo, tire away;
Stow him in his hole below,
   Fire, maringo, tire away;
Say he must, and then he'll go,
   Fire, maringo, fire away.
In New Orleans they say,
Fire, maringo, fire away,
That General Jackson's gained the day,
   Fire, maringo, fire away! "

I found stowing cotton in a ship's hold to be the most exhausting labor I had ever performed. We wore nothing but trousers, with a bandana handkerchief tied over our heads. The hold was a damp, dark place. The thermometer stood at nearly one hundred, not a breath of air stirred, and our bodies were reeking with perspiration. This was more than my frail body could endure. When I was paid, Saturday evening, with eight silver Spanish dollars for my four days' labor, I came to the conclusion that they were the hardest eight dollars I had ever earned, and that there would be no more screwing cotton by the day for me.
////

The scene also drives home the fact of what must have been a sharing of songs/work between Black and White labourers. The 1820s cotton-screwing reference was to Blacks singing songs in Svannah. Gosse's 1838 reference in Alabama says that "the crew" stowed the cotton, which to me suggests that by then, non-Black labourers may have already begun the work, too. The song, "fire the ringo," however, sounds *to me* as something distinctly African-American. By early 1840s, via Low's account, we know that non-Black "hoosiers" had emerged. And by mid 1840s, via Erskine, this is confirmed. "Fire Maringo" seems to have remained a customary song of the trade, while now "Hieland Laddie" --very originally, Scots -- is added. An 1835 reference off the coast of Arabia had put Hieland Laddie as a capstan song. We may have evidence of the "shanty mart" (i.e. Hugill) exchange here, where a song such as "Hieland Laddie" was brought by European sailors to the cotton-stowing context before being further molded. Then again, it is possible that "Hieland Laddie" was taken from the cotton-stowers (having been borrowed much earlier from Euro sources) by that mid 1830s date -- if by then (re: Gosse) the multi-ethnic labour had already begun. (For now, I am thinking the latter scenario less likely).

cont...

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 04:51 PM

...cotton-screwing cont.

Nordhoff's THE MERCHANT VESSEL, 1855

Nordhoff observed cotton-stowers in Mobile Bay (loading for Liverpool), sometime around 1845-1852. His account is famous for being the first (?) to clearly label this sort of work-song genre as "chant" and the lead singer as "chanty-man". Here is what he says:

////

All was now bustle and preparation. Numberless matters were to be attended to before the ship was really ready to take in cotton—the ballast was to be squared, dunnage prepared, the water-casks, provisions and sails to be lugged on deck, out of the way of cargo, the nicely painted decks covered with planks, on which to roll cotton, topgallant and royal yards crossed, and tackles prepared for hoisting in our freight. We had scarcely gotten all things in proper trim, before a lighter-load of cotton came down, and with it, a stevedore and several gangs of the screw men, whose business it is to load cotton-ships. Screwing cotton is a regular business, requiring, besides immense strength, considerable experience in the handling of bales, and the management of the jack-screws.

Several other ships had " taken up" cargo at the same time we did, and the Bay soon began to wear an appearance of life—lighters and steamboats bringing down cotton, and the cheerful songs of the screw-gangs resounding over the water, as the bales were driven tightly into the hold. Freights had suddenly risen, and the ships now loading were getting five-eighths of a penny per pound. It was therefore an object to get into the ship as many pounds as she could be made to hold. The huge, unwieldy bales brought to Mobile from the plantations up the country, are first compressed in the cotton presses, on shore, which at once diminishes their size by half, squeezing the soft fiber together, till a bale is as solid, and almost as hard as a lump of iron. In this condition they are brought on board, and stowed in the hold, where the stevedore makes a point of getting three bales into a space in which two could be barely put by hand. It is for this purpose the jack-screws are used. A ground tier is laid first; upon this, beginning aft and forward, two bales are placed with their inner covers projecting out, and joining, leaving a triangular space vacant within. A hickory post is now placed against the nearest beam, and with this for a fulcrum, the screw is applied to the two bales at the point where the corners join, and little by little they come together, are straightened up, and fill up the triangular space. So great is the force applied, that not unfrequently the ship's decks are raised off the
stancheons which support them, and the seams are torn violently asunder.

Five hands compose a gang, four to work the screws, and one to do the headwork—for no little shrewd management is necessary to work in the variously sized bales. When a lighter-load of cotton comes along side, all hands turn to and hoist it in. It is piled on deck, until wanted below. As soon as the lighter is empty, the gangs go down to the work of stowing it. Two bales being placed and the screws applied, the severe labor begins. The gang, with their shirts off, and handkerchiefs tied about their heads, take hold the handles of the screws, the foreman begins the song, and at the end of every two lines the worm of the screw is forced to make one revolution, thus gaining perhaps two inches. Singing, or chanting as it is called, is an invariable accompaniment to working in cotton, and many of the screw-gangs have an endless collection of songs, rough and uncouth, both in words and melody, but answering well the purposes of making all pull together, and enlivening the heavy toil. The foreman is the chanty-man, who sings the song, the gang only joining in the chorus, which comes in at the end of every line, and at the end of which again comes the pull at the screw handles. One song generally suffices to bring home the screw, when a new set is got upon the bale, and a fresh song is commenced.

The chants, as may be supposed, have more of rhyme than reason in them. The tunes are generally plaintive and monotonous, as are most of the capstan tunes of sailors, but resounding over the still waters of the Bay, they had a fine effect. There was one, in which figured that mythical personage "Old Stormy," the rising and falling cadences of which, as they swept over the Bay on the breeze, I was never tired of listening to. It may amuse some of my readers to give here a few stanzas of this and some other of these chants. " Stormy" is supposed to have died, and the first song begins:
      
    Old Stormy, he is dead and gone,
Chorus—Carry him along, boys, carry him along,
      Oh! carry him to his long home,
Chorus—Carry him to the burying-ground.
      Oh! ye who dig Old Stormy's grave,
Chorus—Carry him along, boys, carry him along,
       Dig it deep and bury him safe,
Chorus—Carry him to the burying-ground.
       Lower him down with a golden chain,
Chorus—Carry him along, boys, carry him along,
          Then he'll never rise again,
    Chorus—Carry him to the burying-ground.
Grand Chorus—Way-oh-way-oh-way—storm along,
Way—you rolling crew, storm along stormy.

And so on ad infinitum, or more properly speaking, till the screw is run out.
There was another in praise of Dollars, commencing
thus:

       Oh, we work for a Yankee Dollar,
Chorus—Hurrah, see—man—do,
       Yankee dollar, bully dollar,
Chorus—Hurrah, see—man—dollar.
         Silver dollar, pretty dollar,
Chorus—Hurrah, see—man—do,
          I want your silver dollars,
Chorus—Oh, Captain, pay me dollar.

Another, encouraging the gang:

Lift him up and carry him along,
Fire, maringo, fire away,
Put him down where he belongs.

Fire, maringo, fire away.
Ease him down and let him lay,
   Fire, maringo, fire away,
Screw him in, and there he'll stay,
Fire, maringo, fire away.
Stow him in his hole below,
Fire, maringo, fire away,
Say he must, and then he'll go,
Fire, maringo, fire away.

Yet another, calling to their minds the peculiarities of many spots with which they have become familiar in their voyagings:

       Were you ever in Quebec,
Chorus—Bonnie laddie, highland laddie,
       Stowing timber on the deck,
Chorus—My bonnie highland laddie, oh.
       Were you ever in Dundee,
Chorus—Bonnie laddie, highland laddie,
       There some pretty ships you'll see,
Chorus—My bonnie highland laddie, oh.
       Were you ever in Merrimashee.
Chorus—Bonnie laddie, highland laddie,
       Where you make fast to a tree,
Chorus—My bonnie highland laddie, oh.
       Were you ever in Mobile Bay,
Chorus—Bonnie laddie, highland laddie,
       Screwing cotton by the day,
Chorus—My bonnie highland laddie, oh.

These samples, which might be continued to an almost indefinite extent, will give the reader an idea of what capstan and cotton songs, or chants, are. The tunes are the best portion, of course, in all such rude performances. But these are only to be heard on board ship.

The men who yearly resort to Mobile Bay to screw cotton, are, as may be imagined, a rough set. They are mostly English and Irish sailors, who, leaving their vessels here, remain until they have saved a hundred or two dollars, then ship for Liverpool, London, or whatever port may be their favorite, there to spree it all away—and return to work out another supply. Screwing cotton is, I think, fairly entitled to be called the most exhausting labor that is done on ship board. Cooped up in the dark and confined hold of a vessel, the gangs tug from morning till night at the screws, the perspiration running off them like water, every muscle strained to its utmost. But the men who follow it prefer it to going to sea. They have better pay, better living, and above all, are not liable to be called out at any minute in the ni":ht, to fight the storm, or worse yet, to work the ship against a headwind. Their pay is two dollars per day, and their provisions furnished. They sleep upon the cotton bales in the hold, but few of them bringing beds aboard with them. Those we had on board, drank more liquor and chewed more tobacco, than any set of men I ever saw elsewhere, the severe labor seeming to require an additional stimulus. Altogether, I thought theirs a rough life, not at all to be envied them.

Four weeks sufficed to load our barque, and the last key-bale was scarce down the hatchway, when "Loose the topsails, and heave short on the cable," was the word, and we proceeded to get underweigh for Liverpool. Our new crew had come on board several days previously, and proved to be much better than the average to be obtained in cotton ports, places where sailors are generally scarce, and the rough screw-gangs mostly fill their places.
/////


Nordhoff gives so much detail --though much still is unclear to us, today-- that I think this bears a close reading and lots of discussion. I think what Nordhoff describes might have been some sort of turning point (no pun intended). What do you guys think?

I am going to break for now, but re-reading this with the earlier references clearly established before it, I am starting to think new things about the directions of "flow" of this sort of songs.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 31 Mar 10 - 01:17 PM

"the cheerful songs of the screw-gangs resounding over the water..."

Hmm, not "plaintive"? Not minor? Not "wild"?

But then,

"The tunes are generally plaintive and monotonous,..."

Ah, OK. There we go.

"...many of the screw-gangs have an endless collection of songs, rough and uncouth, both in words and melody, but answering well the purposes of making all pull together, and enlivening the heavy toil."
"One song generally suffices to bring home the screw, when a new set is got upon the bale, and a fresh song is commenced."

Sound like there had to have been a lot of songs. Perhaps a whole repetoire, like the body of songs that seems to have appeared rather quickly aboard ships around/after this time? Funny, though, that if there were so many songs, we see the repetition of a few.

"the foreman begins the song, and at the end of every two lines the worm of the screw is forced to make one revolution, thus gaining perhaps two inches."
"The foreman is the chanty-man, who sings the song, the gang only joining in the chorus, which comes in at the end of every line, and at the end of which again comes the pull at the screw handles."

We've discussed (speculated) before about the method and style of the action of cotton-screwing -- still, as I see it, with no definite answers. Pushing? Pulling? Both (i.e. depending on one's position)? But leaving that aside for the moment, there is still the question of WHEN the "timed effort" occurred, i.e. in relation to the song texts.

I have wanted to imagine a pattern like that of typical halyard chanteys. If "Fire Maringo" were a halyard chanty, that pattern would go like this (CAPITAL letters means the time when the effort occurs):

Lift him up and carry him along,
FIRE, maringo, FIRE away,
Put him down where he belongs.
FIRE, maringo, FIRE away.

However, "at the end of every two lines the worm of the screw is forced to make one revolution." Which are the "2 lines"? Is it the whole rhyming (not necessarily) stanza as above? Or is it just, e.g.

Lift him up and carry him along,
FIRE, maringo, FIRE away,

?
Is the "one revolution" -- assumed to be literally 360 degrees-- accomplished through 1 pull? 2 pulls (FIRE,...FIRE)? 4 pulls (the whole "stanza")?

Based on this usage of "line"..."the chorus, which comes in at the end of every line, and at the end of which again comes the pull at the screw handles"... it sounds as though "two lines constitute" the whole stanza. So, 2 or 4 pulls, probably. But which is it? This sentence implies one pull per chorus. That is different than the typical halyard pattern, above. Perhaps the work was really too hard to manage 2 pulls. And WHEN did the pull occur? "At the end." What? Are we to imagine a Cheerly Man / old-school pulling sort of pattern, like

Do me Johnny Bowker, come roll me in the clover
CH: Do me Johnny Bowker DO!

?

That could work for "Fire Maringo":

Lift him up and carry him along,
Fire, maringo, Fire a-WAY,

But it is awkward for "Hieland Laddie":

Were you ever in Quebec,
Bonnie laddie, highland LAD-die,

Perhaps the timing of the pull was like in a halyard chanty, but with the second pull of each refrain, only, e.g.

Lift him up and carry him along,
fir, maringo, FIRE away,

That would sort of put it "at the end."

Why the need for a "grand chorus" in one of the songs? In shipboard chanties, grand choruses generally only occurred (or so we now believe) in capstan (or pump) songs, where much time was to pass, but no specific "timed exertion" was an issue. So,

"The tunes are generally plaintive and monotonous, as are most of the capstan tunes of sailors..."

Is he implying that these songs were a shared repertoire with capstan songs (if so, why does he not say so earlier, and why does he seem to particularize them as "chants")? Or is he just saying they are similar? Should we be looking to imagine the cotton-stower songs as more like capstan songs? -- in which case the "timed pull" issue gets very confusing indeed (there being no timed pull in a capstan chantey). Or, is it possible that the body of halyard chanties was not there yet -- to which Nordhoff could have made a comparison if it was -- and that capstan songs were just the closest thing? And since when were the capstan tunes of sailors "plaintive"? That doesn't sound like the character of the "ditties" like "Heave and Go my Nancy O"! Was something long in effect by this point -- or just not in existence at all?

"These samples, which might be continued to an almost indefinite extent, will give the reader an idea of what capstan and cotton songs, or chants, are. The tunes are the best portion, of course, in all such rude performances. But these are only to be heard on board ship."

OK, so now "capstan songs" are "chants"? Still unclear how the work action of screwing cotton may have transfered to capstan (or vice versa). Perhaps the songs were exceedingly slow (but he says "cheerful"?), which leads to that sort of ambiguity of "Shenandoah" type songs, in which there is not necessarily any strong or regular pulse. In another current thread, VirginiaTam is asking about the function of "Shallow Brown" -- that is another that has the "look" of a halyard chantey, but may have been used, in lugubrious fashion, for capstan.

"There was one, in which figured that mythical personage "Old Stormy"..."

This does not suggest that he was familiar with any popular minstrel version of "Stormy."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 31 Mar 10 - 02:14 PM

This is really late and not in your time frame at all, but I think it is interesting for a more contemporary comparison with regard to rowing songs. It is an article from SCRIBNERS MAGAZINE, VOLUME LXVIII, July-December, 1920, entitled "The Trail to Kaieteur", which is in British Guiana, by Eleanor Beers Lestrade (with photos).

"Sunday, May 11 (1919?)

        We, and our men and supplies were loaded into a thirty-foot boat that was to take us to the next falls at Amatuk, and we left Kangaruma soon after sunrise. The bowman stood or squatted in the bow, then came four pairs of paddlers, then Jones half asleep, then the four of us, and in the stern three paddlers and the captain, who steered. The men had short paddles that threw the water high in the air with every stroke, and clicked in unison on the gunwales of the boat.
        There was a tremendous current, and even keeping as close to the bank as we did, our progress was very slow. When we watched the water that raced past us, it seemed as if we were flying, but when we watched the bank we saw that we scarcely moved.
        One of the paddlers called out, "Water me, water me." Another splashed some water with his paddle. This meant that the first paddler had a song that he could not rest until he had sung, and the other by splashing the water showed that he was waiting with the greatest impatience to hear the song and join in the chorus. These songs, or chanteys, were very simple and monotonous in words and music, but wonderfully melodious when sun by a dozen happy, lusty blacks paddling up a tropical river. The men clicked their paddles on the gunwales in time to the chantey, and paddled much better when they sang.
        Sometimes we could understand and make sense out of the words, but more often not. The chantey-man would sing the first line of the song, and the others would join in the second line. If it was a pretentious song with more than two lines, the chantey-man would sing the third line, and the chorus would wind up the verse. This would be repeated over and over again, until the chantey-man was tired, or thought of a new song he would rather sing. Then he would call, "Compliment! Compliment!" and we would clap, and tell him we were enchanted with his performance.
        As it was Sunday, they interspersed the programme with "Sunday chanteys." One of these ran something like this:

        "David mourning for his son, Absalom;
                (Chorus) Son Absalom, son Absalom.
        David mourning for his son, Absalom;
                (Chorus) Absalom, Absalom, Absalom."

        I remember the chorus only of the other Sunday chantey, which ran:
        
        "Fire burning down below, hey ho!
        Fire burning down below!"

        Our favorite chantey, the words of which almost made sense, was: "Blow de man down." The man was to be blown down with a bottle of rum or a bottle of gin, or anything that wasn't prohibition, and he was to be blown down to Amatuk, Waratuk, or Kaieteur Falls, or anywhere the chantey-man wanted him blown. With this range of variations to choose from, this song could be kept up much longer than the others." (pp. 566-570)

http://books.google.com/books?id=814AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA568&dq=chantey&lr=&cd=35#v=onepage&q=chantey&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 12:26 PM

To complete the cotton-stowing song references of (attributed to) the 1840s, I must enter in the source already mentioned by Steve Gardham above, in the discussion of Lyman's ideas on the etymology of "chantey."

It's TWENTY YEARS AT SEA, by F.S. Hill, pub. 1893. Hill describes cotton-stowers as he saw/heard them in Mobile Bay in 1844, as follows:

////
However, the first lighter laden with cotton soon came down from Mobile, and with it a gang of stevedores who were to stow this precious cargo. At that time freights to Liverpool were quoted at " three half - pence a pound," which represented the very considerable sum of fifteen dollars a bale. So it was very much to the interest of our owners to get every pound or bale squeezed into the ship that was possible.

The cotton had already been subjected to a very great compression at the steam cotton presses in Mobile, which reduced the size of the bales as they had come from the plantations fully one half. It was now to be forced into the ship, in the process of stowing by the stevedores, with very powerful jackscrews, each operated by a gang of four men, one of them the " shantier," as he was called, from the French word chanteur, a vocalist. This man's sole duty was to lead in the rude songs, largely improvised, to the music of which his companions screwed the bales into their places. The pressure exerted in this process was often sufficient to lift the planking of the deck, and the beams of ships were at times actually sprung.

A really good shantier received larger pay than the other men in the gang, although his work was much less laborious. Their songs, which always had a lively refrain or chorus, were largely what are now called topical, and often not particularly chaste. Little incidents occurring on board ship that attracted the shantier's attention were very apt to be woven into his song, and sometimes these were of a character to cause much annoyance to the officers, whose little idiosyncrasies were thus made public.
One of their songs, I remember, ran something like this —

"Oh, the captain's gone ashore,
For to see the stevedore.
Chorus : Hie bonnie laddie, and we'll all go ashore.

"But the mate went ashore,
And got his breeches tore,
    Hie bonnie laddie," etc.
////

The improvised and topical nature of the songs is consistent with what we have read of Black American work-songs, though we know from earlier that non-Blacks were also involved in this work by this time.

"Hieland Laddie" as a lyrical theme is here again, but it appears to be a different song (i.e. different "framework") than in the other references. This one has the phrase "captain's gone ashore," which had been cited by Dana. It was also a phrase in "Grog time of Day," and the lyrical structure of this "Hie bonnie laddie" is similar to "Grog Time":

The captain's gone ashore;
The mate has got the key;
Hurrah! my jolly boys,-
'Tis grog time o' day!

VS.

The captain's gone ashore,
For to see the stevedore.
Hie bonnie laddie,
And we'll all go ashore.

The "Hie bonnie laddie" part is also reminiscent of the chantey "Pull Down Below."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 03:01 PM

Cotton-stowing references:

1818 Savannah (Harris): "songs"
1838 Mobile Bay (Gosse): "Fire the ringo"
1844/5 Mobile Bay/New Orleans: reference to cotton-stowing with respect to chantey-men
1844 Mobile Bay (Hill): "Hie Bonnie Laddie"
1845 New Orleans (Erskine): "Fire Maringo," "Bonnie Laddie, Highland Laddie"
1845-1852 Mobile Bay (Nordhoff): "Fire Maringo," "Bonnie Laddies," "Stormy...Carry him along," "Yankee Dollar...see man do,"

Of these cotton-stowing songs, Hieland Laddie had earlier turned up as a capstan song in 1835. "Stormy" and it's lyrical theme turned up:

1) In Hawai'i, 1848, as if learned from seamen:

From above -- quoting John M....

////
1854 Edward T. Perkins, "Na Motu, or Reef-Rovings in the South Seas" p. 97 [ref. to 1848; Perkins had served on an American whaling ship]:

         I dug his grave with a silver spade;
                O! bullies, O!
       And I lowered him down with a golden chain,
                A hundred years ago!


P. 99: "I jumped onto a rock, swung my tarpaulin, and sung that good old song—

                'O ! storm along !
                O! my roving blades, storm along, stormy!'"
////

2) In Charles White's NEW ETHIOPIAN SONG BOOK, published in 1848. It looks like this minstrel version was inspired by the cotton-stowers' "traditional" song.

So, by the late 1840s, cotton-stowers' chants were well established.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 08:07 PM

Here's another reference to "The Captain's gone ashore"/ "Grog time of day" that I don't think has been mentioned. It is from THE EVERGREEN, OR GEMS OF LITERATURE FOR MDCCL (1850), ed. by Rev. Edward A. Rice. The first "gem" is entitled "Quarter-Deck Yarns; or, Memorandums From My Log Book", by "An Old Salt". The setting is the "clipper-brig Curlew" in the New York Harbor, ready to sail for Hamburgh. During the night a favorable wind came up and and "the outward bound vessels were busied with preparations for getting under weigh."

The Curlew's anchor "had been hove short under the forefoot, her staysail and trysail were triced up, foresail dropped, mainsail hanging in the brails; and the topsails' loosened from their confining gaskets, were curtaining the caps with their snowy folds. When our boat came within hailing distance, the halliards were manned, and the good-humored crew run the yards up to the chorus of

   "The captain's gone ashore, but the mate is aboard,
   Hurrah! my jolly boys, grog time o' day."                         (pp, 10-11)

Here is the link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ueQsAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA11&dq=%22the+captain's+gone+ashore+%22&lr=&cd=7#v=onepage&q=%22the%20captain'

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 12:08 PM

Thanks, John, for that very timely last reference. I can't find a date, but if it was published in 1850, one assumes the "log book" refers to 1840s or earlier. On the other hand, the word "clipper" is used, which I believe must make it no earlier than the late 1830; 1840s seems reasonable. It is interesting because, I think, it is the first time we've seen "Grog Time" being used at halliards.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 01:06 PM

I've yet to visit/re-visit shipboard worksong references for the 1840s.

Olmsted's INCIDENTS OF A WHALING VOYAGE (1841).

Olmsted was in the whaler "North America," sailing out of New London (CT) to Tahiti and Hawai'i. Here's what he says, for 1840:

////
Tuesday. Feb. 11. I have often been very much amused by the cries and songs of the men, when engaged in hauling away upon the rigging of the ship. The usual cry is " Ho ! Ho ! Hoi !' or " Ho ! Ho ! Heavo !" which is sung by some one of them, while the rest keep time. It has a rather dolorous cadence, and a wildness that sounds like a note of distress when rising above the roar of the gale at dead of night....

[Sounds like "singing-out"]

...But there are many songs in common use among seamen, of a very lively character, which though bereft of all sentiment and sense in many instances, are performed with very good effect when there is a long line of men hauling together. Mr. Freeman usually officiates as chorister, and with numerous demisemiquavers, strikes up the song, while all the rest join in the chorus. Sometimes they all sing together as I have endeavored to represent, although it must appear very tame without the attendant circumstances. One of the songs is as follows:—

Ho ! Ho ! and up she ris - es
Ho ! Ho ! and up she ris - es
Ho! Ho ! and up she ris - es,
Ear-ly in the morn-ing.
[with music, tune shape is "Drunken Sailor"]

And another song, accompanied with the chorus, which vies with the song of the troubadours in poetic sentiment.

Nan. cy Fan - an - a, she mar - ried a bar - ber,
CH: Heave her a - way, and heave her away
Hurrah, hurrah, for Fancy Fa-na - na.
CH: Heave her a - way ! and Heave her a - way !
[with music, in 6/8 and very similar in shape to Hugill's "Haul 'er Away," though the tune is different, it seems to be a variation.]

There are many other songs that might be very easily mentioned, which, however, like a good proportion of our parlor songs are rather insipid without the music. The songs of sailors, when sung with spirit and to the full extent of their fine sonorous voices, add new vigor to their exertions, as the heavy yards and sails are mounting upwards....

[On a later occasion:]

...The teeth of the sperm whale vary from four to five inches in length, and are imbedded more than two-thirds in the lower jaw. They are susceptible of a very high polish, and are beginning to be valued as an article of merchandize, which has induced sperm whalers to collect all the teeth of their captured whales, as constituting a part of the profits of the voyage. The extraction of the teeth is the practice of dentistry on a grand scale. The patient, i. e. the lower jaw, is bound down to ring bolts in the deck. The dentist, a boatsteerer, with several assistants, first makes a vigorous use of his gum lancet, to wit, a cutting spade wielded in both hands. A start is given id the teeth, while his assistants apply the instrument of extraction to one end of the row, consisting of a powerful purchase of two fold pulleys, and at the tune of "O! hurrah my hearties O!" the teeth snap from their sockets in quick succession.

[The pulley arrangement rigged appears in an illustration. The men are hauling in a downward direction.]

////

These chanties look like they are probably the "older" ones. If we are to assume "Drunken Sailor" one was a walk-away, then one could imagine that as a continuation of that practice since, for example, Navy days. "Nancy Fanana" smacks of "Cheerly Men." It does have a possible "stanzaic" structure, that would lend itself to the "double pull" halyard maneuver. On the other hand, there is no description of that, and it is possible that it was timed like Cheerly Men. On the other hand, the command is "heave," and it is not explicitly connected to halliards, so it could have been for another task. I am really not sure.

The song for pulling whale teeth, "O! hurrah my hearties O!," to which we've seen songs with similar generic phrases before, looks like it may have had the form of a sing-out or of a Cheerly Man type deal, i.e. with the pull on the last "O!" I say that because of the nature of the action being described, which involves a stiff downward pull (e.g. as in sweating up).

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 01:57 PM

Gibb,
It makes no mention of a capstan but clearly states 'add new vigor to their exertions, as the heavy yards and sails are mounting upwards....' Of course this might be done using a windlass.

BTW what's your earliest description of task and actual named shanty in references to British ships, excepting capstan and 'Cheerly Man'?
Regardless of where they originated I still feel strongly they were well established on any reasonable scale on American ships before it became standard practice on British ships. I know there's this 'mid-Atlantic' idea that seamen and ships were all one, but all the main impetus and input seems to come from American customs.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 05:19 PM

Steve,

BTW what's your earliest description of task and actual named shanty in references to British ships, excepting capstan and 'Cheerly Man'?

Fascinating question. I, for one, don't have my sources all "in order" at this point. However, so far in *this* thread -- where I am attempting to acknowledge just about every shantying reference that has been collectively dug up...so far, into the 1840s...I am not finding anything that fits your criteria -- unless the count the 1820s London stage reference to the guy spitting on his hands and imitating a sailor's chant with "Sally Brown" chorus. Not having scoured the 1850s yet, I'd say that that could be the earliest period, but we'll see...

Others' thoughts?

Gibb

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 05:41 PM

Continuing 1840s shipboard,

We have this reference, courtesy of Lighter, to a song in a whaleman's diary, Sept. 11, 1842.

       The Taskar is the thing to roll
       O ee roll & go
       Her bottom's round as any bowl!
       O ho roll & go

The author was aboard the whaleship TASKAR. (Reproduced in Margaret S. Creighton's "Rites and Passages," 1995, p. 178).

It is not indicated (?) whether this was a work-song, but it certainly looks like a chantey form. There are relly not enough details to contextualize it, though the "roll and go" may connect it to known chanties.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 06:02 PM

Continuing, I'd like to re-direct attention to a references cited above by John M., for this time period (1842) and context (whaling ship).

*snip*

It comes from ETCHINGS OF A WHALING CRUISE, by John Ross Browne, and is dated 1846. The events described take place in October of 1842 (I think). The song is being used at the windless. (pp. 133-134)

       "Heave him up! O he yo!
                Butter and cheese for breakfast
       Raise the dead! O he yo!
                The steward he's a makin' swankey.
       Heave away! O he yo!
                Duff for dinner! Duff for dinner
       Now I see it! O he yo!
                Hurrah for the Cape Cod gals!
       Now I don't. O he yo!
                *Round the corner, Sally!*
       Up she comes! O he yo!
                Slap-jacks for supper!
       Re-re-ra-ra-oo-we ye yo ho! Them's 'um!"

*snip*

They are off the Canary Islands. The windlass is the old-fashioned spoke windlass. And the song looks old-fashioned, too. Definitely not a "chantey" as we've come to know them today. This is old technology.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 07 Apr 10 - 03:12 PM

Gibb, If I may be allowed to step backwards to earlier in the century, Jonathan's intriguing reference to a performance at a NYC theatre c1826 has inspired me to ask a friend of mine who is something of a theatre historian to throw some light on it. He sometimes contributes to Mudcat as Billy Weekes. The reference is to post 23rd March at 11.23.
John's reply came mainly from the National Dictionary of Biography.
'The Wallacks were a theatrical family/dynasty of several generations with established reputations on both sides of the Atlantic. Henry Wallack (the one referred to) was born in England in 1790, ret. from the stage in 1852 and died in 1870. From c1825 was lead and in 1826 manager of The Chatham Theatre NYC. There is no mention of any RN career.

John's opinion was that the RN Lieutenant bit might have been invented to give authority to performance. It wouldn't be too difficult for one of our Naval historians to check whether there was indeed a Lieutenant Henry Wallack. John is not aware of any biography of Wallack.

Even if this is so and Wallack was imitating something he had read or even observed, what was it that he observed? We know the revenue cutters of the RN allowed some chanteying. Certainly the bigger ships didn't. Intriguing!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 08:02 AM

Here are several references to "Cheerily Men" from the 1840's. First of all from the MEMIORS OF THE REV. WALTER M. LOWRIE: MISSIONARY TO CHINA, ed. Walter Lowerie, 1849, perhaps talking about 1842. The occasion is the hoisting of guns out of the hold to be mounted.

http://books.google.com/books?id=eotjAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA110&dq=Cheerily,+Men&lr=&cd=139#v=onepage&q=Cheerily%2C%20Men&f=false

A second reference comes from A VISIT TO THE ANTIPODES: WITH SOME REMINISCENCES OF SOJOURN IN AUSTRALIA, by E. Lloyd, "A Squatter", 1846, perhaps referencing events in 1844. The location is Port Adelaide, and the author is reflecting on an abandoned ship and imagining the song "Cheerily men, ho!".

http://books.google.com/books?id=X8MNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA77&dq=Cheerily,+Men&lr=&cd=138#v=onepage&q=Cheerily%2C%20Men&f=false

The next reference comes from MCDONALD OF OREGON: A TALE OF TWO SHORES, by Eva Emery Dye, 1906. The biography is "based on personal statements and letters of McDonald...", etc. (p. v). The events take place in the harbor of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1849. The song "Cheerily, men, oh!" is mentioned several times in different settings, one of which is a rowing scene. There may be some question about whether this is an historical "reconstruction".

http://books.google.com/books?id=1dUVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA250&dq=Cheerily,+Men&lr=&cd=99#v=onepage&q=Cheerily%2C%20Men&f=false

And here is a reference to "Haul her away!", from Ezekiel I. Barra's A TALE OF TWO OCEANS, published in 1893, but perhaps referencing 1849.

http://books.google.com/books?id=v6oqQ1CiaGYC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=%22Haul+Her+Away%22&source=bl&ots=mdCKZL6pkZ&sig=kQ14HcLcH8QKA

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 05:41 PM

Had a look at 'Cheerly O' in Lawson which comes from United Services Journal 1834. I'm sure I've seen refs to this version above somewhere but a quick scan through couldn't find it. Has this 4 stanza version been posted yet or shall I enter it here?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 06:52 PM

No the UNITED SERVICES text has not been entered. Please, do, Steve!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Apr 10 - 03:18 PM

Naval Ballads & Sea Songs, Selected and Illustrated by Cecil C P Lawson, London: Peter Davies: 1933.

Excerpt from the intro by Commander Charles N Robinson, R.N.
'Mr Lawson's collection would not have been complete without a specimen of the chanty. the one he has chosen was, according to a Naval officer who described it in the United Services Journal for January 1834, used on board a revenue cruiser for want of music in order to encourage the men to pull together. On the other hand , on board a weell-disciplined man-of-war only the officers were allowed to speak during the performance of an evolution, and in place of the old-time song used to lighten the work, a fiddle, the bagpipes, or a fife played some favourite tune.

p72, Cheerly O

O, haul pulley, yoe,
    Cheerly men.
O, long and strong, yoe, O,
    Cheerly men.
O, yoe, and with a will,
    Cheerly men.
Cheerly, cheerly, cheerly, O!

A Long haul for Widow Skinner,
    Cheerly men.
Kiss her well before dinner,
    Cheerly men.
At her, boys, and win her,
    Cheerly men.
Cheerly, cheerly, cheerly, O!

A strong pull for Mrs Bell,
    Cheerly men.
Who likes a lark right well,
    Cheerly men.
And, what's more, will never tell,
    Cheerly men.
Cheerly, cheerly, cheerly, O!

O haul and split the blocks,
    Cheerly men.
O haul and stretch her luff,
    Cheerly men.
Young Lovelies, sweat her up,
    Cheerly men.
Cheerly, cheerly, cheerly, O!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 13 Apr 10 - 06:56 PM

In my personal "hunt" for the emergence of "chanties", I am still moving...slowly...through the 1840s. So here is more detail on a maritime work-song reference from the end of that decade. It's

S.R. Thurston's CALIFORNIA ND OREGON, OR, SIGHTS IN THE GOLD REGION (first edition, 1851). The events described by Thurston happened in 1849.

Leaving Panama, headed for San Francisco, on the US steamer OREGON, he writes,

Roused at daybreak by the sailors' song at the windlass, we gazed from our state-room window at the beauty of the dawn on the distant mountains, and with watch in hand, at 5 a. m., on the morning of the 13th of March, noted the first revolution of the wheels toward the El Dorado of our hopes...

Then, off the West coast of Mexico:

Having despatched letters for our friends by the Mexican courier to Vera Cruz, we took our departure from San Blas early on Sunday morning, 25th of March. Listening to the tramp and song of the sailors at the capstan and windlass, we caught the words—

"The Oregons are a jolly crew,
   O, yes, O!
A bully mate and captain, too,
   A hundred years ago."

The second and last lines formed the chorus, and they roared it out right heartily, bringing many from below in time to behold the sun rise above the mountains of Mexico in great glory and magnificence,...

I would think the windlass he is describing is the pump type. I must confess, however, that I'm not sure why there was capstan AND windlass. Are both there, for different tasks? Or does he just take them together as a phrase (cf. "ball and chain") because capstans do in fact engage a windlass below deck? (One would "tramp" round a capstan; not so a windlass.) The reason why I ask is in order to verify the type of action.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 13 Apr 10 - 07:25 PM

Steve, thanks very much for putting in the details on the United Services Journal version of "Cheerly."

And John, thanks for the recent references. I need to digest them. So...

MEMIORS OF THE REV. WALTER M. LOWRIE: MISSIONARY TO CHINA, ed. Walter Lowerie, 1849

John M: "The occasion is the hoisting of guns out of the hold to be mounted."

The passage is from April 18th, 1842. The Rev. Lowrie is aboard the ship HUNTRESS, bound out from New York eastward to China.

Monday, April l8th. Getting ready to go ashore, i. e., the ship is. The men have been at work most of this day getting the guns up out of the hold and mounting them. They were stowed away below shortly after leaving New York. Being quite heavy, it took several men to hoist them up out of the hold, and they raised the song of " Cheerily, oh cheerily," several times. This is a favorite song with the seamen. One acts as leader, and invents as he goes along, a sentence of some six or eight syllables, no matter what. To-day some of the sentences were, " Help rne to sing a song ;" " Now all you fine scholars ;" " You must excuse me now," &c. ; then comes in a semi-chorus " Cheerily oh !" then another sentence, and a full chorus, " Cheerily oh ~~~~~~ cheerily." Just imagine the sounds and music of that waving line! The song is exciting, and heard at the distance of the ship's length is very beautiful. I have just now been listening to music of another kind. The sea is smooth, all is quiet...

Shall we assume they used some sort of rope-pulley system to hoist the guns? It is interesting to see the persistence of "Cheerily Men" as a sort of ubiquitous "1 2 3 pull!", whenever/wherever needed.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 13 Apr 10 - 07:32 PM

Quoting John:

A second reference comes from A VISIT TO THE ANTIPODES: WITH SOME REMINISCENCES OF SOJOURN IN AUSTRALIA, by E. Lloyd, "A Squatter", 1846, perhaps referencing events in 1844. The location is Port Adelaide, and the author is reflecting on an abandoned ship and imagining the song "Cheerily men, ho!".

I find this interesting again because it would seem to underscore the ubiquity of "Cheerily Men" -- one has only to briefly mention it, and readers should know what is being referenced.

I forgot to mention, above that Rev. Lowrie (re: his 1842 voyage in the HUNTRESS) says he read Dana's "Two Years." We would also, in that case, be familiar with "Cheerly" before he ever heard it aboard a vessel.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 13 Apr 10 - 09:22 PM

There is an interesting reference to a song/chant used for stowing cargo aboard an East India Company ship -- allegedly circa 1790s-1800s?

It comes in the UNITED SERVICES MAGAZINE for March 1836, in a piece called "Leaves From My Log-book," by a "Flexible Grummett." The scene takes place in Calcutta.

We joined the ship next day, and found the cargo had been all delivered, and they were now taking in a ground tier of saltpetre in bags. The mode of stowing this was, to me, highly amusing, and the seamen appeared to enjoy it; though the labour, in a hot climate, down in an Indiaman's hold, must have been excessive. Two gangs are formed of about a dozen men each, all of whom are provided with heavy wooden mauls, the handle of bamboo being four feet long. This is called a commander. The saltpetre bags are laid level, and one of the gangs beat it down with their commanders, swinging them round above their heads in the same manner that a blacksmith does his sledge-hammer when forging an anchor. That all may strike together at the same moment so as to keep time, the captain of the gang sings (and the best singer is generally chosen) a line, at the end of which down come the mauls upon the bags. The following is the song:—

"Here goes one—(thump from the commanders)
One, it is gone, (thump)
There's many more to come (thump)
To make up the sum (thump)
Of one hundred so long." (thump)

He then continues, " Here goes two, &c.," and as each distich gives five thumps, twenty complete the hundred, the only change being in the numbers, and at the last blow the words are " There's no more to come," &c. The other gang then relieves them, and the same song is gone through; but occasionally, by way of bravado, numerous snatches of songs adapted for the purpose are added to the hundred, and sometimes these are not of the most delicate nature. One I well remember was—(the maul descending at the end of every line)

"My father's a gunner,
And I am his son;
He walks the quarter-deck, boy«,
And he fires a gun ;
Fire away, gunner,
And keep your guns warm;
And a good glass of grog, boys,
Will do us no harm."

Thus eight blows more are added gratuitously, which the other gang strive to emulate, and this work continues for two or three weeks. ln the mean time other gangs overhaul the rigging, clap on fresh services, and do everything to give the ship a perfect refit.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 13 Apr 10 - 11:02 PM

My cumulative summary up to this point.

1780s-90s:

General references to African and New World Black work-songs, from Mali, Grenada.

1800s:

General references to African-American work-songs and their style, from Martinique;
Rowing songs from Georgia, South Carolina, Guyana, Surinam;
Windlass songs, aboard vessels with sailors incl. from Northumberland and Holland.

1810s:

2 stevedore songs from Jamaica that resemble chanteys;
African-American rowing songs from Antigua, Virgin Islands;
Singing and fife-playing at the capstan on a British war ship.

1820s:

Rowing songs, from Georgia, Virginia, St. Thomas;
A version of "Cheerly Men" for topsail halyards on a brig near Quebec;
Fictional capstan shantying in the Arctic; capstan (?) song of British tars in London; chant for pulling known to an ex-British navy man. [I've also seen another reference to the phrase "British capstan song" from 1825.]

1830s:

African-American rowing songs in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Guyana, and "West Indies"
African-American firemen's songs on the Ohio and in general
Cotton stowing songs in Mobile Bay
"Ditties" at the capstan on an East India Company ship
A song at the pump windlass on a transatlantic voyage
Songs "for capstan and falls" and for catting anchor, on brigs off the coast of California
A capstan song on a ship off the coast of Arabia
The adoption of capstan songs and sailors' "ditties" by locals of Tahiti and the Society Islands

1840s:

A rowing song ("row, billy, row") (American)
Reference to Black steamboat firemen singing on the Ohio
A stevedore song ("grog time") in New Orleans
Cotton-stowing songs in New Orleans and Mobile (x3)
Cotton "hoosiers" working (and singing) aboard a trans-Atlantic
    packet
[The "Stormy" chantey adapted (?) as a minstrel song]
[Popular shanties ("A Hundred Years Ago" and "Stormy") turning
    up in the South Pacific]
A song ("Cheerly Man") for hoisting guns from below in a ship
    from New York
Generic reference to "Cheerily Men" in Port Adelaide
Unloading cargo by means of a capstan in London, to a song
A basic anchor song ("Ho, O, heave O") brought back from a Mediterranean voyage in an American vessel
A walk-away shanty ("drunken sailor"), another shanty (unknown      
    style, "Nancy Fanana"), and a short-haul song ("O! hurrah my
    hearties O!") on an American whaling ship in the Pacific
Possible stanza-form chantey on a whaleship
Spoke windlass song on a whaleship
Capstan (or pump windlass?) chantey ("A Hundred Years Ago") on
    a steamship bound for Frisco
A halyard shanty ("grog time") on a brig in New York

Summary:
Through the 1840s, references to African-American work-songs for rowing and on steamboats are fewer (though they will continue to appear in later decades). The cotton-stowing songs make a big entrance here, and they seem to have strongly influenced shipboard work-songs.   Although I believe the cotton-stowing songs (as a class) must have originated with Black labourers, by this time Euro-American labourers had also joined the trade. If, as I have hypothesized, the body of songs of a style known as "chanties" originated with African-American practices, then a question at this point would be: Where and when did it become a shared practice among the different cultural groups? Was cotton-screwing, for example, a ground zero whence the practice was taken to ships? Or had the sharing already occurred earlier – e.g. aboard ships, initially? Whereas in the past I have thought that cotton-screwing songs must be analogous in form to halyard shanties, after a close look at the literature, I begin to have doubts whether that can be said with any certainty.

Interestingly, through the 1840s there are still not many references to what one might consider "classic" halliard shanties. For pulling songs, this decade gives us, with clarity, only the well-worn, old-fashioned "Cheerly"…. Along with "Grog time of day" (in two different forms) used for hauling to load cargo and…finally as a halliard chantey. I find the latter to be most significant, because it is (arguably) the one halliard song of the decade with something like the classic form. Still, it is shy of the most typical form (i.e. of later times).

Needless to say, all this material needs much more mulling over. But if I may state, prematurely, my surprise – that there is little evidence, by the end of the 1840s yet, to say that many of the chanties we now know (especially in the typical double-pull halyard form) had by then existed.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 07:09 AM

Here is a reference to "A Hundred Years Ago" from a journal kept aboard the "Agincourt" on it's way to South Australia in 1848. The verse given is as follows:

"A hundred years is a very long time,
    Oh-ho! Yes! Oh-ho!
A hundred years is a very long time,
    A hundred years ago.
They hung a man for making steam,
    Oh-ho! Yes! Oh-ho!
They cast his body in the stream,
    A hundred years ago."

And the entry mentions that "Other favourites included:
   "Sweet Belle Malone"
   "Off to Botany Bay"
   "Sailing over the Ocean Blue"
   "Can You Bake a Cherry Pie".

The introductory comment is: "They were like monkeys moving swiftly aloft up the ratlines and sang Sea Chanties as they worked. ("Chant" is a French word)"

This comes from a posting found on the internet entitled BOUND FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA - AGINCOURT 1849-50 Journey by Diane Cummings. It looks like it is primarily concerned with the passengers list and has to do with genealogical research. There is no further documentation. Here is the link:

http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/fh/passengerlists/1850AgincourtJourney.htm

I have not found other information on this particular "Diane Cummings". But here is a reference to the "barque Agincourt" making another voyage to Australia that is dated 1852, from OUR ANTIPODES: OR, RESIDENCE AND RAMBLES IN THE AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES by Lieut.-Col. Godfrey Charles Mundy:

http://books.google.com/books?id=MVgBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA2&dq=barque+Agincourt&lr=&cd=20#v=onepage&q=barque%20Agincourt&f=false

There are numerous other references to ships named "Agincourt".

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 07:41 AM

John-

Nice reference to "A Hundred Years Ago" from a journal kept aboard the "Agincourt" and interesting verse.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 05:36 PM

Interesting, John. So that makes three references to "Hundred Years Ago" in the late 40s. The first is sung removed from a task, the second is in reference to capstan and/or windlass and this one is again vague. Perhaps it was halyards.

The "based upon a diary" part of this is shady. Surely the line about "They were like monkeys moving swiftly aloft up the ratlines and sang Sea Chanties as they worked. ("Chant" is a French word)" is the editor's interpretation. Unfortunately, it raises suspicion on the rest. However, though the context and precise wording of the Diary have been mangled, it seems probable that it did contain the "Hundred Years Ago" text, at least.

Incidentally, the line about how "They hung a man for making steam," if authentic, is interesting. It seems an early date (though I would not know) for that tension between sail and steam. In the Rev. Lowrie voyage to Frisco in 1849, above, he took two steamships to get there, and at least twice in his journal he recommends strongly that all passengers avoid sailing vessels!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 06:36 PM

I'm presuming we are looking mainly for influences rather than origins.
The sporadic evidence strongly suggests multiple origins and we can only guess anyway. The strongest influences on the main body of material when it was at its height seem to be various channels of African/American occupations. Whereas the cotton screwing won't have been the only channel of influence I still think it would have been one channel.

Once this study is relatively complete another interesting development would be a timeline using specific chanties. I would suggest rather than using the dates of references, use e.g., c1825 as the suggested date of when the chanty was being performed. In order to do this effectively it might be helpful to have Master Titles for those chanties known by a variety of titles. I would be willing to help and make suggestions on this one, having already developed criteria for an English folk song Master Title Index. Chanties, however, are very different to other traditional songs and a different approach is needed. For instance with other types of folk song we identify variants of one song by the text and tune, mostly the text. With chanties the text is almost irrelevant so we would look at refrains, tunes and format.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 06:52 PM

Gibb beat me to it. The "diary" is also here:

http://www.angelfire.com/al/aslc/Tulle80.html

"Based on" is the tip-off.


From Basil Lubbock's "The Blackwall Frigates" (1922):

A hundred years is a very long time,
Oh-ho! Yes ! oh-ho !
A hundred years is a very long time,
A hundred years ago.

They hung a man for making steam,
Oh-ho ! Yes ! oh-ho !
They cast his body in the stream,
A hundred years ago. (OLD CHANTY.)

Note the identical, somewhat unusual spelling of "Oho!" in both sources. Lubbock's book, not coincidentally, also includes a skeletal "log" kept by a midshipman on _Agincourt_ in 1848. (I have not compared the accounts any more closely.)

Hugill gives both stanzas, though not consecutively or quite identically.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 07:17 PM

That's good suggestion, Steve. I suggest we use Hugill's titles as our starting point, to be adjusted if necessary.

His books have been the most influential over the past fifty years.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 07:54 PM

So...Gibb & Lighter, do you think the reference to "A hundred years ago" is legitimate or not? I was not exactly clear from your discussion. Do we know the owner of the original "diary"?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 09:10 AM

There's no reason to believe, from the online _Agincourt_ "diary," that the "1848 text" or even the title of "A Hundred Years Ago" was recorded by anyone who was present on the voyage or even alive in 1848.

The online writer seems to have taken the shanty from Lubbock's book to flesh out the story of the voyage, assuming that Lubbock's "Old Chanty" "must have been" sung by the _Agincourt_ crew.

Lubbock doesn't print the original "midshipman's log" he refers to. He quotes a few lines, but mostly paraphrases and expands the information in the logbook.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 09:28 AM

Thanks, Lighter.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 09:43 AM

I wish I didn't have to be so negative so often, but the reliability of so many shanty sources tends to be questionable or at best indeterminate.

Davis and Tozer is my top nominee in this category.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 12:17 PM

Steve,

I'm presuming we are looking mainly for influences rather than origins.

My stated interest in looking to see the "emergence" of shanties nicely (!) confounds "influences" and "origins." While influences are indeed a more realistic thing to document and while it's undoubtably true that shanties are a composite of various influences (i.e. like most things)...my personal working hypothesis (which I'm willing to abandon at any time BTW) is that, with respect to being *shipboard* songs, "chanties" were *introduced*, and relatively suddenly at that. So my pet interest does include a lean towards the concept of "origins." That being said, I hope the evidence can do its own speaking; the rest is each person's interpretation.

I fully agree that the information will have to be organized in other ways; there is a zooming in / zooming out process involved. On the big "Sydney" thread, John Minear has followed the trajectories of individual chanteys. What I want to eventually do here is create the complimentary warp to that weft. I've begun -- and I think this is what you're suggesting? -- to create a timeline with the shanty "sightings" in each year. It's a lot of info to round up, but I'll post it once I have it, and people can re-format it as they like. The process definitely requires several phases of digestion. The trick is having it condensed enought to glance over, but with enough detail so the significance is not lost. For example, it might be misleading to group all songs mentioning "Sally Brown" with that tag. Anyways, it will be a start.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 06:32 PM

Sally Brown,
Agreed, but any song actually called 'Sally Brown' sung aboard we would presume was the well-known chanty unless evidence to the contrary arose. Most chanties appear to be titled in accordance with refrains which is helpful.
'Relatively suddenly' Again agreed but roughly what sort of a period do we consider, 10 years from say 1840 to 1850? I think once you've got a working list of references obviously this will become clearer.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 16 Apr 10 - 11:32 PM

In my next post, I am going to put up my "TIMELINE" of attested 19th c. maritime work-songs. It currently goes through the 1840s. The format may not be to everyone's taste. But it is a working model; feel free to make your own modifications. And I have not nitpicked the editing...nor do I feel like taking the time now to create the HTML marks needed for Mudcat. (If someone knows a way to automatically "convert" a Word document into HTML code, please let me know.)

I have tried to be as brief as possible with each "entry." If one needs the full context and info on a reference, one can do a control-F search on the thread for the Author/Title-date, e.g. "Nordhoff" or "1855", and soon find the post(s) where the reference was discussed.

Since the songs don't have standard names, and the lyrics are so variable, I give the ""chorus lyric."" If there is no lyric at all, I give the essential phrase that describes what was seen/heard. After the lyric, where applicable, I give a standard [TITLE], for comparison. Then comes brief info on place (and vessel, when applicable) followed by the activity the song accompanied. Last comes the ((Published reference)).

Lastly, the references amassed have not explored every avenue. For example, some feel the songs of the French voyageurs had some influence, and that has not been researched so far. My personal reason for not having done so is because I think that, while such genres may well have contributed some repertoire, my hunch is that they were not very significant in developing the genre as a whole.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 16 Apr 10 - 11:36 PM

"TIMELINE", 1770s-1840s

1777

- singing their plaintive African songs, in cadence with the oars, Georgetown, SC/Blacks rowing (Watson 1856)

1790s

- "gnyaam gnyaam row" Demerara River, Georgetown, Guyana/Blacks rowing (Pinckard 1806).

c.1790s-1800s

- canoe-rowing songs, partly traditionary, partly improvised Charleston, SC/Blacks rowing (as per Grayson)

c.1800s-1820s

- "Cheerly men" [CHEERLY] (conjecture based on comment of "time out of mind," in UNITED SERVICES JOURNAL 1834)

c.1803[or earlier]

- a sort of Song pronounced by one of the number, Europeans/spoke windlass (Falconer 1806)

1805

- eight stout negroes, who sing in chorus all the way, Surinam/Blacks rowing (Sack 1810)

c.1806

- "Aye, aye/ Yoe, yoe" Savannah River, Georgia/Blacks rowing (Lambert 1810)

c.1808-1826

- a common sailors' chant in character, having a sort of 'Sally Brown, oh, ho,' chorus; and requiring the action of pulling a rope, London stage (Clason 1826)

1811

- "Grog time of day" [GROG TIME] Jamaica/stevedores at capstan (Hay 1953)

- "Oh, huro, my boys/Oh, huro boys O" Jamaica/stevedores at capstan (Hay 1953)

[1812-1815 : War of 1812]

c.1814-15

- "Grog time a day" [GROG TIME] Antigua/Blacks rowing (SERVICE AFLOAT, 1833)

- "Heigh me know, bombye me takey" Virgin Islands/Blacks rowing (SERVICE AFLOAT, 1833)

- the drums and fifes merrily play, Round the capstan we dance; We soon hear the song,
"Heave, heave, my brave boys, and in sight." Poem/capstan (1825)

[1816: Start of the Blackball Line]

1818

- the negroes' song while stowing away the cotton, Savannah, GA/cotton-stowing (Harris 1821)

1821

- "It's oh! as I was a walking out, One morning in July, I met a maid, who ax'd my trade" [NEW YORK GIRLS?] and "All the way to Shawnee town/Pull away - pull away!"
Ohio River, Parkersburg,VA/rowing (Hall 1821)

1822[or earlier]

- "Fine time o' day" Saint Thomas/Blacks rowing (Wentworth 1834).

1825, July

- the sailor sent forth his long and slow-toned "yeo— heave — oh!" Brig leaving Quebec/windlass (Finan 1825).

- "Oh, yeo, cheerly" [CHEERLY]" Brig leaving Quebec/topsail halliards (Finan 1825)

c.1826

- "Haul way, yeo ho, boys!" London/Navy sailors in a pub ("Waldie's select circulating library", 1833)

1828, March

- a wild sort of song, Alatamaha River, Georgia/Black rowing (Hall)

1829

- they began their song, one of them striking up, seemingly with the first idea that entered his imagination, while the others caught at his words, and repeated them to a kind of Chinese melody; the whole at length uniting their voices into one chant, which, though evidently the outpouring of a jovial spirit, had, from its unvaried tone and constant echo of the same expression, a half-wild, half-melancholy effect upon the ear. …It had begun with "Yah! yah! here's a full ship for the captain, and a full pannikin for Peytie Pevterson, la— la—lalla—la—leh; but this sentence, after many repetitions, was changed for others of briefer duration and more expressive import, as they coursed after each other with intoxicating rapidity… Fictional whaleship/capstan ("Tales of a Voyager to the Arctic Ocean", 1829)

1830

- "Sally was a fine girl, ho! Sally, ho!" Cape Fear River, North Carolina/Blacks rowing (Cecelski 2001)

1831

- "De neger like the bottley oh!" [BOTTLE O] and "Velly well, yankee, velly well oh" Guyana/Blacks rowing (Alexander, 1833)

[1832: Invention of Dobinson's pump windlass]

1832[or earlier]

- "Pull away now, my Nancy, O!" and/with "To the Greenland sea/ Black although she be" East India Company ship/capstan (THE QUID 1832)

1832-33

- the wild song of the negro fire-men, Ohio River/steamboat firemen (Latrobe 1835)

1833

- "'Tis grog time o' day!" [GROG TIME] rowing on ocean ("Waldie's Select Circulating Library," Dec. 1833)

1834, Aug-1836

- "singing out" at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains, brig PILGRIM

- "Heave, to the girls!" and "Nancy oh!" and "Jack Cross-tree," brig PILGRIM/ songs for capstans and falls

- "Heave round hearty!" and "Captain gone ashore!" and "Time for us to go!" and "Round the corner, Sally" [ROUND THE CORNER] and "Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!" brig PILGRIM, California coast/driving in the hides (pull)

- the loud cry of "Yo heave ho! Heave and pawl! Heave hearty ho!" brig PILGRIM/spoke windlass

- Sailors, when heaving at a windlass, in order that they may heave together, always have one to sing out; which is done in a peculiar, high and long-drawn note, varying with the motion of the windlass

- "Cheerily, men!" [CHEERLY] brig PILGRIM/catting anchor

- lightening their labors in the boats by their songs, Italians rowing (Dana 1840ff)

1835

- A line was sung by a leader, then all joined in a short chorus; then came another solo line, and another short chorus, followed by a longer chorus, Jacksonville, FL/Blacks rowing (Kennard 1845)

1835, September

- "Ho! cheerly" [CHEERLY] US ship PEACOCK, the Gulf of Mazeira [coast of Arabia]/ as they marched round the capstan, or hauled in the hawser by hand (Howland 1840)

- "Bonny laddie, Highland laddie" [HIGHLAND] capstan (Howland 1840)

1837, April

- "Hi de good boat Neely/Ho yoi!" Charleston, SC/Blacks rowing (Gillman 1852)

- "Oh! Sally Brown" (peculiarly musical, although not refined) [SALLY BROWN] Ship QUEBEC, Portsmouth >New York/pump windlass (Marryat)

1838-39

- "Jenny gone away" [TOMMY'S GONE?] and "Fare you well, and good-by, oh, oh!" Altamaha River, Georgia/Blacks rowing (Kemble 1864)

1838, December

- "Fire the ringo, fire away!" [MARINGO] Mobile/cotton-screwing (Gosse 1859)

1839, Sept.

- "Fire down below!" [SAILOR FIREMAN] Dramatic scene in a steamboat/Black fireman (BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY 1839)

- "So early in the morning the Sailor loves his bottle oh," [BOTTLE O] and "Round the corner, Sally" [ROUND THE CORNER] and "Tally Ho, you know" [TALLY] & a dozen others, Tahiti/local women singing sailor songs (Reynolds and Philbrick)

c.1840s

- "grog time o' day." [GROG TIME] Clipper-brig CURLEW, New York >Hamburg/ halliards (Rice 1850)

1840, Feb.

- The usual cry is " Ho! Ho! Hoi!' or "Ho! Ho! Heavo!" whaler, New London > Pacific/hauling (Olmsted 1841).

- "Ho! Ho! and up she rises/Ear-ly in the morn-ing" [DRUNKEN SAILOR] and "Nancy Fanana, she married a barber/Heave her away, and heave her away [HAUL 'ER AWAY]
halyard

- "O! hurrah my hearties O!" short haul to extract whale tooth

1841

- "Grog time o' day/Oh, hoist away" [GROG TIME] New Orleans/stevedores loading a steamboat (THE ART OF BALLET 1915)

1842, February

- casting huge sticks of wood into the mouths of the row of yawning furnaces beneath the serried boilers,accompanying their labor by a loud and not unmusical song, steamboat, Ohio River/Black fireman (THE BALTIMORE PHOENIX AND BUDGET 1842)

1842, April

- "Cheerily, oh cheerily," [CHEERLY] Ship HUNTRESS, New York > China/ hoisting guns from hold (Lowrie 1849)

1842, Sept.

- "O ee roll & go/O ho roll & go" [SALLY BROWN?] whaleship TASKAR/song in diary (Creighton 1995)

1842, October

- "Heave him up! O he yo!" Canary Islands/spoke windlass (Browne 1846).

1843

- "Oh, Jenny gone away" [TOMMY'S GONE?] Virginia/corn-shucking ("The Family Magazine" 1843)

1844

- "Oh, the captain's gone ashore/Hie bonnie laddie, and we'll all go ashore" [GROG TIME?] Mobile Bay/cotton-stowing (Hill 1893).

- "Cheerily men, ho!" [CHEERLY] Port Adelaide/remembering a ship's song (Lloyd 1846)

1844, August

- "Round the corner, Sally!" [ROUND THE CORNER] Society Islands/local imitation of sailor's song (Lucett)

1844-45

- The crew was made up of the hardest kind of men; they were called "hoosiers,"
working in New Orleans or Mobile during the winter at stowing ships with cotton, and in the summer sailing in the packet ships. They were all good chantey men; that is, they could all sing at their…we could reef and hoist all three topsails at once, with a different song for each one, Packet ship TORONTO, NY > London/re: cotton-stowing (Low 1906)

- "Roll and go for that white pitcher, roll and go," London/unloading cargo w/ capstan

1845, Feb.

"Ho, O, heave O" heaving anchor ("American Journal of Music and Musical Vistor"1845)

- "Row, Billy, row," American sailor returned from Mediterranean/rowing

1845, Sept.

- "Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie" [HIGHLAND] and "Fire, maringo, fire away" [MARINGO] Ship CHARLES CAROL, New Orleans/cotton-stowing (Erskine 1896)

c.1845-1851

- "Carry him along, boys, carry him along/ Carry him to the burying-ground" [WALK HIM ALONG] and "Hurrah, see—man—do/Oh, Captain, pay me dollar" and "Fire, maringo, fire away" [MARINGO] and "Bonnie laddie, highland laddie" [HIGHLAND] many of the screw-gangs have an endless collection of songs, Mobile Bay/cotton-stowing (Nordhoff 1855)

1848

- "O! bullies, O!/A hundred years ago!" [HUNDRED YEARS] and "storm along, stormy!" [STORMY] Hawai'i/non-working, whaling territory (Perkins 1854)

- "Storm along Stormy" [STORMY] minstrel song collection (White1854) It looks like this minstrel version was inspired by the cotton-stowers' "traditional" song.

[1848-1855: California Gold Rush]

1849, March

- "O, yes, O!/ A hundred years ago" [HUNDRED YEARS] Steamer OREGON, Panama > San Francisco/ at the capstan and windlass (Thurston1851)

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 12:51 AM

A few reflections on the timeline:

Generally, it is interesting to see examples of how certain songs or at least song-formats were passed between different types of work. "Grog Time o' Day" is a shining example of this, as it seems to have been used for just about every task. (Incidentally, I wonder why it did not survive down to the present, or in the works of collectors -- or has it?) And though our contemporary sensibilities tell us that certain songs could have been (and were) used for more than one type of *shipboard* task, nonetheless I am slightly surprised by some of the cross-use in this period. I was expecting a bit more of a distinction. On the other hand, the references are often unclear what the task was; it may just be vagueness or carelessness that makes it seem so.

There are some "key" references I'd like to pull out.

1825 - "Cheerly" is being used for topsail halyards. This is the earliest evidence (from this list) to show that intermittent hauls were being done at the halyards. I am contrasting this with what I suppose were earlier methods: stamp and go, hand over hand, and "willy-nilly" -- all being techniques being better suited to larger crews, and all requiring a different sort of song. Although "Cheerly" was in its verse not quite like later halyard chanties, it shares with them the intermittent haul, i.e. it shares the same general work method, even if not the poetic form.

1835 - "Highland" at the capstan. This suggests that when we see "Highland" in use by cotton-stowers later, it may well have been brought to them via sailors. It makes a bit more sense that Euro-American sailors marching round the capstan would have used the Scots march first, rather than (presumably?) African-American cotton-stowers adapting it first. This means that although (IMO at least) cotton-stower's original songs seem to have made a great impact on sailors' songs, sailors had also brought their songs to cotton-stowing. It also suggests a correspondence between capstan songs and the cotton songs. That connection is later underscored by Nordhoff. And though I *want* to imagine cotton songs as more like halyard shanties, I can't ignore this evidence. One *possible* way of reconciling that is to propose that, *at this point*, the halyard chanties as a body had not fully emerged.

1837 - "Sally Brown" at the pump windlass. The device, brand new at the time, suggested a new form of song, I think. And this "Sally Brown" bears good similarity to later chanties.

1840s - "Grog Time" at the halliards. Not *quite*, but basically a typical halyard chanty form of later days.

1844/45 - talk of "hoosiers" on a packet ship, hoisting topsail yards, and how there was "a different song for each one." This stands in contrast to what seems to have been the case earlier, where there were a few stock songs only ("Cheerly") or the cries were too incidental to be identified as song-units. With this and the example of "Grog Time," above, I feel there is good evidence that halyard chanties "as we know them" had developed in/by the mid 40s.

1845-1851? - Nordhoff's statement that the screw-gangs have an endless collection of songs. This again suggests that it was by the mid 40s when the repertoire had grown, and that such a large body of songs was now available for borrowing (in both directions?) between cotton-stowers and sailors.

In all the other trades, we have examples of songs that also made it aboard ship. However, I don't know how that happened. I tend to doubt, for example, that White men being rowed in boats decided to pick up those African-American songs. No, it would more likely be that: 1) Blacks working aboard ship introduced the songs as part of the routine -- especially since, as is over and over stated, Blacks "could/would not work without singing"; 2) Contact between White sailors and Black stevedores, OR Whites working along side Blacks in stevedoring (incl. cotton-stowing), after a certain point in history, induced the borrowing.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 04:07 AM

1) and 2) of my last paragraph was meant as an either/or thing.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 07:54 AM

Excellent summary of a lot of materials and good analysis of what they might mean for the advent and development of chanties. Good work, Gibb.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 10:37 AM

Great timeline, Gibb! A critical scrutiny of shanty sources is something long overdue!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 12:15 PM

I forgot a reference in the above "timeline":

c.1846-1852

- "Oh sailors where are you bound to/Across the briny ocean" Packet ship, Liverpool > Philadelphia/ pump windlass (Nordhoff 1855)

By a close, close reading of the text, I imagine the date could be made more precise.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 01:17 PM

Roll, 1850s, Roll!

I want to start re-viewing the sources attributing chanties to the 1850s. This means digging them out of places elsewhere on Mudcat and seeing what they say about the nature and context of maritime work-singing at those times. In addition to the MANY references in the "Sydney/SF" thread, I have some more bookmarked away!

The practice of chantying seems to explode in the 1850s. I will be interested to see the qualitative differences between the 40s and the 50s.

***
In John D. Whidden's OCEAN LIFE IN THE OLD SAILING SHIP DAYS (copyright 1908), he quotes his friend Captain George Meacom, of Beverly Mass. Who wrote about the chanties he remembered from circa 1850s New Orleans. The testimony includes reference to 3 familiar songs, as pumping chanties: "Mobile Bay," "Fire Down Below," and "One More Day." It is impossible to say if these were 1850s songs though. Chantying is ascribed to more or less every shipboard task, indicating that, if the dating is accurate, chanty-singing was absolutely ubiquitous by the 1850s. It all falls within a rich passage that includes a description of cotton-stowing. Here we go:

I left the "Tirrell " in Boston, and having had enough of western ocean winter voyages, I signed the articles of the ship "Emperor," Captain Knott Pedrick, as third mate, bound to New Orleans. The "Emperor" was a ship of seven hundred tons burthen, having fine accommodations for cabin passengers. Sailing from Boston in ballast, we arrived safely, and loaded cotton for Havre, France.

New Orleans, at this time, was the great shipping port of the South for exporting cotton to Europe, although Mobile, Savannah and Charleston also shipped great quantities.
In the winter months, all along the levees at New Orleans lay tiers of shipping of all nationalities, loading cotton for the northern ports of the United States, as well as the various ports of Europe. The river front is shaped like a crescent, and from this fact New Orleans takes its name of the "Crescent City." For miles along the banks, or levees, extends the shipping, lying in tiers, loading cotton, staves, or tobacco, but principally cotton. The bales were rolled from the levee by the stevedores' gangs, generally roustabout darkies, up the staging, and tumbled on deck and down the hold, where they were received by gangs of cotton-screwers, there being as many gangs in the ship's hold as could work to advantage. The bales were placed in tiers, and when they would apparently hold no more, with the aid of planks and powerful cotton-screws, several bales would be driven in where it would appear to a novice impossible to put one.

Four men to a screw constituted a gang, and it was a point of honor to screw as many bales in a ship's hold as could possibly be crammed in, and in some cases even springing the decks upwards, such a power was given by the screw. All this work was accompanied by a song, often improvised and sung by the "chantie" man, the chorus being taken up by the rest of the gang. Each gang possessed a good "chantie" singer, with a fine voice. The chorus would come in with a vim, and every pound in the muscles of the gang would be thrown into the handle-bars of the cotton-screws, and a bale of cotton would be driven in where there appeared to be but a few inches of space.

The songs or "chanties" from hundreds of these gangs of cotton-screwers could be heard all along the river front, day after day, making the levees of New Orleans a lively spot. As the business of cotton-screwing was dull during the summer months, the majority of the gangs, all being good sailors, shipped on some vessel that was bound to some port in Europe to pass the heated term and escape the "yellow Jack," which was prevalent at that season. When they returned in the fall they could command high wages at cotton-screwing on shipboard. Some would go to northern ports, but generally the autumn found them all back, ready for their winter's work.

"Chantie" singing was not confined to the gangs of cotton screwers. In the days of the old sailing ships almost all the work on shipboard was accompanied by a song or "chantie." My old friend Captain George Meacom, of Beverly, nephew of my old commander, Captain Edward Meacom of the ship " Brutus," in an able article in the Boston Transcript, says in regard to the old time chantie songs:

"Fifty years ago, in my early sea life, when the American merchant marine was at its zenith, and the deep-water clipper sailing ship carried the broom at its masthead, no first-class well-appointed sailing ship would think of shipping its crew without having at least one good 'chantie man' among them. For with the oldstyle hand-brake windlass for getting the anchors, the heavy, single topsails and courses to handle, it was necessary, in order to secure the combined power of the men, that unison of effort should be made, especially while heaving up the anchor, mastheading the topsails, getting the tacks of the courses aboard and the sheets aft, or pumping ship, and this could better be well done by the assistance of a good 'chantie' song. With twenty-five or thirty men's efforts worked as a unit, this great, combined power would be sure to bring desired results in all heavy work. Noticing an article recently published, the writer said, 'I have passed many miserable hours pumping out leaks from wooden ships, but I was never so fortunate as to hear a pumping chantie.'

"In my early days of sea life ships were driven hard, and sail carried on the vessel to the utmost limit, that quick passages might be made, with the result that the vessel often being strained, — it not being uncommon for the whole body structure of the ship to quiver, — would leak considerably, and in order to keep her cargo from being damaged, it would be necessary to pump the water out of the vessel at stated periods, and at these times the pumping 'chantie' song came in place and served its purpose admirably. Among these songs were the following:

"'Mobile Bay

"' Were you ever down in Mobile Bay,
    Johnnie, come tell us and pump away. 

A-screwing cotton by the day,
    Johnnie, come tell us and pump away, 

Aye, aye, pump away, 

    Johnnie, come tell us and pump away,' etc.

"' Fire Down Below

"' Fire in the galley, fire in the house, 
   
Fire in the beef kid, scorching scouse; 
   
Fire, fire, fire down below: fetch a bucket of water. 
   
Fire down below,' etc.

"' One More Day For Johnnie

"' Only one more day for Johnnie,
    Only one more day: 

Oh, rock and roll me over,
    Only one more day,' etc.

" All of the named ' chanties' the writer of this once took pride in singing as a chantie man when before the mast as a sailor, and, in later years, after becoming an officer and captain, he found that the early acquisition was valuable as a critic of good 'chantie' singing, and although more than one half of a century has passed, yet the old 'chantie' song will start the blood tingling with the vim of the days of yore."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 01:41 PM

Excellent stuff, Gibb.
Today I received an email from 'Billy Weekes' who is lurking. He tells me that somewhere in the thread you have assumed that the Chatham Theatre is in London (where Wallack performed his theatrical chanty). NYC stands for New York City. Although he was claiming to be an ex RN lieutenant he was performing in New York and actually managed this theatre.

Like many aspects of traditional music where cross-overs occur from one genre to another, or one place to another, the traffic is almost always a 2-way affair if not equally so.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 02:32 PM

&cdHere are some references to the 1850's. Not all of these references are to actual chanties. But there may be a connection to the later development of a particular chanty. I'm moving these over from the "San Francisco to Sydney" thread.

From SHE WAS A SISTER SAILOR: THE WHALING JOURNALS OF MARY BREWSTER, 1845-1851, there is a reference (from a snippet) to "Tally hi o you know". I can't tell what the year is from this but someone probably has this book.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_rBiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Tally+Hi+O%22&dq=%22Tally+Hi+O%22&cd=7

From an article entitled "News From Our Digger" an account from 1852, in TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOLUME 19, we have reference to "Cheerymen" and "Storm along, my Stormy".

http://books.google.com/books?id=Qt4_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA294&dq=%22Polly+Racket,+hi-ho,+cheerymen.%22&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22Polly%20

From a story called "The Boy of Chickamauga" by Edmund Kirke, in OUR YOUNG FOLKS, VOL. 1, there is a line supposedly from 1853 that may refer to "Clear the track, let the bullgine run."

http://books.google.com/books?id=rJVHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA703&dq=%22Clear+the+track+and+let+the+bullgine+run%22&lr=&cd=39#v=onepage&q&f

We have three minstrel songs from Christy and White's ETHIOPIAN MELODIES, 1854. Various versions and editions and sections of this were published here and there at other times, and there may be some earlier publication dates out there. We have "Storm along, Stormy":

http://books.google.com/books?id=W2ZCAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA71&dq=%22Storm+Along+Stormy%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22Storm%20Along%20Stormy

And then there is "Fire Down Below":

http://books.google.com/books?id=W2ZCAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA18&dq=%22Fire+Down+Below%22+Christy&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

And finally, "Whoop, Jamboree":

http://books.google.com/books?id=W2ZCAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA17&dq=%22Whoop,+Jam-bo-ree%22&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22Whoop%2C%20Jam-bo-r

From MELBOURNE, AND THE CHINCHA ISLANDS, by George Washington Peck, we have a reference from 1854 to "Haul the bowline" and four different melodies without words.

http://books.google.com/books?id=c_oOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA292&dq=%22Haul+the+bowline%22+Melbourne&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

And then a reference from Solomon Northup's TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE, 1855, perhaps talking about events in 1853 or earlier. He mentions some fiddle tunes and "patting juba" songs, among which are "Old Hog Eye!" and "Jim Along, Josie."

http://books.google.com/books?id=kTaJH3W2trEC&pg=PA220&dq=%22Old+Hog+Eye%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22Old%20Hog%20Eye%22&f=false

From a story by Edgar S. Farnsworth called "The Yarn of the Watch" in BALLOU'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE, VOL. 2, 1855, we have "Storm along, Stormy":

http://books.google.com/books?id=ta1MAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA114&dq=Storm+along+Stormy&lr=&cd=55#v=onepage&q=Storm%20along%20Stormy&f=true

From Charles Dickens' HOUSEHOLD WORDS, 1855-56, we have what may be a reference to "Drunken Sailor":

http://books.google.com/books?id=7wwHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA167&dq=what+shall+we+do+with+a+drunken+sailor&lr=&as_brr=1&cd=14#v=onepage&q&

From John Stirling Fisher's A BUILDER OF THE WEST, we have "Storm Along," "All on the Plains of Mexico", and "Aha, we're bound away, on the wild Missouri", from the memoirs of General William Jackson Palmer, in 1856:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_OXRs_WmAY4C&pg=PA49&dq=%22Mister+Storm+roll+on%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22Mister%20Storm%20roll%20

From THE KNICKERBOCKER, VOLUME 54, we have an article entitled "The Life of a Midshipman", 1857, with "Row, bullies, row!"

http://books.google.com/books?id=ybXPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA11&dq=%22O+Shenandoh+my+bully+boy%22&lr==10#v=onepage&q&f=false

From THE MERCANTILE MARINE, by E. Keble Chatterton, we have a quote from Sir William B. Forwood's REMINISCENCES OF A LIVERPOOL SHIPOWNER, 1857, which mentions "Paddy works upon the railway" and "Whiskey, Johnny."

http://books.google.com/books?id=3qCr7nTPvewC&pg=PA159&dq=Whiskey+Johnny&lr=&cd=95#v=onepage&q=Whiskey%20Johnny&f=false

From THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, Vol. II, 1858, we have "Pay me the money down!", "O long storm, storm along stormy", and "Highland day and off she goes":

http://books.google.com/books?id=MbEGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA154&dq=%22O+Long+Storm,+storm+along.%22&lr=&cd=2#v=onepage&q=%22O%20Long%20St

From an article in the OBERLIN STUDENT'S MONTHLY, VOL 1, Issue 1, from 1858, we have mention of "We're a bully ship and a bully crew", "O! haulee, heigho, cheeryman!" and "Storm along, my stormies". There is also mention of "Jim along, Josey" as a rowing song.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ow3cAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA47&dq=Storm+along+Stormy&lr=&cd=76#v=onepage&q=Storm%20along%20Stormy&f=false

Here is "Sally Brown" from Hercules Robinson's SEA DRIFT, from 1858:

http://books.google.com/books?id=-Ku40z-xkYkC&pg=PA221&dq=%22Oh+Sally+Brown,+Sally+Brown+Oh%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22Oh%20Sally%20

From THE REAL EXPERIENCES OF AN EMIGRANT, by Ward, Lock, & Tyler, we have a reference to "Whiskey for Johnny!" that may be from 1859:

http://books.google.com/books?id=tHkFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA39&dq=Whiskey+Johnny&lr=&cd=160#v=onepage&q=Whiskey%20Johnny&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 02:51 PM

Just one glance at this and we surely have our burgeoning of chanty singing in the 1850s. There are about 20 titles mentioned in there.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 02:57 PM

Thanks, John. Does that set represent a distillation (more or less) of the 1850s references from that thread, or just some of the recent ones?

Steve -- NYC it is!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 04:07 PM

Gibb, this was my attempt to pull it all together. I may have missed something but I don't think so. The dating in some cases may be open to debate. I put them into the 1850's not because that's when they were published but because that was, *as near as I could tell*, their original reference point. Here are the links to the other thread. You will see that I dropped two references that I either had second thoughts on or Lighter corrected me on.

thread.cfm?threadid=126347&messages=544#2882167

thread.cfm?threadid=126347&messages=544#2882720

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 04:42 PM

Perfect, John!!

Now to digest them, bit by bit.

***

This one is great; unfortunately I don't have the book, either.

From SHE WAS A SISTER SAILOR: THE WHALING JOURNALS OF MARY BREWSTER, 1845-1851, there is a reference (from a snippet) to "Tally hi o you know".

The only thing I'll add is that [TALLY] was said to have been sung while weighing anchor. However, without more info, I don't know which device was used: capstan, spoke windlass (e.g. as in the Moby Dick film), or the pump/brake windlass (e.g. as on the CHARLES W. MORGAN).

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 04:44 PM

P.S. I'd like to try that Chinese root beer.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 05:42 PM

Here are a couple of references I missed, but I think you've covered two of them.

{1850s} W Craig , ADVENTURES IN THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD FIELDS, 1903 "Two shanty fragments as sung on the sailing ships bringing gold seekers to Sydney. (From Warren Fahey's website).

"Oh fare you well, my own Mary Anne" [pumping]
" When first we went a-waggoning" [anchor hauling]

http://warrenfahey.com/maritime-3.htm

{1850s} OCEAN LIFE IN THE OLD SAILING SHIP DAYS, John D. Whidden. Whidden's source is his "old friend, Captain George Meacom, of Beverly [Mass.]." Meacom refers to his own recollection of the 1850s, and his testimony seems to be reliable. (See Gibb's note above)

"Mobile Bay" /"Johnnie Come Tell Us As We Haul Away"
"Fire Down Below"
"One More Day For Johnnie"

http://books.google.com/books?id=cj0NAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA99&dq=%22One+more+day+for+Johnnie%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22One%20more%20day%20f

{1853} A JOURNEY IN THE SEABOARD SLAVE STATES Frederick Law Olmsted, 1861

"Oahoiohieu" / "The Sailor Fireman" ("Lindy Lowe") [riverboat]
"Oh, John, come down in de holler" [riverboat]

(scroll down):

http://books.google.com/books?id=koMIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA607&dq=You+see+dem+boat+way+dah+head&lr=&cd=33#v=onepage&q&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 05:52 PM

From an article entitled "News From Our Digger" an account from 1852, in TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOLUME 19, we have reference to "Cheerymen" and "Storm along, my Stormy".

So this is a trip in Australia's Gold Rush days, in a packet ship, CHALMERS, which left Aug. 1852 from Gravesend (on the Thames) and bound for Melbourne. Published 1853. The author, a gold-seeking passenger, writes:

Songs Afloat.—There is one thing in particular which is sure to attract the attention of a landsman when he first sets his foot on board ship, and this is the songs sung by the seamen whilst performing their various duties. These songs, which often, as regards words, are made impromptu, are most enlivening and spirited; and a good singing crow, with a clever leader, may, in my opinion, be looked upon in the light of a blessing on board any ship. In a little schooner in which I made a voyage up the Mediterranean, we had some excellent singers; and scarcely was a rope touched, sail set, or other heavy work done, without a song : and this may, in some measure, be accounted for by the encouragement given them by our captain, who would often promise all hands a tot of rum, if they did their work in a seamanlike manner, and sang well. The good effect of this was very visible on the men, who evidently pulled the ropes more cheerfully and with double vigour. The following are specimens:—

On Hauling up Topsail Yards, after Reefing.

Polly Racket, hi-ho, cheerymen—(pull),
Pawned my jacket, hi-ho, cheerymen—(pull),
And sold the ticket, hi-ho, cheerymen—(pull);
Ho, hawly, hi-ho, cheerymen—(pull).

Eouse him up, hi-ho, cheerymen—(pull),
Pull up the devil, hi-ho, cheerymen—(pull);
And make him civil, hi-ho, cheerymen—(pull),
Oh, hawly, hi-ho, cheerymen—(pull).

***
I wish I was old Stormy's son,
Hurra, and storm along :
I'd give the sailors lots of rum,
Storm along, my Stormy.
Chorus—Hurra!—hurra!—hurra!—storm along,
    Storm along, my roving blades,
    Storm along, my Stormy.

Notes:

This is the first *shipboard* appearance of STORMY that I am seeing. The text's layout makes it confusing as to whether Stormy was also used for halliards. Well, it is listed as if it were, however, the full chorus is not characteristic of what we now associate with halyard chanties. (In Hugill's version, for example, this chorus seems to be chopped off.) The passenger may have noted this song, but not properly distinguished the task. If we consider that "Stormy" may have been borrowed from the cotton-stowers' repertoire...and as those "chants" were earlier (i.e. Nordhoff) compared to capstan songs, we'd expect this Stormy to be for a heaving task. On the other hand, if it was in fact used for halyards, that means cotton chants were adapted to halliards, too. Either way it is significant, but I'm not sure which way!

Interesting to see how CHEERLY persisted into this time, as a halliard chantey. In this example, there is a clear 4-phrase stanza-like form -- as it appears in Hugill. In other words, it wasn't just "say a line, then pull at the end," but rather the melodic cadences and the "hawly" phrase caused sets of 4 lines to be grouped.

Also interesting how the passenger attests hearing chanties for all work on a schooner. That statement may have to be qualified by something we are unaware of. However, it seems to contradict the idea that chanties weren't used on schooners "because they weren't needed." Perhaps the "need" for chanties on packet ships is what spurned the development, and once they became ubiquitous there, they became popular on lighter fore/aft rigged vessels, too.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 09:35 PM

THE WESTERN WILDS OF AMERICA, by John Regan (2nd. edition, 1859), mentions a riverboat trip in the Mississippi Valley (Galena River, Illinois) that he took circa 1843-1846. No specific song is mentioned, but he does describe his impression of the singing of African-American firemen:

About dark a steamer from Galena going down, called at the landing-place to take in grain, and we got on board to vary the journey and ease our limbs. The night was exceedingly hot and oppressive, and we stretched ourselves upon deck, hard by the windlass. The fires, as is usual, were upon this lower deck, served by negroes. As we lay with our hats drawn over our faces in a half doze, the firemen struck up one of those singularly wild and impressive glees which negroes alone can sing effectively. By turns the singer would break out into measured tones of laughter, followed by an outburst of musical salvoes, very singular and very commanding, coming as they did from the lungs of half a dozen or more. This would be succeeded by a sharp, piercing, "desolate howl," and this again by the full chorus of negro voices, aided by the black cook, who, captivated by the strains, would lean his breast up against his galley door, and grin out his satisfaction in true character, To describe in writing, however, the singular effect of this strange medley of sounds, would be impossible.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 10:00 PM

In "Notes and Queries" for August 1851, a contributer (T.W.) mentions an earlier published firemen's song. Here is what he/she says:

In the 231st number of that excellent New York periodical, The Literary World, published on the 5th of July, there is an article on "Steamboats and Steamboating in the South West," in which I find the following passage: —

"I mentioned the refrain of the firemen. Now as a particular one is almost invariably sung by Negroes when they have anything to do with or about a fire; whether it be while working at a New Orleans fire-engine, or crowding wood into the furnaces of a steamboat; whether they desire to make an extra racket at leaving, or evince their joy at returning to a port, it may be worth recording; and here it is:

Fire on the quarter-deck,
Fire on the bow,
Fire on the gun-deck,
Fire down below !'

The last line is given by all hands with great vim (sic) and volume; and as for the chorus itself, you will never meet or pass a boat, you will never behold the departure or arrival of one, and you will never witness a New Orleans fire, without hearing it."

The writer says nothing about the origin of this Negro melody, and therefore he is, I presume, unaware of it. But many of your readers will at once recognise the spirited lines, which when once they are read in Walter Scott's Pirate, have somehow a strange pertinacity in ringing in one's ears, and creep into a nook of the memory, from which they ever and anon insist on emerging to the lips. The passage occurs at the end of the fifth chapter of the third volume, where the pirates recapture their runaway captain : —

" They gained their boat in safety, and jumped into it, carrying along with them Cleveland, to whom circumstances seemed to offer no other refuge, and pushed off for their vessel, singing in chorus to their oars an old ditty, of which the natives of Kirkwall could only hear the first stanza :

'Thus said the Rover
   To his gallant crew,
Up with the black flag,
   Down with the blue!
Fire on the main-top,
   Fire on the bow.
Fire on the gun-deck,
   Fire down below !'"

How did the song get from Walter Scott to 1840s era Black Americans? I am supposing that the song was earlier prevalent as a song in British ships. Fascinating, then, that it would have become ubiquitous among African-Americans in certain trades. Incidentally, this reminds me that, though we've touched upon it slightly elsewhere on Mudcat (e.g. in reference to "bulgine"), we've yet to bring in the possible influence of fire-fighter's songs here.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 10:17 PM

Here's one to file back with the African-American rowing descriptions of the 1830s.

THE PLANTER, by David Brown, 1853. The narrator is on the St. Johns River, Florida. It is Feb. 1834.


What most surprised us in the negroes,—strangers till then to their peculiarities—was their remarkable talent of improvisation. Their extemporaneous songs at the oar, suited to various scenes and occasions and circumstances present, induced the natural feeling that our boatmen were a set of rare geniuses, selected by our generous friend for the purpose of giving us additional pleasure and surprise. It was afterwards found that extemporaneous singing was not uncommon among them.

The negro boatman of the South seems inspired by the improvising muse whenever he seizes the oar; and especially if it be to row a company of agreeable people on a party of pleasure. If there be young ladies of the number, they may be quite sure to be introduced by the muse, and to receive not only compliments, but admonitions.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 10:28 PM

From a story by Edgar S. Farnsworth called "The Yarn of the Watch" in BALLOU'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE, VOL. 2, [August] 1855, we have "Storm along, Stormy"

It's a general reference to how a crew might sing that song. No specific occasion mentioned.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 11:03 PM

PUTNAM'S MONTHLY for Jan. 1855 had an article entitled "Negro Minstrelsy - Ancient and Modern". It contains the following passage, which includes lyrics to two songs that relate to the maritime repertoire (in an imagined Georgia):

And now, faintly heard far over the water, I distinguish the soft thump of oars in the rowlock of an approaching boat. I listen with attentive ears—for I know by experience the gratification in store for me—and soon catch the distant tones of the human voice— now more faintly heard, and now entirely lost. A few minutes pass, and the breeze once more wafts to me the swelling notes of the chorus half buried in the measured cadeuce of the oars. The wind dies away, and my straining ears again hear nothing but the measured beat of the rowers, and the plashing of the restless sea. But now, anew, I hear the sound of those manly negro voices swelling up upon the evening gale. Nearer and nearer conies the boat, higher and higher rises the melody, till it overpowers and subdues the noise of the oars, which in their turn become subservient to the song, and mark its time with harmonious beating. And now the boat is so near, that every word and every tone comes to my ear, over the water, with perfect distinctness, and I recognize the grand old triumphal chorus of the stirring patriotic melody of " Gen'el Jackson":

"Gen'el Jackson, mighty man—
Whaw, my kingdom, fire away;
He fight on iea, and he fight on land,
Whaw, my kingdom, fire away.

Gen'el Jackson gain de day—
Whaw, my kingdom, fire away,
Be gain de day in Floraday,
Whaw, my kingdom, flre away.

Gen'el Jackson fine de trail,
Whaw, my kingdom, flre away,
He full um fote wid cotton bale,
Whaw, my kingdom, fire away."

But the boat touches the beach; the negroes with a wild cry quit their singing, tumble out into the shallow water, drag their dug-out up high and dry upon the sand, and I am left once more with the evening breeze and the quieter harmony of nature.

The song, a part of which I have just quoted, is fresh from the sable mint in which it was coined. Its originality and genuineness every one familiar with plantation life will at once perceive; while some Georgians may even be able to point to the very river on which the dusky troubadours still chant it. I am well aware that in depriving the words of their appropriate music, I rob it of much of its attractiveness, and still it is no bad sample of what may be called the Historic Plantation Ballad. The particular naval battle in which Old Hickory was engaged, I have not been able to discover; but the allusion to the bales of cotton in the third stanza may not be without its effect in settling one of the vexed questions relating to the defence of New Orleans; and it adds another to the many examples of the superiority of oral tradition over contemporaneous written history.

It is not alone, however, on the water that these quaint songs are produced. The annual corn-shucking season has its own peculiar class of songs, never heard but on that festival; their rhythmical structure or caesural pauses not being adapted to the measured cadence of the oars. Standing at a little distance from the corn heap, on some dark and quiet night, watching the sable forms of the gang, illuminated at intervals by the flashes of the lightwood knot, and listening to the wild high notes of their harvest songs, it is easy to imagine ourselves unseen spectators of some secret aboriginal rite or savage festival. Snatches of one or two songs which on such occasions I have heard, recur to me. Could I in the following specimen give you any idea of the wild grandeur and stirring music of the refrain, I should need no apology for presenting it to my readers.

"De ladies in de parlor.
Hey, come a rollln' down—
A drinking tea and coffee;
Good morning ladies all.

"De gemmen in de kitchen,
Hey come a rollln' down—
A drinking brandy toddy ;
Good morning, ladies all."

More clues to the origin of "Fire Maringo" -- The 2nd Seminole War in Florida (1835-1842), perhaps? -- and an example of its use for rowing (i.e. not just cotton-stowing). "Good morning, ladies all" may not be the same song as the chantey, though it does have a chantey form, and it is being used for "work."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 12:12 AM

GENTLEMEN'S MAGAZINE for Oct. 1839 contains a story supposedly based on the logs of the USS CONSTITUTION in action during the War of 1812. Outside of any context, the article quotes the words to the chantey, FIRE DOWN BELOW.

"Fire! in the main-top,
Fire! in the bow.
Fire! on the gun-deck,
Fire! down below."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 09:01 AM

This looks like it might be a reference to a Gold Rush voyage to San Francisco in 1856. It is from LIFE BY LAND AND SEA, by Prentice Mulford, originally published in 1889. He is on board the "Wizard", and there is a lot of pumping going on. He says,

"For the first six weeks all the "shanty songs" known on the sea had been sung. Regularly at each pumping exercise we had "Santy Anna," "Bully in the Alley," "Miranda Lee," "Storm Along, John," and other operatic maritime gems, some of which might have a place in our modern operas of "The Pinafore" school. There's a good deal of rough melody when these airs are rolled out, by twenty or thirty strong lungs to the accompaniment of a windlass' clank and the wild, shrill sweep of the winds in the rigging above." (p. 24    Here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ClgFQ2SwJQ0C&pg=PA24&dq=%22Bully+in+the+Alley%22&lr=&cd=12#v=onepage&q=%22Bully%20in%20the%20Al

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 02:34 PM

Just to add to John's last entry, Mulford 1889:

The WIZARD described was a clipper ship, bound NY > San Francisco. 1856 is also my best guess -- the author makes the time period very confusing. Though he refers to a windlass in the context of shanties, that is a general reference; the songs specifically mentioned are not necessarily ascribed to that task. Each is being ascribed to pumping. They must have been using the "Downton pump" (i.e. not the brake-lever style, whose action is much like a windlass) because later he says they fitted it with "bell ropes." That means that some guys were doing a hauling action.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 04:19 PM

I can't find a thing on "Miranda Lee". I wonder what this song was about.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: shipcmo
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 04:41 PM

Don't suppose it had anything to do with "Liza Lee"?
Hoist one!
Geo

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 08:03 PM

Here is the relevant passage in A JOURNEY IN THE SEABOARD SLAVE STATES by Frederick Law Olmsted, copyright 1856.

It is 1853. He is traveling on a steamboat on the Red River to Shrevport, LA.

We backed out, winded round head up, and as we began to breast the current, a dozen of the negro boat-hands, standing on the freight, piled up on the low forecastle, began to sing, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and shirts lashed to poles, towards the people who stood on the sterns of the steam-boats at the levee. After losing a few lines, I copied literally into my note-book:

"Ye see dem boat way dah ahead.
Chorus.—Oahoiohieu.
De San Charles is arter 'em, dey mus go behine.
Cho.—Oahoiohieu.

So stir up dah, my livelies, stir her up; (pointing to the furnaces).
Cho.—Oahoiohieu.
Dey's burnin' not'n but fat and rosum.
Cho.—Oahoiohieu.

Oh, we is gwine up de Red River, oh!
Cho.—Oahoiohieu.
Oh, we mus part from you dah asho'.
Cho.—Oahoiohieu.

Give my lub to Dinah, oh!
Cho.—Oahoiohieu.
For we is gwine up de Red River.
Cho.—Oahoiohieu.

Yes, we is gwine up de Red River.
Cho.—Oahoiohieu.
Oh we must part from you dah oh.
Cho.—Oahoiohieu."

[The wit introduced into these songs has, I suspect, been rather over-estimated. On another occasion I took down the following:

" John come down in de holler,
   Oh, work and talk and holler,
   Oh, John, come down in de ho ler,
Ime gwine away to-morrow.
Oh, John, &c.

Ime gwine away to marry,
Oh, John, &c.

Get my cloves in order,
Oh. John, &c.

I'se gwine away to-morrow,
Oh, John, &c.

Oh, work and talk and holler,
Oh, John, &c.

Massa guv me dollar,
Oh, John, &c.

Don't cry yer eyes out, honey,
Oh, John, &c.

I'm gwine to get some money,
Oh, John, &c.

But I'll come back to-morrow,
Oh, John, &c.

So work and talk and holler,
Oh, John, &c.

Work all day and Sunday,
Oh, John, &c.

Massa get de money,
Oh, John, &c.

After the conclusion of this song, and after the negroes had left the bows, and were coming aft along the guards, we passed two or three colored nurses, walking with children on the river bank; as we did so the singers jumped on some cotton bales, bowed very low to them, took off their hats, and swung and waved them, and renewed their song :

God bless yon all, dah ! ladies !
Oh, John come down in de holler,

Farwell, de Lord be wid you, honey,
    Oh, John, come down, &c.

Done cry yerself to def,
    Oh, John. &c.

I'm gwine down to New Orleans,
    Oh, John. &c

I'll come back, dough, bime-by,
    Oh, John, &c,

So far-you-well, my honey,
    Oh, John, &c.

Far-you-well, all you dah, shore,
    Oh, John, &c.

And save your cotton for de Dalmo!
Oh, John, &c]

The Black boat-hands singing are not working. However, one might presume (?) the songs would be the same ones they would use working -- for fireman duties. The first one, THE SAILOR FIREMAN, is attested elsewhere as a work-song, as is the famous JOHNNY COME DOWN TO HILO.

It may be notable that although Olmsted gave the work-songs on a whaling voyage in 1840 (above), he does not compare these songs to those (which were the old DRUNKEN SAILOR and "Nancy Fanana"/"Haul 'er Away").

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 08:31 PM

From John Stirling Fisher's A BUILDER OF THE WEST, we have "[Hi yi, yi, yi,Mister Storm roll on, Storm Along,] Storm Along," "All on the Plains of Mexico", and "Aha, we're bound away, on the wild Missouri", from the memoirs of General William Jackson Palmer, in 1856

Unfortunately, the specific context of these songs is not noted. The passenger heard them on a packet ship from Liverpool to New York.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 09:05 PM

Courtesy of John Minear:

///
Here is a version of "Row, Bullies Row" from 1857. It is in THE KNICKERBOCKER, VOL L., 1857, in an article entitled "The Life of a Midshipmen", by "John Jenkins" (?). He is at the Brooklyn Naval Yard and is being rowed out to his first assignment on board the US Frigate "Shenandoah". It is presented as a rowing song:

[As the launch (which, to my surprise, proved to be nothing more than a large boat) was heavily laden, and the tide running strong against us, the pull to the ship was a very heavy one ; so, to lighten their labors, the midshipman in charge of the boat, gave permission to ' the men ' to sing; upon which they regaled our ears with at least a dozen of the most popular sea-songs of the day, concluding with one, (which I afterward found to be a great favorite among seamen,) where the singers are two — the one (taking for his theme whatever comes uppermost in his mind) making some statement; the other asking a question in relation to it, to which the first replies — the whole boat's crew joining in the chorus. In the present instance it was as follows:]

'Oh! I do love that good, old bottle!
   Row, bullies, row!
Oh! I do love that good, old bottle!
   Row, my bullies, row!
Why do yo love that good, old bottle?
   Row, my bullies, row!
I love it 'cause it suits my throttle!
    Row, my bullies, row!
I love it 'cause it suits my throttle!
    Row, my bullies, row!

   After singing five more verses in the same elegant strain, we happened to pass a bum-boat, in which were seated a fat, old white woman and a negro boy, whereupon the singers roared out with great glee, and in a higher key than before:

'Yonder sits a dear old lady!
    Row, my bullies, row!
Yonder sits a dear old lady!
   Row, my bullies, row!
How do you know she is a lady?
    Row, my bullies, row!
How do you know she is a lady?
    Row, my bullies, row!
I know her by her nigger baby!
    Row, my bullies, row!
I know her by her nigger baby!"   
    Row, my bullies, row!            
////

I wonder about the time period. I don't find any Frigate SHENANDOAH around in 1857 (?). I wonder if this account is from quite a bit earlier. It is much like the song in The American Journal of Music and Musical Vistor, 1845 (above), and it may well have been the same song as what we now know as BLOW BOYS BLOW.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 09:43 PM

From John M.:

////
Here is a reference to ""Whiskey, Johnny" from 1857. In his book, THE MERCANTILE MARINE, E. Keble Chatterton [2009] prints a long quote from a "recently published" book by Sir Wiliam B. Forwood entitled REMINISCENCES OF A LIVERPOOL SHIPOWNER [1920]. Forwood is recollecting a voyage on the "Red Jacket" in 1857. Forwood says, "On the morning of 20th November, 1857...I embarked by a tender from the Liverpool pierhead." The anchor is heaved [via windlass] "to a merry chantie" which is "In 1847 Paddy Murphy went to Heaven".

[In 1847 Paddy Murphy went to Heaven
To work on the railway, the railway, the railway
Oh, poor Paddy works on the railway]

The next morning, they were off Holy head and the order came "loose the headsails." (pp. 158-159):

"Now then, my men, lead your topsail halyards fore and aft, and up with them'. And the crew walk along with the halyards, and then with a long pull and a pull all together the topsail yards are mastheaded to the chantie:

       "Then up the yard must go,
                Whiskey for my Johnny,
       Oh, whiskey for the life of man,
                Whiskey, Johnny.'"
////

So, PADDY ON THE RAILWAY at the brake windlass...and WHISKEY JOHNNY at the halyards. It sounds like they may have been doing a stamp 'n' go maneuver at the halyards, but I don't see how that would work for the chanty. Reading it closer, I think the crew was perhaps just walking the slack, after which, in positions, they did a pull in place. What do others think?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 10:35 PM

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY for July 1858 contains an article on "Songs of the Sea."

Here are some passages about work-songs.

The sailor does not lack for singing. He sings at certain parts of his work;—indeed, he must sing, if he would work. On vessels of war, the drum and fife or boatswain's whistle furnish the necessary movement regulator. There, where the strength of one or two hundred men can be applied to one and the same effort, the labor is not intermittent, but continuous. The men form on either side of the rope to be hauled, and walk away with it like firemen inarching with their engine. When the headmost pair bring up at the stern or bow, they part, and the two streams flow back to the starting-point, outside the following files. Thus in this perpetual " follow-my-leader " way the work is done, with more precision and steadiness than in the merchant-service. Merchantmen are invariably manned with the least possible number, and often go to sea shorthanded, even according to the parsimonious calculations of their owners. The only way the heavier work can be done at all is by each man doing his utmost at the same moment. This is regulated by the song. And here is the true singing of the deep sea. It is not recreation; it is an essential part of the work. It mastheads the topsail-yards, on making tail; it starts the anchor from the domestic or foreign mud; it " rides down the main tack with a will"; it breaks out and takes on board cargo; it keeps the pumps (the ship's,—not the sailor's) going. A good voice and a new and stirring chorus are worth an extra man. And there is plenty of need of both.

What a great statement on the difference of work in a Navy versus a merchant vessel. It provides perfect evidence for the argument that merchant vessels "needed" chanties.

I remember well one black night in the mid-Atlantic, when we were beating up
against a stiff breeze, coming on deck near midnight, just as the ship was put about. When a ship is tacking, the tacks and sheets (ropes which confine the clews or lower corners of the sails) are let run, in order that the yards may be swung round to meet the altered position of the ship. They must then be hauled taut again, and belayed, or secured, in order to keep the sails in their place and to prevent them from shaking. When the ship's head comes up in the wind, the sail is for a moment or two edgewise to it, and then is the nice moment, as soon as the head-sails fairly fill, when the main-yard and the yards above it can be swung readily, and the tacks and sheets hauled in. If the crew are too few in number, or too slow at their work, and the sails get fairly filled on the new tack, it is a fatiguing piece of work enough to " board " the tacks and sheets, as it is called. You are pulling at one end of the rope,—but the gale is tugging at the other. The advantages of lungs are all against you, and perhaps the only thing to be done is to put the helm down a little, and set the sails shaking' again before they can be trimmed properly.—It was just at such a time that I came on deck, as above mentioned. Being near eight bells, the watch on deck had been not over spry ; and the consequence was that our big main-course was slatting and flying out overhead with a might that shook the ship from stem to stern. The flaps of the mad canvas were like successive thumps of a giant's fist upon a mighty drum. The sheets were jerking at the belaying-pins, the blocks rattling in sharp snappings like castanets. You could hear the hiss and seething of the sea alongside, and see it flash by in sudden white patches of phosphorescent foam, while all overhead was black with the flying scud. The English second-mate was stamping with vexation, and, with all his Hs misplaced, storming at the men:— "'An'somely the weather main-brace,— 'an'somely, I tell you!—'Alf a dozen of you clap on to the main sheet here,— down with 'im!—D'ysee 'ore's hall like a midshipman's bag,—heverythink huppermost and nothing 'andy.—'Aul 'im in, Hi say!"—But the sail wouldn't come, though. All the most forcible expressions of the Commination-Service were liberally bestowed on the watch. " Give us the song, men!" sang out the mate, at last,— " pull with a will!—together, men!—haltogether now! "—And then a cracked, melancholy voice struck up this chant:

"Oh, the bowline, bully bully bowline,
Oh, the bowline, bowline, HAUL!"

At the last word every man threw his whole strength into the pull,—all singing it in chorus, with a quick, explosive sound. And so, jump by jump, the sheet was at last hauled taut.—I dare say this will seem very much spun out to a seafarer, but landsmen like to hear of the sea and its ways; and as more landsmen than seamen, probably, read the " Atlantic Monthly," I have told them of one genuine sea-song, and its time and place.

The classic sheet shanty.

Then there are pumping-songs. "The dismal sound of the pumps is heard," says Mr. Webster's Plymouth-Rock Oration ; but being a part of the daily morning duty of a well-disciplined merchant vessel,—just a few minutes' spell to keep the vessel free and cargo unharmed by bilge-water,—it is not a dismal sound at all, but rather a lively one. It was a favorite amusement with us passengers on board the --- to go forward about
pumping-time to the break of the deck and listen. Any quick tune to which you might work a fire-engine will serve for the music, and the words were varied with every fancy.
"Pay me the money down," was one favorite chorus, and the verse ran thus:—

Solo. " Your money, young man, is no object to me.
Chorus. Pay me the money down!
Sola. Half a crown's no great amount.
Chorus. Pay me the money down!
Solo and Chorus. (Bis.) Money down, money down, pay me the money down! "

Not much sense in all this, but it served to man and move the brakes merrily. Then there were other choruses, which, were heard from time to time, —" And the young gals goes a
weepin',"—" O long storm, storm along stormy"; but the favorite tune was "Money down," at least with our crew. They were not an avaricious set, either; for their parting ceremony, on embarking, was to pitch the last half-dollars of their advance on to the wharf, to be scrambled for by the land-sharks. But " Money down " was the standing chorus. I once heard, though not on board that ship, the lively chorus of " Off she goes, and off she must go,"—

" Highland day and off she goes,
Off she goes with a flying fore-topsail,
Highland day and off she goes."

It is one of the most spirited things imaginable, when well sung, and, when applied to the topsail-halyards, brings the yards up in grand style.

So PAY ME THE MONEY DOWN is used for pumping (brake style), along with (implied) ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN and STORMALONG. Is the last one HIGHLAND LADDIE? Or is it perhaps something related to Hugill's "Hilonday"?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 10:48 PM

BTW, is this perhaps the first article devoted to Sea Songs?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 11:18 PM

Another question: Why does the author in 1858 not use the term "chanty"?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Apr 10 - 03:33 PM

As for minstrel songs -- those especially of the late 1830s thru 1850s -- influencing chanties, the fact is well known. But because this thread's subject is more about seeing the emergence of chanteying (i.e. maritime work-singing) as a whole, and not the individual trajectories of songs, I've not been inclined to note all the minstrel songs from those years (i.e. outside of maritime and working context).

Some deserve special note, however. We talked about STORMY appearing in WHITE'S NEW ILLUSTRATED MELODEON of 1848 -- a collection, which means the songs were popular on stage even a few years earlier, perhaps. One could make a good case that STORMY was borrowed into the minstrel repertoire from the cotton-stowing context.

So I want to mention two other songs that I think one could argue were also taken from work-songs.

The same collection has THE SAILOR FIREMAN. It had been documented before this date as a "stoker's chaunt" in 1839. And after this, it appears among steamboat hands in Olmsted's account. In other words, the song was linked to the steamboat fireman's profession. heres how it appears in the 1848 collection:

FIRE DOWN BELOW

I'll fire dis trip, but I'll fire no more
    Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Oh, pay me my money , and I'll go on shore
    Fire down below.

Miss Fanny Bell, oh, fare you well
I'm gwine away, p'r'aps to [Hell]

A bully boat, and a bully crew
An' a bully ragin' captain, too

De possum jump, and de panther roar
I woke dis mornin' at half-past four

I crept out safely from my five
An took a dram at half-past five

Says I, "ole boat, let's have no tricks"
Her biler bust at half-past six

So now we trabbel under sail
'Kase Jonah's de man dat swallowed de whale

I'll fire dis trip but I'll fire no more
Pay me my money, an I'll go on shore

Hugill included this in his collection; he'd taken it from a Swedish chantey collection. The verses are so similar, that it seems to be this minstrel version misheard/folk-processed. Here's a rendition. Still, I believe this song's existence was not dependent on the popular stage.

The other song of note in White collection is the "other" "Fire Down Below" song. This is the whose framework may (my conjecture) go back to British Navy days, but which had become ubiquitous among African-American laborers.

FIRE, FIRE, FIRE

Composed and sung by the Pet of Minstrels, Cool White, and received nightly with thunders of applause, at the Head Quarters of all Serenaders and Minstrels, the Melodeon, 53 Bowery, New-York.

I left de husking party late,
   I began to grow quite tire,
But 'fore I got to massa's gate,
I heard de cry ob fire
Chorui: Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire,
      An I am bound to go,
    Yes, I am bound to go;
    Den tote dat bucket ob water, [boys?]
    Dar's fire down below

De fireman rushes to de spot,
What shriek is dat I hear!
De widow hab de child forgot,
Twill perish yet I fear.
Fire, fire, fire, fire, &c.

De fireman hears dat dreadful cry,
   I golly, dat's enough ;
De smoke an fire, he both defy,
His skin am thick an tough.
Fire, fire, fire, fire, &c.

Dat shout again, 'tis one ob joy,
De hero now appears,
De widow takes her darling boy,
She thanks him wid her tears.
          Fire, fire, fire, fire, &c.

It corresponds --I say-- to this strain of song, as in Hugill's Version "D'.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Apr 10 - 04:03 PM

Gibb, 'I don't see how that would work for the chanty. Reading it closer, I think the crew was perhaps just walking the slack, after which, in positions, they did a pull in place. What do others think?

I read the same as you here.

Why does the author in 1858 not use the term "chanty"?
I didn't think the term was in wide universal use until later. Not everyone would be familiar with it. The writer is also speaking as a very observant outsider, not someone actively involved. He was simply observing, not talking to the crew.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Apr 10 - 04:17 PM

Fire! Fire! Fire!
printed by the Glasgow Poet's Box 23rd November, 1867

Versions were also printed by Fortey of London and Sanderson of Edinburgh at about the same time.

As I went out de oder night
To take a little walk,
I ran again a fireman,
And to him I did talk.
He asked me what I wanted,
Or what I did require,
And just as he was saying dis
A nigger called out "Fire!"

Chorus--Fire! fire! fire!
Now I's bound to go;
       Can't you give us a bucket of water,
Dere's a fire down below.

Away we ran for de old engine,
To old Aunt Sally's dwelling;
Aunt Sally came to meet de flames,
To help dem I was willing
Aunt Sally jumped on de coachman's box,
I thought I should expire,
To see her grin on de old engine,
As we went to de fire.

When we got to de house on fire,
We off de engine hopped;
Aunt Sally up de ladder flew,
All for to reach de top.
Her heel did slip, and down she fell,
Instead of going higher;
She fell up to her neck in water,
And declared she was in de fire.

Aunt Sally kicked, Aunt Sally screamed,
And declared she was burnt to death;
De splashing ob de water
Soon put de flames to rest.
I caught hold of Aunt Sally's arms,
I thought she would expire;
She does declare to dis berry day,
She set de water on fire.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Apr 10 - 04:36 PM

Printed by Such of London at about the same time as the Glasgow one.

Fire! Down Below.

Oh, I am a simple country lad,
From London just come down,
To tell you the scrapes and narrow escapes
I had when last in town;
Twas market day, I'd sold my hay,
And stood things to admire,
When all at once a chap bawl'd oot,
Hey Master, mind the fire.
Fire! fire! fire!
   Fire down below;
Let us hope that we shall never see,
   A fire down below.,

I turned me round to ask a lass,
The cause of all this stir,
And if she'd a mind to be so kind,
As to tell me where it were;
Says she, "young man, yes that I can,
Do all that you require,
Just come with me and you shall see,
I'll take you where there's fire."

With that she linked her arm in mine,
And down the steeet we steered
To some back slum she called her home,
But still no fire appeared.
For a house we peep'd, upstairs we creep'd,
Three story's(sic) high or higher,
In a room we popp'd, all night we stopp'd.
But I couldn't find out the fire.

(I think I know where this is going!)

In the morning when I waken'd up,
My lady-bird had flown,
Not only lass, but all my brass.
And watch and clothes were gone;
Bare legg'd and feet, I ran in street,
My shirt my sole attire,
The women laughed, and the men they chaff'd,
While I kept bawling, "Fire!"

By some good chance I reached my home,
Half dead with shame and fright,
And all that saw me and all that knew me,
Said, "Spoony, served him right."
But the worst wasn't past, oh, it came at last,
I thought I should expire,
Say what you will I was very ill,
And the doctor said 'twas fire!

So all you good gentlemen,
Who a courting have not been,
Be advised by me, don't foolish be,
By all I have done and seen.
Don't miss your ways on market days,
Or stand things to admire,
But avoid back slums, and female chums,
And don't go catching fire.

A well-written tight little parody. Hope it gets sung again some time.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Apr 10 - 05:46 PM

In the OBERLIN STUDENT'S MONTHLY for Dec. 1858, an I. Allen has written the second (?) article devoted to "Songs of the Sailor." It is remarkably reflective. Here are excerpts.

And then, on the still morning air, there comes floating to you, mellowed by the distance, the sailor's work song, keeping time to the monotonous "click, click'' of the windlass pawls, as the anchor comes slowly up:

"We've a bully slop and a bully crew,
      Heigho, heave and go;
We've a bully mate and a captain too;
      Heigho, heave and go.''

That monotonous chorus is just as essential to the proper working of the ship as the ropes and windlass. The anchor sticks as if it had grown to the bottom, and nothing but a song can get it up....

The brake windlass song has a typical verse. The chorus seems transmutable with "roll & go," i.e a Sally Brown sort of song.

The topsails are down for reefing, and the ship strains and pitches over the "seas," while the wind over head howls and whistles the chorus of triumphant storm-fiends; but the song rises:

"Oh haulee, heigho, cheeryman !
O ! pull like brothers, heigho, cheeryman,
And not like lubbers, heigho, cheeryman;
O ! haulee, heigho, cheeryman."

And up goes the topsail: the laboring ship feels it, and plunges off like a racehorse, and the enraged wind follows whistling and howling astern.

The continued use of CHEERLY for topsail halyards. Notable perhaps that the form is "cheeryman," as in the 1852 "News from our Digger."

There was one ditty often used at the windlass, that frequently gave rise to a train of reverie in my mind, especially when combined with surrounding circumstances. The forest-crowned hills, the waving palms and cocoas, the peculiar fragrance borne to us on the landbreeze, the solemn roar of the distant surf, the red, blue and white dresses of the men, as bare-armed and footed, they worked at the windlass and elsewhere, the hundreds of swarthy forms on deck and in canoes dancing over the blue waves, all combined to give force to the idea, that you were in a foreign land. And then, amid the barbarous jargon of tongues, the crew at the windlass strike up:

"I wish I were a stormy's son;
Hurrah, storm along!
I'd storm 'em up and storm 'em down;
Storm along my stormies.
Hurrah! John Rowley,
John, storm along—
We'll storm 'em up and storm 'em down,
Storm along, my stormies.
We'll make them hear our thundering guns,
Storm along my stormies."

And then it proceeds pathetically to inform us that "Old Rowley is dead and gone," and that "they lowered him down with a golden chain," and that they'll proceed to storm somebody or other...

It's WAY STORMALONG JOHN.

...There stuck the anchor till the captain came aboard and another row, and water as a result. Then the anchor came up and we sailed away to the tune of—

"And now our prize we'll take in tow,
And tor old England we will go ;
Our pockets all well lined with brass,
We'll drink a health to our favorite lass!
Hurrah! we're homeward bou-ou-ound!
Hurrah ! we're homeward bound."

Hugill has this one under the title of OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND. Claims it was originally an old (late 18th century) ballad.

But strange as it may seem, however varied the appearance and nationality of the ship and its crew, be they from Archangel's icebound coast, or India's coral strand, Saxon or Celt, Frenchman or Turk, Russian or African, we invariably find that the strain of the sailor's worksong has the same plaintive minor key, strongly reminding one of their similarity in this respect to the sad-toned melodies of the negro race....

Ooooh, "plaintive" and "minor" again.

One evening as we were thus seated on deck, among the eager listeners to the usual songs and ghost stories, there was a young colored man who was working his passage home. "Come Pete," said one of the men, "it's your turn now; give us a song." "Can't massar only savy (know) my country song." " Oh well, let's have one of them." After considerable parleying, a dirge-like whine issued from Pete's corner, which no one suspected was intended for a song. At last one, getting impatient, cried out, "That's enough tuning up; let's have the song." Another, " What are you crying about ? We only asked for a song." "Dat my country song I" retorted the indignant Pete; and the roar with which this announcement was greeted upsetting the nerves of poor Pete, we soon found there was a slight difference between his singing and crying. Along the African coast you will hear that dirge-like strain in all their songs, as at work or paddling their canoes to and from shore, they keep time to the music. On the southern plantations you will hear it also, and in the negro melodies every where, plaintive and melodious, sad and earnest. It seems like the dirge of national degradation, the wail of a race, stricken and crushed, familiar with tyranny, submission and unrequited labor.

Wow, the author is drawing a pretty strong connection between sailors' songs and slave songs. I wonder what the abolitionist undertones may have been. Hey, it's a far cry from this 1858 statement to Cecil Sharp's 1914 statements on "the vexed question of negro influence."

And here I cannot help noticing tho similarity existing between the working chorus of the sailors and the dirge-like negro melody, to which my attention was specially directed by an incident I witnessed or rather heard.

One day we had anchored off a small town, and soon the canoe fleet of the natives was seen coming off to trade. Suddenly a well known strain of music comes floating to us on the land breeze. "Where's that singing?" cries one, " can't be that yon ship is weighing anchor ?" " Why, it's the darkies I" shouts another of the listeners; and, sure enough, there were five or six hundred of them coming off singing in two parts and keeping time with their paddles to

"Heigh Jim along, Jim along Josey, Heigh Jim along, Jim along Jo!"

They had made an advance in the scale of civilization and taken their place in the world of harmony. Then the conclusions of my speculation on the probable cause of this evident similarity between the chorus melodies of the sailor and the negro were something like these—First, the similarity of the object; that is, the unifying of effort in labor, and thus to secure simultaneous action, as in rowing, pulling, hoeing, &c., &c., by the measured and rythmical occurrence of vowel sounds.

Was not "Jim along Jo" recognized as a minstrel tune then? I'm not sure. Perhaps, again, minstrelsy took it from the folk tradition -- and that tradition may have been of (or shared with) a work-song. There is the idea (not here) that "Jim along Jo" is the same framework as "Haul Away Joe." Their prosody matches exactly. Interesting, too, that Cecil Sharp later uses "Haul Away Joe" as an example to argue why not many chanty tunes are of African-American origin. Well, he might be right. The tune might be of an Irish character, say. Of course, my take on this is that to say African-American means to imply a culture that had already absorbed influences from English, Irish, etc. African-Americans' songs are not expected to have come from Africa (just as the language is a dialect of English); what is relevant is who was singing these melodies/songs during the time under question.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Apr 10 - 06:31 PM

Jim along Josey was written by Edward Harper in 1840 in a play called 'The Free Nigger of New York'. It was printed by early nineteenth century printers such as John Pitts of London. (Pitts died in 1844 so he must have printed it between 1840-44. The Pitts copy is on the Bodleian website, Harding B11 (1787).

It's an interesting point. Were the African Americans singing minstrel songs or were the minstrel writers basing their songs on what the slaves were singing? Probably both.

The sensational Jump Jim Crow was said to have been based on actual observation of an African American.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 20 Apr 10 - 01:12 PM

Thank you, Steve. That's useful information about "Jim Along."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 20 Apr 10 - 01:30 PM

MELBOURNE, AND THE CHINCHA ISLANDS, by George Washington Peck, 1854, has the following. It pertains to a trip in the ship PLYMOUTH ROCK from Boston to Melbourne (via Cape Horn) in early 1854. The passenger-narrator writes:

We experienced some very heavy weather in the South Pacific, and as the voyage lengthened, the tempers of many of our gold-hunters, most of whom had come from shops and farms, and had few resources for amusement, began to be sorely tried. To contribute my part to preserve them in order, I used to make catches out of sea-songs, and we got up a little glee club, whose performances were much admired. Almost every New Englander who has aught of a taste for music, has been to a " Singing School," and can read psalmody. But we had no psalm tunes for men's voices. To remedy this deficiency, I composed some for every Sunday, the last few weeks, which we sung to hymns appropriate to our situation. Annexed are some specimens of sea-songs, which may amuse our musical readers; the list might be extended indefinitely. What the first was manufactured out of, it is not easy to imagine. The second is a scrap of something familiar. Perhaps the third may be some Dutch melody. The last is the universal favorite. It goes to the words " Haul the bowline, the Black Star bowline, haul the bowline, the bowline HAUL!" The last word is only the cry in which all join, at the pull; the rest is sung by one alone.

He does not describe the working context; BOWLINE is being used for entertainment here. However, he does describe the form. Note that the chorus came only on the last word, not the entire last phrase ("haul the bowline, the bowline HAUL!") as is typically performed today. We can assume it was a sheet shanty. The melody is given, in major key. As for the other three melodies without words, I don't believe them to have been shanties.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 20 Apr 10 - 07:05 PM

John M. writes:

////
And then a reference from Solomon Northup's TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE, 1855, perhaps talking about events in 1853 or earlier. He mentions some fiddle tunes and "patting juba" songs, among which are "Old Hog Eye!" and "Jim Along, Josie."
////

Here is the passage.

One " set" off, another takes its place, he or she remaining longest on the floor receiving the most up roarious commendation, and so the dancing continues until broad daylight. It does not cease with the sound of the fiddle, but in that case they set up a music peculiar to themselves. This is called " patting," accompanied with one of those unmeaning songs, composed rather for its adaptation to a certain tune or measure, than for the purpose of expressing any distinct idea. The patting is performed by striking the hands on the knees, then striking the hands together, then striking the right shoulder with ona hand, the left with the other—all the while keeping timo with the feet, and singing, perhaps, this song.

" Harper's creek and roarin' ribber,
Thar, my clear, we'll live forebber;
Den we'll go to de Ingin nation,
All I want in dis creation,
Is pretty little wife and big plantation.

Chorus. Up dat oak and down dat ribber,
Two overseers and one little nigger"

Or, if these words are not adapted to the tune called for, it may be that " Old Hog Eye" is—a rather solemn and startling specimen of versification, not, however, to be appreciated unless heard at the South. It runneth as follows:

"Who's been here since I've been gone?
Pretty little gal wid a josey on.

Hog Eye!
Old Hog Eye,
And Hosey too!

Never see de like since I was bom,
Here come a little gal wid a josey on.

Hog Eye!
Old Hog Eye!
And Hosey too!"

Or, may be the following, perhaps, equally nonsenaical, but full of melody, nevertheless, as it flows from the negro's mouth :

"Ebo Dick and Jurdan's Jo,
Them two niggers stole my yo'

Chorus. Hop Jim along,
       Walk Jim along,
         Talk Jim along. &c.

Old black Dan, as black as tar,
He dam glad he was not dar.
    Hop Jim along," &c

It's not *quite* "Jim along Josey" as we know it. One could say that, whether the minstrel song was based in a slave song or whether it was original in 1840, it did also have a life by this time as a folk song among Blacks. I would reason that, since the form of this does not match that of the minstrel version, that a folk version existed before and alongside the minstrel version. That is somewhat dodgy reasoning, however.

Was a version "Hog Eye" also a minstrel song? The "typical" lyrics appear in minstrelsy, I know, being floating verses. But the chorus?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 20 Apr 10 - 07:43 PM

In SEA DRIFT, Hercules Robinson (1858) recalls his days in the British Navy and serving during the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805. I don't find where it says when he first went to see. However, it is that time (i.e. 1805 or earlier) that he refers to when giving his "Sally Brown" song.

When I went to sea first, the bellowing of officers in carrying on duty was awful, and a strong voice was a gift greatly prized. Every officer giving orders used a speaking trumpet, and the men were not half restrained in the article of noise. They were not allowed to do their work with such a song as Dickens commemorates—
" Oh Sally Brown, Sally Brown, oh !
She won't have a Yankee sailor, oh!
Cos she loves the nigger tailor, oh!!"—[Da Capo.]

But short of this refrain there was a great latitude as to exclamation and noise. My Captain, the first, Sir Henry Blackwood, had a wonderful organ, and might be heard a mile off.

Well, so they were not allowed to sing in the British Navy. It is not clear whether this song was of that time period (i.e. on non-Navy ships) or if it came in later -- in time for Dickens to commemorate it. Was it this song that Dickens commemorated, or another, perhaps as in HOUSEHOLD WORDS, 1855-56, which has an out-of-context reference to "Drunken Sailor"?

In any case, though this has the name "Sally Brown," and its lyrical theme, its form is not of the stanzaic sort, with "roll and go" chorus, that we know of later. It looks more like a "Cheerly Man" form, which would be consistent with the earlier time period and Navy context, if so. It's not Maryat's "Sally Brown" of 1837, but it does appear like the iffy "common sailor's chant" sung on stage by Wallack in the 1820s. I'm going to file it as "circa 1805-1820s."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Apr 10 - 07:52 PM

Maybe someone else can identify the three other tunes printed by Peck.

I believe that No. 3 is the tune used by one or more of Carpenter's singers for "Victorio" or "Very Well Done, Jim Crow!"

The final bars of No. 1 seem to make up a chorus that scans like that of "Stormy Old Weather, Windy Old Weather."

No. 2 reminds me a little of the Scots song "Drumdelgie" and the Irish tune "O'Keefe's Slide."

I wouldn't discount their possible use in shanties.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 20 Apr 10 - 10:05 PM

For the last (at present) reference that might be attributed to the 1850s, I want to copy (with minor additions) John Minear's post from elsewhere on Mudcat.

////snip
Posted By: John Minear
31-Mar-10 - 07:45 AM
Thread Name: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Subject: RE: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?

Here is a reference to the hauling/halyard chanty "Whiskey for Johnny!" being used to "pull round the yards" on board of the packet ship "Mary Bradford" on a cruise from London to New York, from the book THE REAL EXPERIENCES OF AN EMIGRANT [(Ward, Lock and Tyler)]:

       "The passengers assisted the sailors to pull round the yards - a work of great difficulty. It was done by a series of pulls - thus: one man took hold of the rope and stood on the spar of the bulwark, singing a few words of a song - I could not make them out - the others called out, "Whisky for Johnny!" and gave a simultaneous haul, when the yard came round an inch or two, and so they continued until the sail was sheeted home." (p. 39)

The frustrating thing about this reference is that there is no publication date that I can find for the book other than "187?". And like a lot of these accounts, the writer chooses to *not* give a date for his experience! I have yet to understand this, unless it is a way of covering up a fiction. It makes me suspicious right off. He says, "On Saturday, the --day of June, 18--, I embarked on board the "Mary Bradford," then lying in the basin of the London Docks, and bound for New York." (p. 5)

There certainly was a "Mary Bradford", and she was one of the "Swallow-Tail Line of Packet Ship", sailing every alternate Thursday from New York and London. Here is an advertisement from 1859:...

She was launched in October of 1854 at Warren, Rhode Island, and immediately sailed for Mobile....

And on July 5, 1855, she was struck by lightning at Battery Wharf in Boston!...

While it is a somewhat shaky guess, I would say that this reference to "Whiskey for Johnny!" *could* be located in the later 1850s. It seems to place it in the packet trade. However, this chanty has quite a reputation for being used on board the packet ships. It is strange that this is the only reference I have been able to find that really confirms that, so far. All of the other solid references to "Whiskey Johnny" are later.
////snip

As far as dating the event goes, that makes a lot of sense to me. Additionally, the narrator mentions meeting a survivor of the U.S. steamship CENTRAL AMERICA, which used to transport gold-seekers between NY and Panama, and which sank off North Carolina in Sept. 1857. Abolitionists are mentioned, but the Civil War is conspicuously absent. So between 1858-1860 sounds about right. OK?

My suspicion is that this is not the halyard chantey "Whiskey for Johnny." Because if they were pulling the yards around (tacking), they'd be hauling on braces, right? (Someone please adjust my shaky sailing knowledge.) It sounds like a sheet shnty or a "sing-out," where perhaps there was just a hard pull on "Johnny!" Thoughts?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 12:15 AM

I had forgotten this source. It is James Hungerford's THE OLD PLANTATION (1859), which includes observations of slave songs the author heard whilst visiting a relative's plantation in southern Maryland in 1832.

First passage. The people are on a boat on a creek.

"This is getting dull," said the major, after the silence had lasted some minutes ; " Come, Charley, give us a song to enliven us a little."

In obedience to this order, Charley struck up a song; the other oarsmen answered in chorus, all timing the strokes of their oars to the measure. The song was not by any means enlivening, however, either in words or tune—as the reader will perceive. I have entitled it

SOLD OFF TO GEORGY [Chorus parts are in parentheses]

1. Farewell fellow servants, (O-ho! O-ho!)
I'm gwine way to leabe you (O-ho! O-ho!)
I'm gwine to leave de ole county (O-ho! O-ho!)
I'm sold off to Georgy! (O-ho! O-ho!)

2. Farewell, ole plantation, (Oho! Oho!)
   Farewell, de ole quarter, (Oho ! Oho!)
Un daddy, un mammy, (Oho! Oho !)
Un marster, un missus ! (Oho ! Oho!)

8. My dear wife un one chile, (Oho! Oho!)
My poor heart is breaking; (Oho ! Oho!)
No more shall I see you, (Oho ! Oho !)
Oh ! no more foreber! (Oho! Oho!)

The reader will observe that the lines of the song do not rhyme ; and it may be remarked that the negro songs—that is, such as they can compose themselves—are mostly without rhymes. When they do attempt to rhyme they frequently take more than the poetic license, being satisfied—when they can not do better—if the vowel-sounds at the ends of the lines agree.

The tone of voice in which this boat-song was sung was inexpressibly plaintive, and, bearing such a melancholy tune, and such affecting words, produced a very pathetic effect. I saw tears in the eyes of the young ladies, and could scarcely restrain my own. We heard but the three verses given (such songs are sometimes stretched out to many verses) ; for at the end of the third verse the major interrupted the song.

" Confound such lively music," he exclaimed; "it is making the girls cry, I do believe. And with such slow measure to sing to, we shall scarcely get into Weatherby's Creek tonight."
" De boat-songs is always dat way, marster," said Charley —" dat is mo' er less."
"Well, try to find something better than that," said the major; " I am sure that it is impossible for any thing to be more low-spirited in words, or tune, or manner of singing."
" Yas, marster," was Charley's answer. And the negroes sang another boat-song, but not so very sad as their first.
"Charley is right," said Miss Bettie, with a laugh; "the boat-songs are ' all that way, more or less.' I think that we had better have silence than such low-spirited music. Do you not think so, uncle?"
" Entirely," said the major. " The pathetic is well enough when there is need of stirring up our feelings of humanity, but I can see no use in creating mere low spirits."
" I like the music," said Lizzie ; " it is sometimes pleasant —if I may speak such a seeming paradox—to be made sad without any personal cause for being so. Such a state of feeling may be called ' the luxury of woe.' "
Miss Susan and I agreed with her. The negroes seemed pleased at our approval.

It looks like the 'marsters' got more than they bargained for when they requested a song!

It is printed with tune. It's in 6/8, in what you could call the major pentatonic scale (CDEGA). This gives some insight on what was being called "plaintive"! This shows that plaintive wasn't necessarily minor -- though the drop down to the sixth scale degree, presumably not characteristic of English music, lends a minor-ish touch. Blue notes may have been happening, or it may have just been something else in the "tone of voice." At least this resolves (for me) some of the disjuncture between the idea of "plaintive" and chanty melodies of today. That is, this melody is not unlike chanty melodies of today, so if this was what was being called "plaintive," then other references to "plaintive" could be to the same sort of idea.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 12:43 AM

The second passage in Hungerford 1859 contains the famous "Round the Corn, Sally."


" Charley looks as if he would sing us another song," said Miss Bettie. " What is that lively little song, Charley, which I heard you and some of the hands sing the other day, when you were hanging tobacco at the barn ? I am sure that you can row to that."
" Sure unnuff, young misstis," answered Charley; " I had forgot dat. But dat's a corn song; un we'll hab ter sing it slow ter row to."
" Try it, at any rate," said the major.
" Sartinly, sah, ef de marsters un mistisses wants it."
Charley was evidently somewhat vexed at the disparaging
remarks made by the petitioners on his previous performance.
Nevertheless, there came a quiet smile to his face as he began
the following song:

ROUN' DE CORN, SALLY.

1. Hooray, hooray, ho!
Roun' de corn, Sally !
Hooray for all de lub- ly la-dies!
Roun' de corn, Sal - ly I
Hooray, hoo - ray, ho !
Roun' de corn, Sal - ly!
Hoo-ray for all de lub - ly la - dies!
Roun' de corn, Sal - ly!

Dis lub's er thing dat 's sure to hab you,
Roun' de corn, Sal - ly!
He hole you tight, when once he grab you,
Roun' de corn, Sal -ly!
Un ole un ug - ly, young un prit- ty,
Roun' do corn, Sal - ly!
You need- en try when once he git you,
Roun' de corn, Sal - ly !

2. Dere's Mr. Travers lub Miss Jinny;
He thinks she is us good us any.
He comes from church wid her er Sunday,
Un don't go back ter town till Monday.
                         Hooray, hooray, ho! etc.

3. Dere's Mr. Lucas lub Miss Treser,
Un ebery thing he does ter please her;
Dey say dat 'way out in Ohio,
She's got er plenty uv de rhino.
                         Hooray, hooray, ho! etc.

4. Dere's Marster Charley lub Miss Bettie;
   I tell you what—he thinks her pretty;
   Un den dey mean ter lib so lordly,
   All at de Monner House at Audley.
                      Hooray, hooray, ho! etc.

5. Dere's Marster Wat, he lub Miss Susan;
He thinks she is de pick un choosin';
Un when dey gains de married station,
   He'll take her to de ole plantation.
                      Hooray, hooray, ho! etc.

6. Dere's Marster Clarence lub Miss Lizzy;
   Dressing nice, it keeps him busy;
Un where she goes den he gallants her,
Er riding on his sorrel prancer.
                      Hooray, hooray, ho! etc.

This song caused much amusement at the expense of each one of us who in turn became the subject of satire. The hit at Lizzie and me was the hardest, as we were both present, and was, therefore, I suppose, introduced at the end. Several laughing efforts were made by the ladies to interrupt the singing, when the words began to have reference to those who were present; but the old major insisted on " having it out," as he expressed himself. The decided " effect" produced by his song completely re-established Charley's good-humor. The old major, being the only white person present who was spared, of course enjoyed the occasion immensely; his laughter rang loud and far through the clear air, and was echoed back from the banks of the creek.
"Those are not the words, Charley," said Miss Bettie, " that you sung to that tune the other day."
" No, miss," was the answer. " Marse Weatherby's little Sam was ober at Sin Joseph's tud-day, un larnt um ter me. He said Clotildy made um un larnt um ter him dis morning.''
"But why did she make that verse," I asked, "about my 'gallanting' Miss Lizzie, as she calls it? I never rode out with Miss Lizzie till this morning."
" Sam said," answered Charley, " dat he asked Clotildy ubbout dat, un she said you was er gwine ter do it."
" I say, young Audley," said the major, " you forget that the poet has a right to foreshadow coming events. I have a dim recollection of having read, somewhere that there was a time at least
             " 'When the name Of poet and of prophet was the same.' "

Topical, ha ha! A good illustration of the qualities described by other authors. The tune is also given here, in 4/4, major scale. The harmonic structure is such that a IV chord comes at or just before the cadence, given a "modal" quality. Although it's not *exactly* what's written here (no one expects it to be), one can get a vert good sense of this melody from this rendition by The Johnson Girls. Note that while they sing the whole "hooray" part as a chorus, in Hungerford's text, that part is structured as a call and response. And of course, the harmonizing is their addition.

We also learn from this that "corn songs" were faster than those for rowing.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 09:00 AM

Here are three more references to "Round the Corn, Sally" as a corn-shucking song. The first is from 1848:

http://books.google.com/books?id=PCpKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA287&dq=%22Round+the+corn,+sally%22&lr=&cd=23#v=onepage&q=%22Round%20the%20cor

I'm not sure on the dating of this one, which was published in 1894, but surely it is earlier than that:

http://books.google.com/books?id=2ncAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA260&dq=Round+the+corn,+sally&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Round%20the%20corn%2C%20sally&f

And, from SLAVE SONGS OF THE UNITED STATES, by Allen, Ware and Garrison, published in 1867, a tune:

http://books.google.com/books?id=6frfZd0-1xkC&pg=PA68&dq=Round+the+corn,+sally&cd=4#v=onepage&q=Round%20the%20corn%2C%20sally&f=

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 10:32 AM

See here (pp. 206-07) for a brief (and of course inconclusive) musicological discussion of "Round the Corn, Sally":

http://books.google.com/books?id=E2OQlWHzjvEC&pg=PA206&dq=%22Roun'+de+corn,+sally%22&lr=&cd=5#v=onepage&q=%22Roun'%20de%20corn%2C%20sally%22&f=false

I don't share the author's certainty that the shanty (with "corner" rather than "corn")"surely" came first.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 12:49 PM

OK! I've put those Round the Corn refs in my timeline, thanks.

The one published in 1894 is not authentic. It uses the same lyrics (polished up) as in Hungerford's 1832 account....lyrics which were composed specifically to address Hungerford's fellows at that time!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 01:11 PM

Gibb, I appreciate your close and careful reading of the sources!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 01:45 PM

Being more acqainted with chanties than slave songs I had not come across the 'Round the CORN songs' before. Whereas I do think that borrowing from one genre to another is often a two-way affair, in this case I think that 'round the corner' is more likely to derive from 'round the corn' than the reverse case.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 03:06 PM

Here's my meagre attempt to sort out the chicken-or-egg of "Round the corn(er)," with the the evidence available to me *at present*.

I think it is unlikely that the two phrases (corn/corner) coincidentally developed independently. So, one comes from the other. Having assumed that...

If we were to have evidence of the phrase "round the corner Sally" being in use in other contexts (e.g. in England, outside of maritime context) --especially if *earlier* than any of these working contexts-- then that would strengthen the originality of "Round the Corner, Sally" (shipboard song).

As far as the working songs go in the emerging "timeline," the first instance of one or the other phrase is:

1832, Maryland -- Hungerford's documented corn-shucking song Round the CORN

Next, just a few years after, comes,

1834-1836, on the brig _Pilgrim_, "Round the CORNER, Sally"

Then in 1839, "Round the CORNER" turns up in Tahiti as a song learned from sailors. CORNER turns up again in the Society Islands in 1844.

It persisted as a corn-shucking song, as evidenced by mention in 1848, and inclusion of a unique (i.e. not derivative of earlier texts) version in Allen's SLAVE SONGS.

It seems certain that, unless "Round the Corner" had become a popular song --that is, one that was widely spread and known amongst "all" people --that it's flow was the result of movement of African-Americans. I say this because, for example, I have difficulty imagining that non-Black sailors would have brought the song to plantations.

There may well have been some intermediary context, like rowing or stevedoring, which link the plantations to the sea. But in any case, I have difficulty imagining that Blacks were not the agents for the transfer. (Someone please critique my logic.) So, one might propose that Blacks either brought it to the ships when they came as sailors, or, having served as sailors, brought it to the plantations. To me, the former sounds more likely, i.e. slave song > shipboard song.

However, in terms of language, it seems to me slightly more likely that CORNER > CORN once the corn-shucking context was introduced. On the other hand, what did "corner" mean at all to sailors if it was *not* "flash girls down the alley"? (I don't buy the "Cape Horn" idea, at least not for this time period.)

I have not really clarified anything, but I will try to state my "bottom line":

If the phrase, "Round the Corner Sallies" was well established in Anglo discourse early on, then I'd learn towards CORNER coming first. Otherwise, I lean towards the CORN song coming first. In the latter case, the language scenario would be the reverse of Van De Merwe's idea: confronted with "corn," which no longer made any sense when brought to a maritime context, sailors changed it to "corner."

All that being said...if the slave song did get adopted as a sailor song, that happened at quite an early date -- before the time of cultural exchange (e.g. the cotton-stowing) that gives us a burst of new shanty repertoire. From Hungerford's 1832 Maryland to Dana's mid 1830s Cape Horn trip, that is a big leap in few years. The exchange probably would have happened quite a bit earlier. Was this one of the really early exchanges --compare GROG TIME-- during a period when African-Americans were well represented as sailing ship crew? I am too uncomfortable, with the lack of evidence, to say more.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 04:31 PM

I am just about in complete agreement with your summary, Gibb, with a reservation on the linguistic side. Corn and corner are far too close to determine which one would lead to the other. One has only to emphasize the 'n' on corn a little too much, as can happen when singing, and you have corner. Alternatively word endings can drop very easily in slang lingo (Mas' Jones = Master Jones). The only thing I can add is, to me 'round the corner Sally' rolls off the tongue marginally better, but that doesn't help at all in determining which might have come first. A lingiuistics expert would have plenty to say on this. The strong 'S' on Sally diminishes the 'er' sound on corner to the extent that there is very little difference between the two phrases. Try it. However, if you miss off the Sally, the 'er' becomes much more emphasised. Well, in my Yorkshire accent it does.

Looking back through the thread we have 'Round the corner Sally' appearing in a minstrel song in 1843. The most likely source of minstrel song material is African American. If we assume 'corner' was being used by the slaves then this means they were using both 'corn' and 'corner' and the change happened there, or at least that both were in use on the American mainland before transferring to shipboard use. Or not!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 05:01 PM

Some notes on the 1850s

I count about 13 *possibly* new chanties to appear in the 1850s. When I say "new," I mean new to the timeline of references; it is of course in possible to know if these songs were truly new to the world then. The more common hold-overs from the past decades are STORMALONG (in some form) and CHEERLY.

There are several references to shantying while pumping ship in the 1850s. This task was not mentioned in earlier decades.

Before the 1850s, I see only 3 direct references to using shanties for halyards. These shanties are CHEERLY, GROG TIME, and DRUNKEN SAILOR. In the 1850s, however, there is

CHEERLY x2
STORMY
WHISKEY JOHNNY
"Highland Day"

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 05:09 PM

Steve,

Sorry I was unclear about "linguistic." I was not thinking about pronunciation or ease of speech or anything like that. I was thinking of the meaning of the words. That "corn" is meaningful in in the corn-shucking context is obvious. But what would "corner" mean to sailors, if not as part of the phrase meaning "streetwalkers"? Well, "corn" would mean even less to sailors, which is why I thought they might re-interpret "corn" as "corner." That particular issue is not one of hearing/pronunciation as it is one of assigning a meaning that fits.

Thanks for mentioning Emmet's minstrel song of 1843. I missed it, because I don't have it in my timeline. I have been trying to resist exploring the trajectories of individual songs, because I think that is being done quite nicely in the "warp" of John M's thread. In focusing on the "weft" here --the nitty-gritty of how chanteying in general is described-- some of non-work-song references fall through the cracks!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 05:38 PM

Here is a sort of distilled "set list" for shanty repertoire known to have been sung *aboard sailing vessels* (also inclusive of the sailor songs that turn up on Pacific islands) up through 1859-ish. It is taking the focus away from the broad world of work-songs, for a moment, and only looking at the songs that made it aboard ships.

c.1800s-1820s

CHEERLY
"Oh Sally Brown, Sally Brown, oh!"
FIRE FIRE

1830s
"Pull away now, my Nancy, O!"
"To the Greenland sea/ Black although she be"
"Heave, to the girls!"
"Nancy oh!"
"Jack Cross-tree,"
"Heave round hearty!"
"Captain gone ashore!"
"Time for us to go!"
ROUND THE CORNER
"Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!"
CHEERLY
HIGHLAND LADDIE
SALLY BROWN
BOTTLE O
TALLY

1840s

GROG TIME
DRUNKEN SAILOR
"Heave her away"
"O! hurrah my hearties O!"
CHEERLY
"O ee roll & go"
"Heave him up! O he yo!"
ROUND THE CORNER
"Ho, O, heave O"
TALLY
ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN
HUNDRED YEARS
STORMY

1850s

"Oh fare you well, my own Mary Anne"
"When first we went a-waggoning"
CHEERLY
STORMY
BOWLINE
SANTIANA
BULLEY IN ALLEY
"Miranda Lee"
STORMALONG JOHN
MR. STORMALONG
SHENANDOAH
PADDY ON THE RAILWAY
WHISKEY JOHNNY
"Whisky for Johnny!"
MONEY DOWN
ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN
"Highland day and off she goes"
OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND

John, I'd be interested to hear how this squares with what you have come up with so far in terms of chanties that could have been sung aboard the JULIA ANN, 1853-55.


In the whole timeline, CHEERLY comes up 8 times, all in shipboard contexts. STORMY --in some form (I still need to sort out the tags, to distinguish different versions)-- turns up 7 times in that context. These are the two most common shanties.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 07:18 PM

In the novel BLAKE; OR THE HUTS OF AMERICA, the first, relevant parts of which appeared in a periodical in 1859, M.R. Delany includes the following in reference to a riverboat on the Upper Mississippi:

...the boated glided steadily up the stream, seemingly in unison with the lively though rude and sorrowful song of the black firemen:

I'm a-goin' to Texas--O! O-O-O!
I'm a-goin' to Texas--O! O-O-O!

Looks like it could be a variation of the SAILOR FIREMAN.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 07:34 PM

Gibb, here is what we have found *so far* over on the "San Franciso to Sydney" thread. First of all there are songs that were given with lyrics and occasionally a tune, or with clear enough titles that we can identify them with known chanties today:

"Across the Briny (Western) Ocean"
"Aha, We're Bound Away, On The Wild Missouri"
"A Hundred Years Ago"
"All On The Plains Of Mexico"
"Bottle O"
"Bully in the Alley"
"Cheerily Men"
"Drunken Sailor"
"Fire Down Below"
"A Grog Time Of Day"
"Haul The Bowline"
"Hieland Laddie"
"Mary Ann"
"Mobile Bay" / "Johnny, Come Tell Us As We Haul Away"
"Nancy Fanana"
"One More Day For Johnny"
"Outward And Homeward Bound"
"Paddy Works On The Railway"
"Pay me the money down"
"Round The Corner, Sally"
"Row, Bullies, Row"
"Sally Brown"
"Stormalong"
"Whiskey Johnny"

Here is an additional list of songs identified as sung on board ship. Some even have lyrics. None had tunes, and to my knowledge have not been *clearly* identified with chanties known today:

"Captain gone ashore"
"Dandy ship and a dandy crew"
"Fire Maringo"
"Haul way, yeo ho, boys!"
"Heave round hearty!"
"Heave, to the the girls!"
"Heigho, heave and go"
"Highland day and off she goes"
"Ho, O, heave O"/ "Row, Billy, row"
"Hurrah! Hurrah! my hearty bullies"
"O, Hurrah, My Hearties, O"
"Jack Crosstree"
"Nancy oh!"
"Pull away now, my Nancy O!"
"Roll and go for that white pitcher, roll and go"
"Tally hi o you know"
"Time for us to go"
"Yankee Dollar"

And in comparison with your list I see I missed a few:

"Miranda Lee"
"To the Greenland sea/ Black although she be"
"When first we went a-waggoning" (this can be identified with other         known versions.)

Your listing is a more precise than mine, for example, noting the different versions of "Stormalong". And in some cases our titles may be different. My "Yankee Dollar" is your "MONEY DOWN". Basically, we agree!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 07:34 PM

I forget these, in the above set list, for the 1850s:

MOBILE BAY
FIRE FIRE
ONE MORE DAY

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 07:45 PM

MONEY DOWN refers to Pay Me The Money Down. I don't have "Yankee Dollar" on *this* particular list, because here I am ignoring songs that were not for sailing tasks.

The title we choose, of course, are fairly arbitrary.

To distinguish the two "Fire Down Below"s, I call the "fire on the foretop/fetch a bucket of water" one as FIRE FIRE. The steamboat one I have as SAILOR FIREMAN.

I really do have to sort out my system for "Stormalong" variants. That is not yet firm; I need to refer to Hugill.

We might speculate that "Nancy oh!" and "Pull away now, my Nancy O!" were the same song, though we've both logged them separately.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 09:09 PM

All in all, it's still a pretty meagre set list for the repertoire of a chanteyman, now isn't it?

If I count the songs on my list that I would consider to be known to us today (=collected by individuals), the number comes to only some 25 chanties. One could subtract one, GROG TIME, from that because it has not come down to us today. And although I don't personally include MARINGO in that count, it is relevant to note that it was never cited as being used over deep water and it may have disappeared after the 1850s.

CHEERLY is interesting too, because it lasted so long ...and yet nowadays we don't know it (=know it to be able to perform it) very well. I will be interested to see for how long it continues to show up, and what the musical notations are like, in later years. My sense as of now is that the oral tradition of how to sing CHEERLY may have been broken.

Perhaps around 10 in the list qualify as what we'd now call double-pull halyard shanties.

I'm still waiting for the chantey EXPLOSION! Well, if Alden's "30 years ago" were more definite in refering to the 1850s, perhaps we'd have seen one.

This takes us up to the Civil War/Between the States, basically, a period after which the creation of new shanties is supposed to have gone down. Let's see!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 10:24 PM

With the 1860's we have a peculiar problem that I have not figured out how to solve. A good number of the folks who show up in the later published collections started going to sea in the early to late 1860's. For instance, Captain John Robinson went to sea in 1859. He's got quite a developed list of chanties in his BELLMAN collection. Whall went to sea in 1861. He was only at sea for eleven years and he has quite a collection. Richard Maitland, who gave so many songs to Doerflinger, went to sea in 1869. Harding, in Hugill, probably went to sea in the late 1860's. Some of the singers in the Carpenter Collection were at sea in the 1860's. I don't know about Sharp's informants, but they were old fellows, too. And there is Joanna Colcord's father, and Hugill's father as well, along with some of Hugill's other shipmates and informants.

The problem is that their songs were "collected" much later in their lives. We don't know when they learned them. We don't know whether they come from the late 1850's or the 1880's. All I have been able to say is that they *could* have been learned as early as the '60's.

The only collections that come to my mind that I have been able to date to the sixties *to my satisfaction* are the ones from Adams in ON BOARD THE ROCKET, which I think can be dated to 1868, and the anonymous article in ONCE A WEEK, "On Shanties," also from 1868.

I'll be interested to see what we can turn up otherwise.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 12:31 AM

I had this interesting piece in my bookmarked folder for the 1860s...but it turns out it refers to 29 March, 1843. "Corn-shucking in South Carolina--From the Letters of a Traveller" (in Cyclopaedia of American literature, by E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck, 1866).

More "wild" and "plaintive" stuff. :) John comes, not down to Hilo or the holler, but to the "hollow." Note the suspicious phrase, "round the corner." And another "Going away to Georgia" -- reminds of "Shallow Brown."

"Jenny gone away" reappears. And what of "Dan Dan..."?

The light-wood-fire was made, and the negroes dropped in from the neighboring plantations, singing as they came. The driver of the plantation, a colored man, brought out baskets of corn in the husk, and piled it in a heap; and the negroes began to strip the husks from the ears, singing with great glee as they worked, keeping time to the music, and now and then throwing in a joke and an extravagant burst of laughter. The songs were generally of a comic character; but one of them was set to a singularly wild and plaintive air, which some of our musicians would do well to reduce to notation. These are the words:

Johnny come down de hollow.
             Oh hollow!
Johnny come down de hollow.
             Oh hollow !
De nigger-trader got me.
             Oh hollow!
De speculator bought me.
             Oh hollow !
I'm sold for silver dollars,
             Oh hollow !
Boys, go catch the pony.
             Oh hollow!
Bring him round the corner.
             Oh hollow!
I'm goln' away to Georgia.
             Oh hollow!
Boys, good-by forever!
             Oh hollow!

The song of " Jenny gone away," was also given, and another, called the monkey-song, probably of African origin, in which the principal singer personated a monkey, with all sorts of odd gesticulations, and the other negroes bore part in the chorus, "Dan, dan, who's the dandy?" One of the songs, commonly sung on these occasions, represents the various animals of the woods as belonging to some profession or trade. For example—

De cooter is de boatman—

The cooter is the terrapin, and a very expert boatman he is.

De cooter Is de boatman.
    John John Crow.
De red-bird de soger.
    John John Crow.
De mocking-bird de lawyer.
    John John Crow.
De alligator sawyer
    John John Crow.

The alligator's back is furnished with a toothed ridge, like the edge of a saw, which explains the last line.

LINK

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 12:52 AM

Next is from a sort of preview to Allen's SLAVE SONGS. It comes in The Pennsylvania freedmen's bulletin, 1865. The song is "I'm Gwine to Alabamy", and it's called a "Mississippi River Boat Song." Further, it is noted that it is, "A very good specimen, so far as notes can give one, of the strange barbaric songs that one hears upon the Western steamboats."

The tunes is given, in G (natural) minor.

I'm Gwine to Alabamy
    Ohh....
For to see my mammy
    Ahh....

etc. Lyrics at the link below.

LINK

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 01:05 AM

More steamboatin'.

From McBRIDE'S MAGAZINE, VOL. 2, Dec. 1868. It is an article called "Songs of the Slave."

For many years the steamboats on Western and Southern rivers were, almost without exception, manned by crews of negro slaves. Even after white labor began to encroach upon the occupation of the "deck-hand" and "roustabout," the vocation of " fireman " was peculiarly the negro's. He basked in an atmosphere insupportable to whites, and delighted in the alternation of very hard labor and absolute idleness. It was not uncommon for large steamers to carry a crew of forty or fifty negro hands, and it was inevitable that these should soon have their songs and peculiar customs. Nine-tenths of the " river songs" (to give them a name) have the same refrain, and nearly all were constructed of single lines, separated by a barbarous and unmeaning chorus. The leader would mount the capstan as the steamer left or entered port, and affect to sing the solo part from a scrap of newspaper, " the full strength of the company" joining in the chorus. The effect was ludicrous, for no imagination was expended on the composition. Such songs were sung only for the howl that was their chief feature. A glance at the following will abundantly satisfy the reader with this department of negro music:

STEAMBOAT SONG [with music]

What boat is that my darling honey?
    Oh, oh ho, ho ay yah yah-ah!
She is the "River Ruler"; yes my honey!
    Ah a... yah a...ah!

Occasionally some stirring incident of steamboat achievement, as the great race between the " Shotwell" and the " Eclipse," would wake the Ethiopian muse and inspire special paeans. But as a general rule the steamboat songs were tiresomely similar to the one just given.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 01:36 AM

Probably referring to observations from the 1850s, in SOCIAL RELATIONS IN OUR SOUTHERN STATES (1860), D.R. Hundley writes:

No matter where they may be or what they may be doing, indeed, whether alone or in crowds, at work or at play, ploughing through the steaming maize in the sultry heats of June, or bared to the waist and with deft hand mowing down the yellow grain, or trudging homeward in the dusky twilight after the day's work is done—always and every where they are singing and happy, happy in being free from all mental cares or troubles, and singing heartily and naturally as the birds sing, which toil not nor do spin. Their songs are usually wild and indescribable, seeming to be mere snatches of song rather than any long continuous effort, but with an often recurring chorus, in which all join with a depth and clearness of lungs truly wonderfuL No man can listen to them, be his ear ever so cultivated, particularly to their corn-husking songs, when the night is still and the singers some distance off, without being very pleasantly entertained. But the wildest and most striking negro song we think we ever listened to, we heard while on board an Alabama river steamboat. We were steaming up from Mobile on a lovely day in the early winter, and came in sight of Montgomery just as the heavens were all a-glow with the last crimson splendors of the setting sun, and while the still shadows of evening seemed already to be stealing with noiseless tread along the hollows in the steep riverbanks, creeping slowly thence with invisible footsteps over the placid surface of the stream itself. A lovelier day or a more bewitching hour could not well be imagined. As we began to near the wharf, the negro boatmen collected in a squad on the bow of the boat, and one dusky fellow, twirling his wool hat above his head, took the lead in singing, improvising as he sang, all except the chorus, in which the whole crew joined with enthusiasm. And O Madame Jenny Goldschmidt, and Mademoiselle Piccolomini! we defy you both to produce, with the aid of many orchestras, a more soulstirring strain of melody than did those simple Africans then and there ! The scene is all before us now—the purple-tinted clouds overhead—the dim shadows treading noiselessly in the distance—the gleaming dome of the State Capitol and the church-spires of Montgomery —the almost perfect stillness of the hour, broken only by the puff, puff of the engine and the wild music of the dusky boatmen—and above all, the plump, well-defined outlines of some sable Sally, who stood on the highest red cliff near the landing-place, and, with joy in her heart and a tear in her eye no doubt, (we hadn't any opera-glass with us,) waved a flaming bandanna with every demonstration of rejoicing at the return of her dusky lover, whom we took to be our sooty improvisatore, from the glow which mantled his honest countenance, and the fervor with which he twirled his old wool hat in response to the fair one's signal.

LINK

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:43 AM

re: McBRIDE'S MAGAZINE, VOL. "Songs of the Slave."

For many years the steamboats on Western and Southern rivers were, almost without exception, manned by crews of negro slaves.

OK, that helps us with ideas of borrowing/exchange. Here we could call the boatmen's music as essentially "Black music," no?

the alternation of very hard labor and absolute idleness.

Sounds like a sailing ship!

Nine-tenths of the " river songs" (to give them a name) have the same refrain, and nearly all were constructed of single lines, separated by a barbarous and unmeaning chorus....as a general rule the steamboat songs were tiresomely similar to the one just given.

Hence all the "O! O! O!" we've been seeing. While I have tagged several of the past song-texts seen as SAILOR FIREMAN, it may be that they just share a very *similar* refrain.

The leader would mount the capstan as the steamer left or entered port,

Capstan shanty!

and affect to sing the solo part from a scrap of newspaper, "the full strength of the company" joining in the chorus. The effect was ludicrous, for no imagination was expended on the composition. Such songs were sung only for the howl that was their chief feature.

That old "extempore" quality. And cf. Hugill's notes on the chorus of "Blackball Line," for example. He talks about the variability of that sort of "howling" chorus.

I understand better, from this, the earlier reference to the steamboat leaving the dock, and the singing connected with it by the many hands.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:53 AM

re: SOCIAL RELATIONS IN OUR SOUTHERN STATES.

Their songs are usually wild and indescribable, seeming to be mere snatches of song rather than any long continuous effort, but with an often recurring chorus, in which all join with a depth and clearness of lungs truly wonderful.

OK, this description is now typical. But if shanties were by then well known...and if shanties share some of the qualities just described...I wonder why these songs of African-Americans are still being described in such terms of otherness. It may just be that landsmen weren't familiar with chanties, either.

the wildest and most striking negro song we think we ever listened to, we heard while on board an Alabama river steamboat. We were steaming up from Mobile on a lovely day in the early winter, and came in sight of Montgomery...

The connection from inland, down to Mobile Bay.

As we began to near the wharf, the negro boatmen collected in a squad on the bow of the boat, and one dusky fellow, twirling his wool hat above his head, took the lead in singing, improvising as he sang, all except the chorus, in which the whole crew joined with enthusiasm.

I'm intrigued by this sort of parting song/singing that happens each time.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 12:16 PM

Continuing the steamboat adventures... HARPER'S Vol. 41, 1970, in an account by George Ward Nichols called "Down the Mississippi". He is going down river from St. Louis to New Orleans.

It describes another "parting" scene, with more details.

At the hour appointed the lines were cast loose, and we backed easily out from among the crowd of steamers which lay at the levee... At the bow of the boat were gathered the negro deck-hands, who were singing a parting song. A most picturesque group they formed, and worthy the graphic pencil of Johnson or Gerome. The leader, a stalwart negro, stood upon the capstan shouting the solo part of the song, the words of which I could not make out, although I drew very near; but they were answered by his companions in stentorian tones at first, and then, as the refrain of the song fell into the lower part of the register, the response was changed into a sad chant in mournful minor key.

Standing on the capstan! There is an illustration, too. Scroll down one page at this LINK

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: doc.tom
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 01:00 PM

Re 'Sharp's Informants' as queried above, John Short (Yankee Jack) of Watchet went to deep-sea at 18 yrs of age in 1857 - He says he learnt Cheer'ly Man & Stormalong (come along, get along, Stormey Along John) on his first trip - he retired from deep-sea work about 1875.

His repertoire as collected by Sharp/Terry was: Mr. Tapscott (Can't You Dance The Polka): Hundred Years on the Eastern Shore (A Hundred Years Ago): The Blackball Line: Poor Old Man (O Johnny Come To Hilo): Ranzo (Poor Old Reuben Ranzo): Lowlands (Dollar and a half a day): One More Day: The Dead Horse (Poor Old Man): Heave Away My Johnny (We're All Bound To Go): Homeward Bound (Goodbye, Fare Thee Well): Blow Boys Blow (Banks of Sacramento): Haul Away The Morning Dew: Amsterdam (A-roving): Shanadore (Shenandoah): Paddy Works on the Railway: Old Stormey (Mister Stormalong): Santy Anna (on the Plains of Mexico): Blow Boys Come Blow Together (Blow, Me Bully Boys, Blow): Haul Away Joe: (Run, Let the) Bulgine Run: Cheerly Men: Tom's Gone To Ilo: Carry Him to the Burying Ground (General Taylor): Good Morning Ladies All: I Wish I Was With Nancy: Whisky Is My Johnny: Rio Grande: Whip Jamboree: The Hog eyed Man: The Saucy Rosabella: Knock A Man Down (Blow the Man Down): Huckleberry Hunting (Hilo, Me Ranzo Ray): Stormalong John: Tommy's Gone: Rowler Bowler: Bully In The Alley: So Early in the Morning (The Sailor Likes His Bottle O): Boney Was A Warrior: Hanging Johnny: Johnnie Bowker: Times Are Hard & The Wages Low (Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her): Paddy Doyle: Fire! Fire! (Fire Down Below): Haul On The Bowline:   Handy My Girls (So Handy): Liza Lee (Yankee John Stormalong): Roll And Go (Sally Brown): Do Let Me Go: Shallow Brown: He Back, She Back (Old Moke): Round the Corner Sally: The Bully Boat (Ranzo Ray): Lucy Long: The Bull John Run (Eliza Lee): Would You Go My Way: Billy Riley: Sing Fare You Well:

What we have realised, while recording the repertoire, is that many of his versions seem closely akin to stevedore (Mobile?) chants rather than to the later, more shantified versions, generally given by Hugill.

Interesting! - great thread.

TomB

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 01:08 PM

There is a work of fiction, THE ARK OF ELM ISLAND by Elijah Kellogg (1869), which nonetheless can give a sense of what work-singing was like prior to that time. And because the songs he cites can be traced to songs we know today, there is good reason to consider them to represent actual songs with which the author was familiar (save for, perhaps, incidental verse-section lyrics). According to the scholarship of Charlie Ipcar, Kellogg, born in Portland ME, went to sea roughly between 1828 and 1835. That he maintained a connection with the seafaring world is evidenced by him becoming pastor for the Mariner's Church in Boston from 1854-1866. He could have learned the chanties in his story at any time up to its publication date, one supposes.

With this disclaimer in place, I am warning that I will be treating the text as containing valid references to what went on in chantey-singing prior to 1869. Note, however, that the author still does not refer to the songs as "chanties."

We have already spoken of the natural disposition of the negro to sing when at work. Their songs have no merits of composition, being the merest trash. Neither does the negro think it necessary that they should rhyme, — they may or may not, — or that there should be the same number of feet. He will have the time correct, as he will leave out or prolong words at pleasure, with the most sovereign contempt, both of sense and tho king's English.

Continually amazed how these authors, in one breath, can trash the songs but also say they are wonderfully "plaintive," etc.

Songs of labor seem to meet a universal necessity, and supply a common want. They are in use to lighten labor, from the boatmen among the loch of Scotland to the seamen of the tropics, and ac. complish this by securing unity of action.

Suppose eight men undertook to hoist a weight which it required all their strength to raise. If each pulled separately, it would bo just the same as though only one man was pulling at the weight. No matter how many of them were pulling, it would never be raised; but the song unites all their efforts, and the more accurately they observe the time of the song, and connect their efforts with it, the lighter the labor, and the greater the economy of strength. The song also renders labor pleasurable, for there is a love of it in human nature, and, by furnishing regular periods for breathing, renders labor less fatiguing.
How much more tiresome it is to pull a boat with muffled oars, because you miss the click of the oar in the rowlocks! Who could thresh all day if the flails did not make a noise as they strike the grain? The cooper beats out a tune as he drives the hoop. What weariness comes over the soldier on a march when the music stops! and how instantly his muscles are braced when it strikes up!

A general statement on work-songs.

The songs of the negro seamen generally refer to their labor—hoisting or stowing molasses, or screwing cotton, which is severe labor, where unity of effort is of the first importance; and here the negro's accurate ear renders them most effective, and they will accomplish more, with less fatigue to themselves, than white men. No matter how many of them are on a rope, their pull tallies precisely with the time of the song, and they will put in the queerest quirks and quavers, but all in time. Perhaps there may be one negro in a million who has no idea of time. If such a one gets hold of the rope, and makes a false pull, it affects them as much as a false note would a well-drilled choir. They will instantly hustle him out, crying,—

" Get away, you waw, waw nigger! You dunno how to pull!"

The preceding underscores my argument that chanties of this period were a sort of new technology -- perhaps a newer method of working that was "imported" from the practices among African-Americans. Also mentioned are the "quirks and quavers" that Hugill would later ascribe to sailors' singing generally and Black singers especially. It continues...

These songs produce the most singular effect upon the negroes, insomuch that they seem hardly conscious of fatigue, even while exerting themselves to the utmost. Wages have been paid to a negro for merely singing when a large cargo of molasses was to be discharged in a hurry, the extra labor which he excited the rest to perform being considered as more than an equivalent for his wages, while it prevented a rival from obtaining his services.

Paid just for singing, indeed. An anecdote follows.

A singular illustration of this was given many years ago in Portland, Maine. Eight negroes were hoisting molasses, one very hot day, aboard the brig William. They were having a lively time. Old Craig, a distinguished singer, was opening his mouth like an old-fashioned fallback chaise. A negro, — an agent for the Colonization Society, — very black, dressed in white linen trousers and coat, Marseilles vest, ruffle-bosomed shirt, nice beaver on his head, with a bundle of papers in his hand, came down the wharf, and went into a merchant's counting-room to collect a subscription. As he came out, his ear caught the tune.

He instantly came on board the vessel and listened. He grew nervous, imitated the motions of those at the tackle, and, by and by, off went the linen coat, the hat and papers were laid aside, he rushed among the rest, and, clutching the rope, like a maniac, began to haul, and sing,—

"Eberybody he lub someting;
Hoojun, John a hoojun.
Song he set de heart a beating;
Hoojun, John a hoojun."

When reeking with perspiration, he stopped: the white pants, vest, and ruffled bosom were spoiled. As he went up the wharf, casting many a rueful glance at his dress, Old Craig, looking after him, exclaimed,—
" No use put fine clothes on de 'possum! What bred in de bone, dat come out in de meat."

The stevedores' song can only be what Hugill called "Hooker John." It's my personal opinion --open to lots of debate-- that the "hooker" neé "hoojun" referred to a "hoosier," a stevedore or something of that sort.

The leader sings the principal part of the song (often composing it as he goes along), while the others sing the chorus.

When the winch was introduced to discharge vessels, these songs in the northern seaports ceased, the negroes disappeared, and Irishmen took their places, the negroes refusing to work with a winch, because that kind of labor did not admit of singing.

While this work of fiction is set in the late 18th century (!), the author seems to be referring to something that actually happened more recently. The beginning of the end of chanteying?

The clank of the pawls on the ship's windlass was now heard.
" Man the windlass!" was the order.
"Slip, slap!" cried Seth. This is a sailor phrase for heaving the windlass around at one motion instead of two, as is generally practised, and as was done on board the ship.
The ship possessed the advantage at the outset of being ahead of the Ark; but, as the crew of the latter weighed their anchor in half the time, the two vessels were now abreast.
" Massa Mate," said Flour, taking that officer aside, " if you want dese niggers to show you de time o' day, jes' praise 'em, and let 'em hab de music. Black man he lub song; song make him throw hisself, tear hisself all to pieces."
The English sailors now began to sing.
"Stop that!" said the captain. "None of that noise here."
" Now, boys," said the mate, patting Isaiah on the shoulder, " give us a shout that'll raise the dead."

Without the context, the above will make little sense, but I include it to show the notions being put for -- that being that the English sailors of whatever time period is being evoked (!) were alleged to frown upon chanteying, whereas the Americans, with their Black crew to assist, were allegedly more practical, and by accepting the practice of chanteying, they gain advantage.

ISAIAH'S SONG.

" Wind blow from de mountain cool,
      O, stow me long.
Mudder send me to de school;
      Stow me long, stow me.
Den I stow myself away,
      O, stow me long.
Way, way to de Isle ob May;
      Stow me long, stow me.
Go ashore to see de town,
      O, stow me long.
Hear de music, walk aroun';
      Stow me long, stow me.
Dere I hear Miss Dinah sing,
         O, stow me long.
Washin' linen at de spring.
Double Chorus. —Ha-a, stow me long,
Stow me long, stow me.

Straight I lub Miss Dinah Gray,
      O, stow me long.
Dinah lub me, so she say;
      Stow me long, stow me.
Get her necklace, get her ring,
      O, stow me long.
Happy nigger, shout and sing;
    Stow me long, stow me.
Wind a blowin' fresh and free,
      O, stow me long.
Vessel ready for de sea;
      Stow me long, stow me.
See de tear in Dinah's eye,
         O, stow me long.
Berry sorry see her cry.
Double Chorus. — Ha-a, stow me long
      Stow me long, stow me.

Tink ob Dinah ebery day,
      O, stow me long.
Wishin' ob de time away;
      Stow me long, stow me.
Buy her gown, buy her fan,
      O, stow me long.
Dinah lub anudder man;
      Stow me long, stow me.
Wish I hadn't been a fool,
       O, stow me long.
Neber run away from school.
Double Chorus. — Ha-a, stow me long,
Stow me long, stow me."

At intervals they would unite in one universal shout on the double chorus. Then Isaiah, bringing the flat of his foot down to advertise them of what was coming, came out on the word " ha-a" with a guttural so purely African, that the negroes would jump from the deck.

STORMY, at the windlass. It's tempting to speculate whether "Stormy" was originally a mishearing of "stow me" (i.e. stowing cotton). However, the earlier texts we've seen are consistent with "stormy".

But it was most amusing to watch the effect of the song upon Flour, who was plucking some chickens at the galley for a stew. His body swayed back and forth, and he pulled out the feathers to the time of the tune, tearing the skin in all directions...
At length he could contain himself no longer, and, having put his chicken in the pot, rushed among his black friends, and gave vent to his emotions in song.

FLOUR'S SONG.

" De blue-bird robbed de cherry-bird's nest,
       Hilo, boys, a hilo.
He robbed her nest, and brake her rest,
       Hilo, boys, a hilo.
Cherry-bird chirp, and cherry-bird cry,
       Hilo, boys, a hilo.
Cherry-bird mourn, cherry-bird die,
       Hilo, boys, a hilo.
De black cat eat de blue-bird now,
       Hilo, boys, a hilo.
He catch him sittin' on de bough,
       Hilo, boys, a hilo.
He nip his head, he tear his breast,
       Hilo, boys, a hilo.
Pay him for de cherry-bird's nest,
      Hilo, boys, a hilo.
De gard'ner shoot de ole black cat,
       Hilo, boys, a hilo.
Den rJat make it tit for tat,
       Hilo, boys, a bilo.
De gard'ner pull him down de tree,
       Hilo, boys, a hilo.
Den dat square de yards, you see,
    Hilo, boys, a hilo."

HILO BOYS.

continued...

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 01:22 PM

continued...

Bathed in perspiration, smoking like race horses, and wild with excitement, they struck up a still quicker tune, intermingling with the words most singular yells and quavers.
"That's the time of day, my lads!" shouted the mate, catching hold of the warp, and joining in the chorus, completely carried away by the common impulse. " That's a bully song!" he cried; " you are worth your weight in gold."

The negroes instantly manifested their appreciation of the compliment by exclaiming, —
" Gib it to her, hand ober hand! Isaiah, dat tell de story dat make de chile cry!"

"HAND OBER HAND" SONG.

"Cuffee stole my bacca,
   Hand ober hand, O.
      Scratch him,
   Hand ober hand, O.
Put it in his pocket,
   Hand ober hand, O.
    Kick him,
   Hand ober hand, O.
Now he's gwine to smoke ii,
   Hand ober hand, O.
    Bite him,
Hand ober hand, O."

The excitement now mastered Captain Rhines and his friend, who both added their efforts. By reason of so much additional strength, the Ark went ahead faster than they could gather in the slack.

" Walk away with it, my boys," said the captain; and, taking the warp on their shoulders, they walked along the deck, still keeping step to the song.

WALKING SONG.

" Take de line, an' walk away,
    Ho-o; ho, ho, ho.
Gwine to leabe you; cannot stay,
    Fire down below.
Gwine to leabe you, Johnny Bull,
    Ho-o; ho, ho, ho.
'Cause yer dunno how ter pull,
    Fire down below.
Like as do dis Yankee crew,
    Ho-o; ho, ho, ho.
Warpin' ob de ballahoo,
    Fire down below."

The last song, being used as a walk-away, is none other than the steamboat song, SAILOR FIREMAN.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 01:50 PM

Later on in THE ARK OF ELM ISLAND, there is an exchange that includes shanties.

"Why can't we have a song?" said John. " Charlie is a first-rate singer; he can read music; and Isaac can sing, too. He's been three winters to singing-school; and I and Fred can sing the chorus."
" I don't know any song," said Charlie. " All I can remember is, —

" 'Was ever you in Aberdeen,
Bonny laddie, Highland laddie,
To see the duke in his Highland green,
My bonny Highland laddie ?'"

HIGHLAND LADDIE. Incidentally, in all the references to this song, I don't think we've yet seen the Scots form "hieland." Though that was presumably the "original," perhaps it was that ~American~ chantey singers simply said "highland," and that "hieland" is a later affectation (or a form used by northern British sailors, of course).

"I can learn you Flour's cherry-bird song," [i.e. HILO BOYS] said Isaac. They sat down on the hen-coop, and Isaac repeated the song till Charlie had it by heart. He then hummed over the tune till Charlie got that, and sung one verse.
"That's it," said Isaac; "that's the time. Now let's make believe get under way. John, go up and loose the main-topgallant sail. I'll get a snatch-block, so that one can take in the slack, and we'll have a song, and hoist it up."

Fred took in the slack, and they soon made Elm Island ring with, —

" Hilo, boys, a hilo."

" If you don't look out, Ben," said Joe, " these boys will heave the anchor up, or cut the cable, and run away with your brig. They have got the topgallant sails and royals hoisted up and sheeted home already."

So while earlier HILO BOYS occurred while the windlass was being operated, here they imply it is for halyards.

Boys never know when to stop when they once get excited ; for what one can't think of another can.
"Let us loose the main-topsail," cried John, "then we can have a longer song. This is too short a hoist."
" We can't furl it," said Charlie. " Ben will furl it for us."
" We can't hoist it — can't begin to."
" Yes, we can," said Isaac; " for we can take it to the capstan."
"O, that will be bully! I know a capstan song."

" 'Heave and she goes, stamp and she goes;
Chorus. — O, my poor sailor-boy, heave and she goes.'"

Sounds like a very old-fashioned capstan song.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 02:02 PM

TomB, I really appreciate that information on John Short. Can we assume that he learned all of his songs while he was at sea, between 1857 and 1875? And do we have dates when Sharp actually took down his songs? I assume that happened before the 1915 publication of Sharp's collection. There's a forty year period between the end of Short's sea-going days and the Sharp's publication. Is it possible that Short might have picked up some of his songs after his retirement from the sea?

What I'm getting at is this. If we actually knew that he learned all of these songs before 1875, we have a clear historical marker for the development of these chanties. This would go with Whall's dates of 1861-1872 for being at sea. The same questions apply to Whall. Did he learn all of his songs between 1861 and 1872? The next collection would be *some* of Harlowe's chanties in 1877. Using the period of 1872-1877 for a marker, we actually have documentation for a substantial number of chanties in use by that point. If we could pin down Maitland and Robinson to a cut off point, this would reinforce our position on this.

I realize that 1875 is not as early as some of us would like, but as a clear and concrete historical marker, I think that it's important.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 02:07 PM

TomB --

That's great info! I'm going to be bold and "file" Cheer'ly Man & Stormalong under "c.1857-58," based on Short's account.

John M--

Thanks for that lay-out of the issue of dating that comes up in this time. The dates of when these individuals sailed, recorded by you, Lighter, Charley, TomB, Snuffy, and others, is very useful info to have at hand.

What I am going to suggest is focusing on the category of what you have called "Published mention" (i.e. as opposed to collections), and stuff that can definitively be ascribed to the 1860s, first, as a matter of practicality. The collectors' experiences, which span decades, can be retro-fitted later.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: doc.tom
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 02:18 PM

John,
Short first went to sea at the age of 9 with his father on coastal work - Bristol channel, Barry Island, Gloucester Docks - and even down to Charlestown in Cornwall. However, he told Sharp (all the collecting was done in 1914 - and Sharp published, including the shanties collected in last session in September, before the end of the year!) that the first shanties he learnt were on that first deep-water trip in 1857.

After he retired from deep-sea work he worked again in the coastal trade until 1904 (according to his last references).

As we know he was a 'professional' shantyman (not just a casual sailor who remembered a few) I am of the opinion that he aquired all his shanties during those deep-sea years.

(Incidentally, the Short, Sharp Shanties project should be ready to issue the (3) CDs in early 2011, but we've already started a list of people who said they want the set. So if anyine wants to pm me with an e-mail address we'll add you to it).

TomB

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 02:31 PM

I forgot -- one last passage in THE ARK

The voice of Isaiah came shrill and clear over the water, singing at the studding-sail halyards, —

''De cap'n's a driver, de mate is a driver,
    John, John Crow is a dandy, O.
Drive her through de water, O, why don't you drive her?
    John, John Crow is a dandy, O.
De foam at our fore-foot, rolling white as de snow,
    John, John Crow is a dandy, O.
We sail o'er de ocean, and we sing Johnny Crow,
    John, John Crow is a dandy, O.
We're saucy to fight, we're nimble to fly,
    John, John Crow is a dandy, O.
Like de fish in de sea, like de bird in de sky,
    John, John Crow is a dandy, O.
For de Stars and de Stripes we hab fought wid de foe,
    John, John Crow is a dandy, O.
Now de fighting is ober, we will sing Johnny Crow,
    John, John Crow is a dandy, O.
De fair wind he blowing, nebber cloud in de sky,
    John, John Crow is a dandy, O.
We sheet home de royal, and we bid you good by,
John, John Crow is a dandy, O."

While we are not familiar with this as a chanty nowadays (at least *I* am not), possible relatives turn up in the reference from "Corn-shucking in South Carolina--From the Letters of a Traveller", 1843, above. It includes a song with the chorus, "John John Crow," and names another as "Dan, dan, who's the dandy?"

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 01:26 AM

George Edward Clark, in SEVEN YEARS OF A SAILOR'S LIFE (1867) mentions several windlass chanties. The text takes us up to mid 1866, so the seven years (if continuous) must have started around 1859 -- or earlier (if not continuous).

Clark's second voyage, at around 15-16 years of age, took place c.1859-60 or earlier. It was in the barque GUIDE, from Boston to Zanzibar.

Down the rigging they leaped, and to the windlass brakes. Then as they felt the old emotion, that they were at every stroke of the brakes slowly parting their last hold on Yankee land, they broke forth in a chanting that made the sleepy crews of the numberless coasters turn out in quick time. " O, Riley, O," " Whiskey for my Johnny," and the loud toned " Storm along, my Rosa," woke the echoes far and near.

c. 1860-61, Clark sailed in a clipper ship from Bombay to NY.

When leaving Bombay:

The men sprung to duty; the anchor was lifted from its slimy bed, the men singing "Rolling River" and "Cheerily she goes;" the fluke of the anchor was out of water; the sails run up and sheeted home, and with a famous wind, the ship, with flying colors, left her berth.

Arriving NY:

The anchor came to the bow with the chanty of "Oh, Riley, Oh," and "Carry me Long," and the tug walked us toward the wharf at Brooklyn.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 01:50 PM

Lastly, from Clark, 2 more windlass chanties are mentioned:

In c.1865-1866, Clark was on the NASON, a fishing schooner (I assume?) out of Provincetown, sailing off the Grand Banks.

"Every man sprang to duty. The cheerful chanty was roared out, and heard above the howl of the gale. The cable held very hard, and when it surged over, the windlass sent the men flying about the deck, as if a galvanic battery had been applied to their hands. The vessel's head was often buried in the solid seas, and the men, soaked and sweating, yelled out hoarsely, " Paddy on the Railway," and " We 're Homeward Bound," while they tugged at the brakes, and wound the long, hard cable in, inch by inch."

Note that he uses the word "chanty."

That word is used elsewhere in the text -- in other contexts.

Here he is referring to stevedores, in Zanzibar:

A chanty gang was engaged to hoist out the cargo, and one of them in trying to steal hard bread, finding the bull-dog upon him, jumped overboard and swam safely ashore.......
The chanty men wanted biscuit, and waited to receive them.

So, "chanty men" and "chanty gang" had become a general term for stevedores.

In c.1866, is is about to leave St. Jago, Cuba. He notes at one point,

The Cubans have no real, go-ahead enterprise. The whites never perform any labor, but leave it to the slaves and coolies who do it all.

He is to leave on a Yankee schooner...

...when the sugar began to roll in, the crew found I was at the head of the rope, and a "chanty man." We rolled the sugar upon the stages, over the bows, and at every hogshead I gave them a different song. We worked hard all day, and generally had time at night to go ashore.

Clark, aka "Yankee Ned," was very familiar with chanties, then, and even refers to himself indirectly as a "chanty man" -- in this case, meaning someone who can lead chanties. He does put the phrase in quotes here, suggesting that maybe (though he doesn't define it for the readers) wants to mark it off as a particular usage.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 02:19 PM

In GARRET VAN HORN (1863), J.S. Sauzade refers to the use of "Sally Brown."

As the ship SPLENDID leaves New York, bound for China...

I began my sailor duty by heaving away at the windlass to the tune of " Sally Brown, the bright mulatter."

This sea voyage happens before the narrator become a soldier, in which he was shipped to the Kabyle War in Algeria, mid 1857. So Sauzade implies that "Sally Brown" was sung before then...but since it is fiction, we can only date the mention to the copyright date, 1862.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 02:39 PM

This comes courtesy of Lighter on March 10, 2010.

FIFTY-THREE YEARS MISSIONARY TO INDIA (1904)

On board the ship SUSAN HINKS, from Boston to Calcutta, 1862, Rev. Otis Robinson Bachelor ran a printing press. The contents of one published edition of his shipboard "newspaper" is described as follows.

In it we find good "Sunday Reading" and some amusing things; among which are " A Song for Raising Topsails," "Song on Sailing," "Song for the Halliards," and "Capstan Song." We copy as a specimen the "Capstan Song,"'with the editor's explanation that "as the motion is continuous, round and round the capstan, the object being to keep step, one or more may sing the melody and all join in the chorus: —

CAPSTAN SONG.

General Taylor gained the day,
    Hurrah Santa Anna!
General Taylor gained the day
    All on the plains of Mexico.

He gained the day at Monterey,
    Hurrah Santa Anna!
He gained the day at Monterey,
    All on the plains of Mexico.

Santa Anna ran away,
    Hurrah Santa Anna!
He ran away from Monterey,
    All on the plains of Mexico.

General Jackson's at New Orleans,
    Hurrah Santa Anna!
General Jackson's at New Orleans,
    All on the plains of Mexico.

'Twas there he gave the British beans,
    Hurrah Santa Anna!
'Twas there he gave the British beans,
    All on the plains of Mexico.

Although we have an earlier mention to the song "All on the Plains of Mexico" (1856), this is the first full text. Notably, General Taylor is gaining the day -- the ahistorical bit about de Santa Ana gaining the day (I think Hugill tried to explain it by saying that Britishers were in favour of the Mexicans) didn't necessarily come until later!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 08:14 PM

Horace P. Beck gives a number of 20th Century shanties from "the West Indies" in his "Folklore of the Sea" (1973). Some are clearly versions of old standbys, others are unfamiliar, at least to me.

See my addition to the "Rosabella" thread for a now familiar example.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 08:32 PM

Just wanted to log in this early African-American rowing song I found (discussed in the 'Sydney" thread).

From "The London Literary Gazette," Oct. 23, 1819. Setting, I presume is Maryland or Virginia. Rowing is referred to generally. The lyric is:

"Going away to Georgia, ho, heave, O!
Massa sell poor negro, ho, heave, O!
Leave poor wife and children, ho, heave, O!"

Compare to the "Sold off to Georgy" rowing song found in Hungerford, above.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 08:49 PM

The above excerpt actually appeared originally in James Kirke Paulding's LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH (1817) and was heard in the summer of 1816. I believe that makes it the 2nd earliest published mention of such a text that I have. The earliest I have is Lambert 1810 (up thread), which has, lo and behold:

" We are going down to Georgia, boys,
CH: Aye, aye,

To see the pretty girls, boys ;
CH: Yoe, yoe.

We'll give 'em a pint of brandy, boys,
CH: Aye, aye.

And a hearty kiss besides, boys.
CH:Yoe, yoe.    "

I believe that makes 3 reference to a similar rowing, so I am going to give it a tag, AWAY TO GEORGIA.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 01:47 AM

For logging purposes of the 1860s.... Allen's SLAVE SONGS (1867) has a song called "Shock Along, John." "A corn-song, of which only the burden is remembered." He gives a full melody, which is in call-response-call-response form. However, he only has words to the refrain:

"Shock along John, shock along" (both times)

The structure of the tune, in a major key, is exactly like most halyard chanties.

Could this be related to "Stormalong"? "Shock" suggests "shuck," was meant, since after all it is a corn-shucking song. [Is it possible that Allen didn't know the word "shuck"--he'd have called it husking?] It is attributed to Maryland.

The rhythm of the verse phrase fits the poetic meter of "Stormy he is dead and gone."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 02:15 AM

To continue the log, I'd like to quote Lighter, on 10 March.

////
Probably the earliest full text of "Shenandoah," from The Riverside Magazine for Young People (Apr., 1868), p. 185:

"Man the capstan bars! Old Dave is our 'chanty-man.' Tune up, David!
                              
O, Shannydore**, I long to hear you!               
Chorus.-- Away, you rollin' river!                                                               
O, Shannydore, I long to hear you!
Full Chorus.--Ah ha! I'm bound awAY
On the wild Atlantic!
                                                   
Oh, a Yankee ship came down the river:…
And who do you think was skipper of her?…

Oh, Jim-along-Joe was skipper of her:…
Oh, Jim-along-Joe was skipper of her!…

An' what do you think she had for cargo?…
She had rum and sugar, an' monkeys' liver!…

Then seven year I courted Sally:
An' seven more I could not get her….

Because I was a tarry sailor,--
For I loved rum, an' chewed terbaccy:…

Especially good because it shows the "early" existence of some now familiar verses, the combination of "Shenandoah" with "Sally Brown," and the previously unreported combination with "Blow, Boys, Blow"!

The anonymous author says he (or she) learned this and a couple of other shanties on a recent Atlantic voyage.

.....

As I walked out one mornin',
                Down by the Clarence Dock,--
       Chorus. Heave away, my Johnny, heave away!
       'Twas there I met an Irish girl,
                Conversin' with Tapscott.
       Full chorus. An' away, my Johnny boy, we're all bound to go!

       "Good mornin' to yer, Taspcott;
                Good mornin', sir," she said….
       An' Tapscott he was that perlite
                He smiled an' bowed his head….

       "Oh, have yer got a ship," she said,--
                "A sailin' ship," said she,--
       "To carry me, and Dadda here,
                Across the ragin' sea?"

       "Oh yes, I got a packet ship,
                Her name's the Henry Clay,"--
       "She's layin' down to the Waterloo Dock,
                Bound to Amerikay."

       Then I took out my han'kerchief
                An' wiped away a tear,--
       And the lass was that she said to me, [sic]
                So, fare ye well, my dear!

       Some times I'm bound to Africay
                Some times I'm bound to France,--
       But now I'm bound to Liverpool
                To give them girls a chance."
////

I like how "Heave Away" mentions "Henry Clay." That name will turn up again in another version of "Heave Away."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 09:36 AM

Here is another reference to "going to Georgia", which introduces the "Jenny gone away" song as well. The line is

"Oh! my massa told me, there's no grass in Georgia."

"Upon inquiring the meaning of which, I was told it was supposed to be the lamentation of a slave from one of the more northerly states, Virginia or Carolina, where the labor of hoeing the weeds, or grass as they call it, is not nearly so severe as here, in the rice and cotton lands of Georgia. Another very pretty and pathethic tune began with words that seemed to promise something sentimental -

    "Fare you well, and good-by, oh, oh!
    I'm goin' away to leave you, oh, oh!"

http://books.google.com/books?id=WaFiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA128&dq=Jenny+gone+away&cd=2#v=onepage&q=Jenny%20gone%20away&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 09:44 AM

The last post was from JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE ON A GEORGIAN PLANTATION, by Fanny Kemble, 1863, here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=w34FAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=journal+of+a+residence+on+a+georgian+plantation&cd=1#v=onep

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 10:05 AM

Here is "Jenny gone away" at a corn-shucking, from 1843, in THE FAMILY MAGAZINE, from an article entitled "Visit to a Negro Cabin" "(Extract from a Journal, kept by a Gentleman, who travelled through Virginia some years since.)".   

"Oh, Jenny gone to New-town,
   Chorus: Oh, Jenny gone away!
She went because she wouldn't stay,
   Oh, Jenny gone away!
She run'd away, an' I know why,
   Oh, Jenny gone away!
For she went a'ter Jone's Bob.
   Oh, Jenny! &c.
Mr. Norton, good ole man,
   Oh! &c.
Treats his niggers mighty well.
   Oh! &c.
Young Tim Barnet no great thing....
Never say, come take a dram....
Master gi's us plenty meat,...
Mighty apt to fo'git de drink....

http://books.google.com/books?id=cYAAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA244&dq=Jenny+gone+away&cd=6#v=onepage&q=Jenny%20gone%20away&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 01:07 PM

I think this is a reference from 1858 to "Hilo, Boys, Hilo". It is found in A CUBAN EXPEDITION, by J.H. Bloomfield, published in 1896.

http://books.google.com/books?id=WlhUsSH4QeUC&pg=PA282&dq=%22Hilo,+Boys,+Hilo%22&cd=6#v=onepage&q=%22Hilo%2C%20Boys%2C%20Hilo%22

The reference to the "execution of Colonel Crittenden in Havana", found on page 1 of Bloomfield's "Introduction" is documented here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=IropAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA140&dq=shooting+of+Colonel+Crittenden+in+Havana&cd=1#v=onepage&q=shooting%20o

Bloomfield says that his expedition set sail for Cuba seven years after this event, which would be 1858. A rather complete song is given by Bloomfield.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 01:24 PM

Dunno why we didn't see this one earlier! Well, it is not a work-song context, so here it is supplementary to the discussion of the origins of individual song strains.

John Dixon Long, PICTURES OF SLAVERY IN CHURCH AND STATE, 1857. An abolitionist text. Long (b. 1817) grew up and spent most of his life in Maryland, and his father was a slave-holder, so his experiences probably come from there. Exact time unknown, as he is speaking in generalities about the song.

The songs of a slave are word-pictures of every thing he sees, or hears, or feels. The tunes once fixed in his memory, words descriptive of any and every thing are applied to them, as occasion requires. Here is a specimen, combining the sarcastic and the pathetic. Imagine a colored man seated on the front part of an ox-cart, in an old field, unobserved by any white man, and in a clear loud voice, ringing out these words, which wake up sad thoughts in the minds of his fellowslaves :

" William Rino sold Henry Silvers;
            Hilo! Hilo!
Sold him to de Gorgy trader;
            Hilo! Hilo!
His wife she cried, and children bawled,
            Hilo ! Hilo !
Sold him to de Gorgy trader;
          Hilo! Hilo!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 02:40 PM

Bit by bit, I am going to break out references to shanties in RC Adams' ON BOARD THE ROCKET (1879). It probably refers to the late 1860s.

While the main vessel is the barque ROCKET -- aboard which we might assume Adams learned most of the chanties he discusses later on-- there is also the ship DUBLIN. Adams sailed in the Dublin from Boston, via Richmond, VA, to the Mediterranean. Here is what happened when that ship was leaving Boston. Adams was third mate. The crew members were all Black men.

The ship was bound to Richmond, Virginia, in ballast, there to load a cargo of tobacco for the Mediterranean. In the forenoon, a negro crew of fourteen men and two boys came on board. They were mostly fine "strapping" fellows, with bright eyes and shining " ivories," and as we proceeded down the bay they made the decks ring with their songs ; the maintopsail going to the mast-head to the tune of "Come down you bunch o' roses, come down," and the foretopsail halyards answering to the strong pulls following the sentiment:

"Sally Brown's a bright Mulatto,
She drinks ruin and chews tobacco."

So, BUNCH OF ROSES and SALLY BROWN at tops'l halyards.

Once arriving in Genoa, the Dublin was unloaded.

Every morning they were waked up by the song of the crew, as they commenced at five o'clock in the morning to hoist out the tobacco, for it is not customary in port to " turn to " until six, and all day long such choruses as "Walk along my Sally Brown," and "Hoist her up from down below," rang over the harbor, with all the force that a dozen hearty negroes could give them. When the " shanty man " became hoarse, another relieved him, and thus the song and work went along,...

I presume the hoisting of cargo was a similar maneuver to halyards. WALKALONG SALLY and what could be a number of different songs, "Hoist her up from down below," are here.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 02:51 PM

Gibb, I think this link can date the "Rocket" materials to 1868.

http://books.google.com/books?id=JVosAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA9-PA7&dq=%22Capt.+Robert+C.+Adams%22&lr=&cd=20#v=onepage&q=%22Rocket%22&f=tru

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 02:59 PM

Adams has an extended exposition on "Sailors' Songs." Many have musical score to go with them, however, they are rhymically unsound.

He distinguishes entertainment and work songs. Interestingly, though he uses the term "shantyman" several times, only once does he refer to a song as a "shanty." It is curious that, in the following layout, he does not refer to "shanties".

Sailors' songs may be divided into two classes. First, are the sentimental songs sung in the forecastle, or on the deck in the leisure hours of the dog-watch, when the crew assemble around the fore-hatch to indulge in yarns and music. Dibdin's songs, which the orthodox sailor of the last half century was supposed to adhere to as closely as the Scotch Presbyterian to his Psalter, are falling into disuse, and the negro melodies and the popular shore songs of the day are now most frequently heard. The second class of songs is used at work, and they form so interesting a feature of life at sea, that a sketch of that life would be incomplete without some allusion to them. These working songs may be divided into three sets :...

First he discusses sheet shanties:

First, those used where a few strong pulls are needed, as in boarding a tack, hauling aft a sheet, or tautening a weather-brace. "Haul the Bowline," is a favorite for this purpose. The shantyman, as the solo singer is called, standing up "beforehand," as high above the rest of the crew as he can reach, sings with as many quirks, variations and quavers as his ingenuity and ability can attempt, "Haul the bow-line, Kitty is my darling;" then all hands join in the chorus, " Haul the bowline, the bowline haul" shouting the last word with great energy and suiting action to it by a combined pull, which must once be witnessed by one who desires an exemplification of " a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether." This seldom fails to make the ropes " come home."

Haul the bow-line, Kit-ty is my dar-ling;
- Chorus: Haul the bow-line, the bow-line haul.

Then the song is repeated with a slight change in words, "Haul the bow-line, the clipper ship's a rolling," &c., and next time perhaps, " Haul the bow-line, our bully mate is growling."

In contrast to one of the earlier references to BOWLINE (up-thread), here it is clear that the crew sings the entire last phrase, not just the last word.

Adams digresses to speak to the duties and methods of a shantyman. This is the passage in which he uses the word "shanty":

Great latitude is allowed in the words and the shantyman exercises his own discretion. If he be a man of little comprehension or versatility, he will say the same words over and over, but if he possesses some wit, he will insert a phrase alluding to some peculiarity of the ship, or event of the time, which will cause mouths to open wider and eyes to roll gleefully, while a lively pull follows that rouses the sheet home and elicits the mate's order "Belay!" A good shantyman is highly prized, both by officers and crew. His leadership saves many a dry pull, and his vocal effort is believed to secure so much physical force, that he is sometimes allowed to spare his own exertions and reserve all his energies for the inspiriting shanty.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 03:08 PM

John, that's excellent, and I had seen that earlier. Your discovery of that, along with Lighter's observation that it would have to be after the Civil War, are what led me to say late 1860s. The reason I don't yet want to say 1868 specifically is because that note is for the Rocket's voyage to Sumatra. Adams sails in the Dublin prior to that, so the Dublin reference may apply to "1865-1868." And Adams continues to sail after the Sumatra voyage. His discussion of shanties is general, and must be a composite of his experiences over several years. I I figured "circa late 1860s" would be safer (?)

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 03:31 PM

Adams, cont.

He gives two more sheet shanties:

Another common song is--

HAUL AWAY, JOE

Way, haul away; O, haul away, my Rosey.
Chorus: Way, haul away; O, haul away, Joe.

And another--

JOHNNY BOKER

Oh do, my Johnny Boker, come rock and roll me over,
Chorus: Do, my Johnny Boker, do.

In both of these, the emphasis and the pull come at the last word of the chorus : " Joe " and " do," as they end the strain, put a severe strain on the rope.

HAUL AWAY JOE is in Mixolydian mode. He uses a shorter rhythmic value on "Joe" -- emphasizing the sharpness of it, I think. Also, there is a fermata over it, implying that one does sing verse after verse in continuous meter, rather one pauses to regroup between verses. In other words, it's not a Clancy Brothers jig!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 07:01 PM

Adams, cont.

He next goes on to describe halyard chanties:

In the second set of working songs, I would place those that are used in long hoists, or where so large a number of pulls is required that more frequent exertion must be used, than is called for by the first set, lest too much time be occupied. The topsail halyards call most frequently for these songs. One of the most universal, and to my ear the most musical of the songs, is " Reuben Ranzo." A good shantyman, who with fitting pathos recounts the sorrows of " poor Reuben " never fails to send the topsail to the masthead at quick notice, nor to create a passing interest in the listener to the touching melody: —

Oh, poor Reuben Ranzo,
    Ranzo, boys, Ranzol
Oh, poor Reuben Ranzo,
    Ranzo, boys, Ranzol

Oh, Reuben was no sailor,
       Chorus, and repeat with chorus. 

He shipped on board of a whaler,
                   Chorus, &c.

He could not do his duty,
                   Chorus, &c. 

The captain was a bad man,
                   Chorus, &c. 

He put him in the rigging,
                   Chorus, &c.

He gave him six and thirty,
                   Chorus, &c.

Oh, poor Reuben Ranzo.
                   Chorus, &c.

In this song the pulls are given at the first word " Ranzo" in the chorus, sometimes at its next occurrence in addition.

It's nice that he adds in the pulls. Also, he adds the detail that this could be a sing- or double-pull.

Of all the heroines of deck song Sally Brown's name is most frequently uttered, and a lively pull always attends it. She figures in several of these songs; one has as its chorus "Shantyman and Sally Brown." But it is used more frequently, I think, in connection with the song: —

BLOW, MY BULLY BOYS, BLOW.

Oh, Sally Brown's a bright mulatto;
    Blow, boys, blow!
Oh, she drinks rum and chews tobacco,
    Blow, my bully boys, blow!

Oh, Sally Brown's a Creole lady,
             Chorus, and repeat with chorus. 

Oh, Sally Brown, I long to see you,
             Chorus, &c. 

Oh, Sally Brown, I'll ne'er deceive you.
             Chorus, &c.

It will be noticed that neither rhyme nor sentiment has much place in these songs. Each line is usually repeated twice, even if there be a rhyme impending, for the shantyman's stock must be carefully husbanded.

"Shantyman and Sally Brown" is a chorus I've not heard of elsewhere. Perhaps it is a natural variation of "spend my money on Sally Brown," in which case he is referring to the "usual" SALLY BROWN ("roll and go") to contrast it with BLOW BOYS BLOW.

Adams includes BONEY among the long-drag shanties. I would say that he is presenting it as a single-pull halyard shanty. (In contrast to a sheet shanty, the pull does not come at the very end.):

A favorite and frequently used song, in which Bonaparte's fortunes are portrayed in a manner startling to the historian, as well as to those who may have the fortune to hear it sung at any time, is: —

JOHN FRANCOIS (*"pronounced Frans-war").

Oh, Bo -ney was a war -rior,
    A-way, hey way!
Oh, Bo - ney was a war - rior,
    John Fran-cois.

Oh, Boney went to Roo-shy,
                  Chorus. 

Oh, Boney went to Proo-shy,
                  Chorus.

He crossed the Rocky Mountains,
                  Chorus.

He made a mistake at Waterloo,
                  Chorus. 

He died at Saint Helena.
                  Chorus.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 07:14 PM

Adams, cont.

Where Tommy actually proceeded to when he went "a high low" nobody knows, but the fact is related with continual gusto nevertheless: —

TOMMY'S GONE, A HIGH LOW

My Tommy's gone and I'll go too;
    Hurrah, you high low.
For without Tommy I can't do.
    My Tommy's gone a high low.
My Tommy's gone on the Eastern Shore,
                   Chorus. 

My Tommy's gone to Baltimore,
                   Chorus.

A person who knows a little of geography can send Tommy around the world according to his own discretion.

The emphases/pulls are missing in the original.
Our recent discussion of "Hilo" underscores that that phrase was *probably* not a place to go to (cf. speculations about Peru, Hawai'i). Whether it originally meant something is unknown, but it did come to be a common nonsense-syllable (?) chorus in slave songs. This may be another case of lost-in-translation. The "going places" theme of the lyrics influenced the later process of making the chorus a propositional statement, "Tommy's gone to 'Hilo'."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 07:23 PM

Curiously, Adams has SHENANDOAH as a halyard chanty. The pull on the second refrain is in an interesting place, too -- one might expect more pulls on that refrain, or the pull to come on "away" and "Missouri".

One of the best illustrations of the absolute nothingness that characterizes the words of these songs, is given by the utterances attending the melody called " Shanadore," which probably means Shenandoah, a river in Virginia. I often have heard such confusing statements as the following:—

Shannadore's a rolling river,
      Hurrah, you rolling river.
Oh, Shannadore's a rolling river.
      Ah hah, I'm bound away o'er the wild Missouri.

Shanadore's a packet sailor,
               Chorus. 

Shanadore's a bright mulatto,
                Chorus. 

Shanadore I long to hear you.
                Chorus,

and so the song goes on, according to the ingenuity of the impromptu composer.

"Absolute nothingness"? Well, much is incidental, but I would not call it nothingness! The verses here show more overlap with "Sally Brown."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 07:33 PM

Sailors are not total abstainers as a rule, and one would suspect that a song like "Whiskey Johnny " might find frequent utterance: —

WHISKEY JOHNNY.

Whiskey is the life of man,
    Whiskey Johnny.
We'll drink our whiskey when we can,
    Whiskey for my Johnny.

I drink whiskey, and my wife drinks gin,
                      Chorus. 

And the way she drinks it is a sin.
                      Chorus.

I and my wife cannot agree,
                      Chorus.

For she drinks whiskey in her tea.
                      Chorus.

I had a girl, her name was Lize,
                      Chorus. 

And she put whiskey in her pies.
                      Chorus.
Whiskey's gone and I'll go too,
                     Chorus.
For without whiskey I can't do.
                      Chorus.

Another popular song is:--

KNOCK A MAN DOWN.

I wish I was in Mobile Bay.
    Way, hey, knock a man down.
A-rolling cotton night and day.
    This is the time to knock a man down.

The words already quoted will enable a person to sing this and neariy all the songs of this set. He can wish he was in every known port in the world, to whose name he can find a rhyme. If New Orleans was selected, he would add, "Where Jackson gave the British beans." At " Boston city," his desire would be, "a-walking with my lovely Kitty." At " New York town," he would be, "a-walking Broadway up and down," or at Liverpool he would finish his education, "a-going to a Yankee school."

I am really enjoying the total fluidity / interchangeability of lyrical themes that Adams' chanties exemplify.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 07:47 PM

Adams goes on to describe the next category, heaving shanties -- he groups pumps, capstan and windlass without distinguishing. I'd caution against, however, assuming that RIO GRANDE might be used equally for pumps and windlass, in addition to capstan just because he doesn't say it wasn't.
He notes also that many of the halyard chanties might also be used for those tasks.

The third set of working songs comprises those used at the pumps, capstan and windlass, where continuous force is applied, instead of the pulls at intervals, as when hauling on ropes. Many of the second set of songs are used on such occasions, but there are a few peculiar to this use and of such are the following:

RIO GRANDE.

I'm bound away this very day.
    Ch: Oh, you Rio!
I'm bound away this very day, I'm bound for the Rio Grande.
    Chorus: And away you Rio! Oh, you Rio!
    I'm bound away this very day, I'm bound for the Rio Grande.


PADDY, COME WORK ON THE RAILWAY

In eighteen hundred and sixty-three,
I came across the stormy sea.
My dung'ree breeches I put on
Chorus: To work upon the railway, the rail - way,
To work up-on the rail - way.
Oh, poor Paddy come work on the railway.

Many other songs might be named, some of which, peculiar to the Liverpool packets, are of a rowdy nature.

Hmm, I wonder what those "rowdy" songs were.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 08:20 PM

Adams finally polishes up his discussion with a statement on sing-outs.

In addition to these songs are the unnameable and unearthly howls and yells that characterize the true sailor, which are only acquired by years of sea service. There is the continuous running solo of " way-hey he, ho, ya," &c., &c , accompanying the hand-over-hand hoisting of jibs and staysails. Then for short " swigs " at the halyards, we have such utterances as " hey lee, ho lip, or yu," the emphasis and pull coming on the italicized syllables on which the voice is raised a tone. Then comes the more measured "singing out," for the long and regular pulls at the "braces." Each sailor has his own " howl" peculiar to himself, but fortunately only one performs at a time on the same rope. The effect, however, when all hands are on deck at a time, and a dozen ropes are pulled on at once, is most suggestive of Babel. One learns to recognize the sailors' method of singing: when lying in his berth in the cabin he can tell what man is leading and by the measure of his cadence can judge what class of ropes is being pulled. He thus can often divine the changes of wind and weather without going on deck. The wakeful captain with nerves harrassed by contrary winds will recognize the hauling in of the weather braces by the cry, and with only this evidence of a fair wind will drop off into the slumber he so greatly needs. At other times he will be impelled to go on deck by the evidence that the outcries betoken the hauling of clew-lines and buntlines at the approach of a threatening squall. By attention to these and other sounds, and the motions of the vessel, an experienced mariner knows the condition of affairs above deck without personal inspection.

So, there are three styles of singing-out:

1) hand over hand style for jibs and stays'ls
2) shorts swigs at halyards (i.e. sweating-up)
3) Long pulls at the braces.

I especially appreciate Adams' indication of the emphases. Hugill does not make that clear. After reading this closely, I am doubting some of what I thought I understood from Hugill. General disappointment that Hugill could not have been more organized and descriptive in presenting sing-outs, and that we don't have recordings, etc to support a better understanding of what they were like!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 09:47 PM

The last of 2 sources to be considered for the 1860s (that I have) is the anonymously written (probably by W.L. Alden) article, "On Shanties," in ONCE A WEEK, 1 Aug, 1868. Though it would seem to be one of the earliest articles devoted to the subject, it was preceded by at least 2 that came in 1858. There are some correspondences between those articles and Alden's and I would not be surprised to find that he had referenced them.

The author's beginning statements acknowledge the duties and methods (i.e. improv) of the shantyman. S/he gives lyrics to CHEERLY, but does not assign its task.

At the capstan, on the topsail-halliards, in port and at sea, in calm and in storm, the ropes run smoother, the anchor comes quicker, when twenty strong voices sing,—

Pull together, cheerily men, 

'Gainst wind and weather, cheerily men. 

For one another, cheerily men, O, 
   
Cheerily men, O, cheerily men.

Truly, as I once heard an old skipper remark, a good shanty is the best bar in the capstan ; but it is impossible to give an adequate idea of them by merely quoting the words : the charm all lies in the air : indeed, few of them have any set form of words, except in the chorus ; thus the inventive as well as the vocal powers of the singer are taxed—yet the shantyman has to extemporise as he sings to keep up his prestige,—the captain, officers, the weather, the passengers, and the peculiarities of his mates, furnish him with matter.

Types of shanties. First, capstan (STORMALONG [sans lyrics], GOODBYE FARE YOU WELL, SACRAMENTO, RIO GRANDE, PADDY LAY BACK, SANTIANA, "Good morning ladies all," "Nancy Bell," "Sally in the Alley," "And England's blue forever"?, LOWLANDS AWAY, "Oceanida," "Johnny's gone," BLACKBALL LINE, and SLAPANDERGOSHEKA). Funny that s/he includes these ALL under the category of capstan, without parsing out other heaving tasks.

Shanties are of two kinds, those sung at the capstan, and those sung when hauling on the ropes ; in the former the meter is longer, and they are generally of the pathetic class. To those who have heard it at sea, what can be more sad or touching than the air of or

To Liverpool docks we'll bid adieu,
Good-bye, fare you well ; 

To lovely Poll, and pretty Sue ;
Hurrah, brave boys, we're outward bound.

More stirring is the following :—

Blow, boys, blow, for California, O, 

There's plenty of gold in the land, I'm told, 
   
On the banks of Sacramento.

There is an air of romance about California, the Brazils, and Mexico, that has a peculiar charm for Jack, and has made them the subject of many a favourite shanty, as Rio Grande, Valparaiso, Round the Horn, and Santa Anna.

Oh, Santa Anna gained the day,
Hurrah, Santa Anna ; 

He gained the day, I've heard them say,
All on the plains of Mexico.

Rio Grande is perhaps the greatest favourite of this description of songs, but all the beauty lies in the mournful air :—

To Rio Grande we're bound away, away to Rio ; 

Then fare you well, my pretty young girls, 
   
We're bound for the Rio Grande. …

…In those lively shanties, Good morning ladies all, Nancy Bell, and Sally in the Alley, ample homage is paid to the girl he leaves behind him. Love is tempered with patriotism in this :—

True blue for ever,

I and Sue together ; 

True blue, I and Sue, 

And England's blue for ever.

There are many more capstan shanties, which I can only mention by name, such as Lowlands, Oceanida, Johnny's gone, The Black-ball Line, and Slapandergosheka, which contain a wild melody all their own ; the last named, with the incomprehensible title (repeated at the end of every line) is addressed to All you Ladies now on Land, and may seem rather egotistical. It commences,—

Have you got, lady, a daughter so fine,
       Slapandergosheka, 

That is fit for a sailor that has crossed the Line,
       Slapandergosheka, &c.

OK, so now *Santa Ana* has gained the day!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 09:53 PM

"On Shanties," cont.

"Hauling shanties" come next. Hand over hand (HANDY MY BOYS) and "long pull song" (BOWLINE, "Land ho, boys," HAUL AWAY JOE, BONEY).

We now come to the hauling shanties : first, there is the hand over hand song, in very quick time; then the long pull song. When there are a number of men—perhaps twenty, or more— pulling on one rope, the reader will perceive that, to be effective, the pull must be made unanimously ; this is secured by the shanty, the pull being made at some particular word in the chorus. For instance, in the following verse each repetition of the word handy is the signal for a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull pull altogether:—

Oh shake her up, and away we'll go.
So handy, my girls, so handy ;
Up aloft from down below,
So handy, my girls, so handy.

But when the work is heavy, or hands are few, one of longer meter is used:—

Haul the bowline, the fore and main-top bowline,
Haul the bowline, the bowline haul ;
Haul the bowline, Kitty you're my darling,
Haul the bowline, the bowline haul.

Here the concluding word of each couplet, haul, gives the clue ; there are many of this sort,— Land ho, boys, Land ho; Haul away, my Josey; and Boney was a Warrior; this last is the only one I know that has the words complete :—

Oh, Boney was a warrior, away a yah, 

A bonny little warrior, John Francivaux ;

John Francivaux is the nautical rendering of 
Johnny Crapeau. In the next two couplets 
Jack avails himself of his poetic licence to 
some purpose:—

He cruised in the Channel, away a yah, 

The Channel of old England, John Francivaux ; 

John Bull pursued and took him, away a yah, 

And sent him off to Elba, John Francivaux.

After stating a few more facts, that would astonish his biographers, he is brought to St. Helena :—

And there he pined and died, away a yah ; 

There grows a weeping willow, John Francivaux, 

A-weeping for poor Boney, John, &c.

"Haul away, my Josey" provides, perhaps, a needed clue to connect "Jim Along Josey" to "Haul Away Joe."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 09:57 PM

These songs also serve the means of communicating the ideas of the men to their superiors, or of giving a strong hint respecting the provisions ; for instance, a captain of a large passenger-ship will scarcely like his lady and gentlemen passengers to hear the watch, who are taking a pull on the mainbrace, commence, with stentorian lungs, something after the following strain :—

Oh, rotten pork, cheerily men, 

And lots of work, cheerily men, 

Would kill a Turk, cheerily men. oh,
Cheerily men.

Nothing to drink, cheerily men, 

The water does stink, cheerily men, 

And for Christians, just think, cheerily men, 
   
Oh, cheerily men.

Something of this sort generally has an effect in passenger-ships, and will obtain some concession.

Finally, s/he tells us how shantying was scarce in the Navy – apparently even up to this point in time.

These remarks apply only to merchant ships ; in the Navy, the shanty is prohibited, and at the capstan the men move to the sound of the fife or fiddle—the musician being seated on the capstan-head.
Of course the songs sung in the foke'sull, when Jack is taking his ease, are of another description…

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 12:37 PM

I want to correct myself when I said the 1868 article "On Shanties" was "probably by W.L. Alden." I said that because it appears to be an article that was later revised (seemingly) and published in the 11 December, 1869 deition of CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. The latter has been attributed to Alden -- by Doerflinger, with a question mark, and by Hugill, positively. Those authors had me under the impression that it was probably by Alden. However, other than their opinion, I am not finding any reason to think that Alden wrote either one.

The problem with the 1869 article is that, not only does it appear to be a quick revision-- as if to shorten it-- of the 1868....it also seems to steal from the two earlier magazine articles, from THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY and OBERLIN' STUDENTS MONTHLY, that appeared in 1858. One of those is also anonymous, and the other is by an unknown "Allen" (not Alden!). There is the *possibility* that the same author wrote 2, or even all of these. I don't think so, however. And based on comparing Alden's later, 1882 article, I don't see any reason to believe that he wrote any of the earlier ones.

The relevant point is where these writers got their info from. The 1868 and 1869 articles are quite "journalistic," and we must suspect that the author(s) may have had no first hand experience of shantying. What we can mainly get from them, then, is just dry (without reliable context!) info on what shanties were being sung by the publication date and what some of their lyrics might be like. But even in terms of what shanty was used for what task, I think these need to be critiqued.

So... the 1869 article...."Sailors' Shanties and Sea-Songs"

At the capstan, on the topsail-halliards, in port and at sea, in calm and in storm, the ropes run smoother, the work is done quicker, when some twenty strong voices sing:

Haul the bowline, the fore and main top bowline;
    Haul the bowline, the bowline haul; 

Haul the bowline, the bully, bully bowline;
    Haul the bowline, the bowline haul.

This is the opening of the 1868 article, but BOWLINE has been swapped for CHEERLY.

I remember well, one dirty black night in the Channel, beating up for the Mersey against a stiff breeze, coming on deck near midnight, just as the ship was put about. When a ship is tacking, the tacks and sheets (ropes which confine the clews, or lower corners of the sails) are let run, in order that the yards may be swung round to meet the altered position of the ship. They then must be hauled taut again, and belayed, or secured, in order to keep the sails in their places, and to prevent them from shaking. When the ship's head comes up in the wind, the sail is for a moment or two edgewise to it, and then is the nice moment, as soon as the head-sails fairly fill, when the main-yard and the yard above it can be swung readily, and the tacks and sheets hauled in. If the ship is short-handed, or the crew slow at their work, and the sails get fairly filled on the new tack, it is a fatiguing piece of work enough to ' board' the tacks and sheets, as it is called. The crew are pulling at one end of the rope; but the gale is tugging at the other. The best plan in such cases is to put the helm down a little, and set the sails shaking again before they can be trimmed properly. It was just at such a time I came on deck as above mentioned. Being near eight bells, the watch on deck had not been over-smart, and the consequence was that our big main-course was flying out overhead with a might that shook the ship from stem to stern. The flaps of the mad canvas were like successive thumps of a giant's fist upon a big drum. The sheets were jerking at the belaying-pins, the blocks rattling in sharp snappings like castanets. You could hear the hiss and seething of the sea alongside, and see it flash by in sudden white patches of phosphorescent foam, while all overhead was black with the flying scud. Our second mate, a Yankee, was stamping his feet with vexation, and without any regard for his hs, was storming away at the men. 'An'somely the weather mainbrace there; an'somely, I tell you! Now, then, what the are you all standing there for?
'Alf-a-dozen of you clap on to the main-sheet. Here, look alive ! Down with 'im. 'Andy there ! 'Aul 'im in.' But although he ran through all the most forcible expressions in his vocabulary, the sail wouldn't come. ' Give us a song, boys,' cried out our old skipper, who had just come on deck. ' Pull with a will, boys ; all together, boys.' Then a strong voice sang out:

Haul the bowline, the bowline, the bowline;
Haul the bowline, the bowline haul; 

Haul the bowline; Polly is my darling;
      Haul the bowline, the bowline haul.

At the last word ' haul' in each couplet, every man threw his whole strength into the pull—all singing in chorus with a quick explosive sound. And so jump by jump the sheet was at last hauled taut I daresay this description will be considered spun out by a seafaring man; but landsmen like to hear of the sea and its ways; and as more fresh-water sailors read this Journal than sea-water ones, I have told them of one shanty and its time and place.

The preceding passage has been plagiarized (?) from the 1858 article in THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. The funny thing is, in the old version (published in Boston), it was an English mate who had his H's misplaced, whereas in this version (published in England) it is a Yankee mate! Besides the fact that it makes no sense, this suggests to me that the 1869 author is copying as needed, and therefore s/he is not the same author as the 1858 article.

cont...

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 12:47 PM

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL 1869, cont.

The above is what we call a hauling shanty. Shanties are of two kinds—those sung at the capstan, and those sung when hauling on a rope: in the former, the metre is longer, and they are generally of a more pathetic nature. To those who have heard it, as the men run round the capstan, bringing up the anchor from the English mud, of a ship outward bound for a two years trip, perhaps never to return, what can be more sad or touching, although sung with a good-will:

To the Liverpool docks we'll bid adieu; 

To Suke, and Sall, and Polly too; 

The anchor's weighed, the sail's unfurled; 

We are bound to cross the watery world. 

Hurrah! we 're outward bound ! Hurrah ! 

we 're outward bound !

OK, so this is actually OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND. It seems to have been fudged as "Goodbye fare you well" in the 1868 ONCE A WEEK article. Or was it?--most of the 1868 version does scan as "Goodbye Fare You Well." This shanty (Outward and Homeward) was also in the 1858 OBERLIN STUDENT'S MONTHLY article, though with a different verse. But the punctuation in the chorus is the same. It is subtle, and my argument is not very strong, but I believe these discrepancies lend evidence to the case that the author(s) of both 1868 and 1869 were not first-hand knowledgeable.

More stirring is the following :

Steer, boys, steer, for California O; 

There's plenty of gold in the land, I 'm told, 
   
On the banks of the Sacramento.

There is an air of romance about California, the Brazils, and Mexico, that has a peculiar charm for Jack; and he has made them the subject of many a favourite shanty, as Rio Grande, Valparaiso, Round the Horn, and Santa Anna. Rio Grande is perhaps the greatest favourite of this description of songs, but all the beauty lies in the mournful air:

To Rio Grande we 're bound away, away to Rio; 

Then fare you well, my pretty young girls; 
   
We're bound to the Rio Grande. …

…There are many more capstan shanties, which I can only mention by name, such as Oceanida, Johnny 's Gone, The Black Ball Line, and Slapandergosheka. The last mentioned, with the incomprehensible title (repeated at the end of every line), is addressed to 'All you ladies now on land,' and may seem rather egotistical; it commences—

Have you got, lady, a daughter so fine,
       Slapandergosheka, 

That is fit for a sailor that has crossed the line ?
       Slapandergosheka, &c.

The preceding is repeated from his (?) 1868 article. But why change Sacramento from "Blow" to "Steer"? Perhaps he thought his readers would not understand "blow"?

I remember once hearing a good shanty on board a Glasgow boat; something like the following was the chorus :

Highland day, and off she goes, 

Off she goes with a flying fore-topsail; 

Highland day, and off she goes.

It was one of the most spirited things imaginable, when well sung; and when'applied to the topsail halliards, brought the yards up in grand style.

That was also stolen from ATLANTIC MONTHLY, 1858. The "Glasgow boat" is made-up B.S.—probably inspired by the word "Highland"—unless s/he wrote that old article and is now adding more detail.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 12:53 PM

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL cont.

We now come to the hauling shanties. First, there is the hand-over-hand song, in very quick time ; then the long-pull song. When there are a number of men—perhaps twenty or thirty—pulling on a rope, the reader will perceive that, to be effective, the pull must be made unanimously: this is secured by the shanty, the pull being made at some particular word in the chorus. For instance, in the following verse, each repetition of the word ' handy' is the signal for a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together:
Oh, shake her up, and away we'II go,

So handy, my girls, so handy; 

Up aloft from down below,
So handy, my girls, so handy.

For heavier work, or when hands are few, one of longer metre is used, such as Land O, Boys, Land O; Haul away, my Josey; O long Storm, storm along, stormy.

Land ho > Land O

"Haul away, my Josey," seeing his used of the OBERLIN article (which has "Jim Along Josey", *could* be a slight fabrication.

Most irksome is that now STORMY appears under the hauling category, whereas in the previous year he'd said it was a capstan chantey. This particular (odd) phrasing of the title reflects that it was most likely lifted from the ATLANTIC article.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 01:14 PM

So, the 1869 article is essentially "worthless." Funny -- If I remember right, that is the source from which the OED gets its first incidence of the word "shanty."

The 1868 article gives several items that were new at the time -- that is, I have not seen them in print before that. They are:

GOODBYE FARE YOU WELL
SACRAMENTO
RIO GRANDE
PADDY LAY BACK
"Good morning ladies all"
"Nancy Bell"
"Sally in the Alley"
"And England's blue forever"
LOWLANDS AWAY
"Oceanida"
"Johnny's gone"
BLACKBALL LINE
SLAPANDERGOSHEKA
HANDY MY BOYS
"Land ho, boys"
HAUL AWAY JOE
BONEY

Of these, Adams' later published work provides evidence that HAUL AWAY JOE and BONEY were already in existence.

"Good morning ladies all" and, possibly, "Johnny's Gone" (if related to "Jenny's Gone Away"), may have appeared earlier as corn-shucking songs.

And the author gives some unique verses to CHEERLY, too.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 01:33 PM

Though much of the '69 article is plagiarized and paraphrased from the '68, the two are not identical. '69 adds very little of substance, however.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 01:49 PM

Lighter, my suggestion is that the 1869 adds *nothing*. At least, I can find nothing new in it!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 01:28 AM

Thanks, John, for this reference: A CUBAN EXPEDITION by J.H. Bloomfield (1896), and for your detective work placing the date of the voyage at 1858. I am going to break it out here, as usual.

Barque TYRER, from Casilda, Cuba to London.

General musings on shanties, their usefulness, their improvisatory nature. I like how he calls them "hauling choruses, not songs." :

The fore topsail rose off the cap with many jerks, and gradually got stretched out to its full height to the topmast head to the music of a "shantie," or song, given out by the carpenter, who happened to be the " shantie man" on this occasion.

Sailors' shanties—probably a corruption of chanting—or hauling choruses, not songs, are generally improvised by the "shantie man" who gives them out. The choruses are old and well known to all sailors, but between each pull and chorus the " shantie man" has to improvise the next line, or compose the "shantie" as he sings it. It is true there is not much in them, and any words or expression, no matter how absurd or incongruous, will answer as long as they rhyme with the line before. Although they are often without sequence they are not without music, and are as inspiriting to the sailor as the fife and drum is to the soldier. On one occasion at sea, after reefing the foresail in a gale, the united efforts of the whole crew were unable to board the foretack, or get it hauled down to its place on the cathead, until the mate of the watch called out: " Strike up a shantie there, one of you men." The "shantie" was struck up; the chorus was like a shout of defiance at the elements. It was fighting the gale, and was as inspiriting as a cavalry charge, and perhaps as hazardous. I enjoyed it, although every now and again a sea would break over the bows, drenching and blinding every one. The mate's voice would be heard shouting encouragingly to the men at each pull: " Well done, down with it, men, it must come; time the weather roll, bravo;" and at every shout of the chorus the men threw their whole weight, with a will, 'into the foretack, and down it came inch by inch steadily, and after a fierce struggle the tack was belayed and the crew were victorious.

And I like the observation here about how the drawn out "Oooh" gives one time to come up with lyrics. Very true, in my experience!:

The " shantie" sung this morning on getting under weigh and setting the topsails, we often heard on the passage to England, and is a good specimen of sailors' " shanties;" the men have breathing time to collect their strength and prepare themselves for the pull, while the " shantie man" is giving out the verse. At every repetition of the word "Hilo" in the chorus the men all pull together with a jerk, hoisting the heavy yard and sail several inches at every pull. " Give us ' Hilo,' Chips," the men said to the carpenter, and he began. The preliminary "Oh" long drawn out at the beginning of each verse was to gain time to improvise the verse :

Oh-o, up aloft this yard must go,
   Chorus by all hands : Hilo, boys, hilo !
I heard our bully mate say so.
   Hilo, boys, hilo !
Oh-o, hilo, bullies, and away we go,
    Hilo, boys, hilo !
Hilo, boys, let her roll, o-he-yho.
   Hilo, boys, hilo !
Oh-o, I knocked at the yellow girl's door last night,
   Hilo, boys, hilo!
She opened the door and let me in.
   Hilo, boys, hilo !
Oh-o, I opened the door with a silver key,
   Hilo, boys, hilo!
The yellow girl a-livo-lick-alimbo-lee.
   Hilo, boys, hilo !
Oh-o, watchman, watchman, don't take me !
   Hilo, boys, hilo !
For I have a wife and a large familee.
   Hilo, boys, hilo!
Oh-o, two behind, and one before,
   Hilo, boys, hilo I
And they marched me off to the watchhouse door.
   Hilo, boys, hilo!
Oh-o, where's the man that bewitched the tureen ?
   Hilo, boys, hilo!
Look in the galley and there you'll see him.
   Hilo, boys, hilo!
Oh-o, the mate's on foc'sle, and the skipper's on the poop.
   Hilo, boys, hilo!
And the cook's in the galley, playing with the soup.
Hilo, boys, hilo !
Oh-o, the geese like the gander and the ducks like the drake,
   Hilo, boys, hilo !
And sweet Judy Callaghan, I'd die for your sake.
    Hilo, boys, hilo !

"Oh, belay!" shouts the mate, cutting short the "shantie," for the yard is mastheaded.

Well, it's HILO BOYS. I love this text, the fact that it is extended and we are able to get a sense of the type of lines used -- rather than just getting a regulation verse and a note about how the rest was "nonsense."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: doc.tom
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 04:04 AM

Oh, what a beauty! (just to refresh!)
TomB

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 01:45 PM

Unprovable hypothesis alert.

John Masefield was confident that "Haul on the bowline" must go back to the 16th C. because the bowline, by the 19th, was no longer a rope that needed a shanty. Other writers have rightly criticized Masefield for his assumption. However...

It does seem unlikely that a shanty would arise telling the crew specifically to "Haul on the bowline" (and only the bowline) at a time when the labor would be unecessary. Sure, it could have started as a joke, but here's another theory.

Maybe the shanty developed from a "bowline singout" that really does go back centuries. Consider the tune of the words: "Haul on the bowline" - three close notes for five syllables. If the final syllable of "bowline" is shouted higher rather than sung lower, it becomes indistinguishable from a singout. The shanty may have developed from a repetitive singout: "Haul on the bowline!" (They haul.) "Haul on the bowline!" (They haul.)

Then one day, the proto-shantyman gets tired of "Haul on the bowline!" and follows it up with a second, more tuneful "verse," "So early in the morning!" Later, maybe years later, some crew adapts the first verse as a chorus. Ad lib to suit and voila! a shanty (maybe the earliest indeed).

No early writer would have noticed, because there's nothing interesting about sailors hauling on a bowline while someone yells, "Haul on the bowline!"

Just speculating.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 01:59 PM

Lighter-

Your "Bowline" reasoning works for me.

Gibb-

I can hardly wait to hear you lead this version of "Hilo." It is a beaut!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 03:02 PM

Charley, if I can just keep doubling the number of believers every hour....

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 09:35 PM

Lighter-

"if I can just keep doubling the number of believers every hour...."

The math begins to work your way once you achieve one believer.

Then it's just a matter of waiting until the money really begins to roll in!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 01 May 10 - 12:18 AM

Here's my updated "timeline," up through the 1860s...

1777

- singing their plaintive African songs, in cadence with the oars, Georgetown, SC/Blacks rowing (Watson 1856)

1790s

- "gnyaam gnyaam row" Demerara River, Georgetown, Guyana/Blacks rowing (Pinckard 1806).

c.1790s-1800s

- canoe-rowing songs, partly traditionary, partly improvised Charleston, SC/Blacks rowing (as per Grayson)

c.1800s-1820s

- "Cheerly men" [CHEERLY] (conjecture based on comment of "time out of mind," in UNITED SERVICES JOURNAL 1834)

c.1803[or earlier]

- a sort of Song pronounced by one of the number, Europeans/spoke windlass (Falconer 1806)

1805

- eight stout negroes, who sing in chorus all the way, Surinam/Blacks rowing (Sack 1810)

c.1805-1820s

- "Oh Sally Brown, Sally Brown, oh!" Possibly, British war ship (Robinson 1858)

c.1806

- "Aye, aye/ Yoe, yoe" Savannah River, Georgia/Blacks rowing (Lambert 1810)

c.1808-1826

- a common sailors' chant in character, having a sort of 'Sally Brown, oh, ho,' chorus; and requiring the action of pulling a rope, London stage (Clason 1826)

1811

- "Grog time of day" [GROG TIME] Jamaica/stevedores at capstan (Hay 1953)

- "Oh, huro, my boys/Oh, huro boys O" Jamaica/stevedores at capstan (Hay 1953)

[1812-1815 : War of 1812]

c.1812-1839

- "Fire! in the main-top/Fire! down below" [FIRE FIRE] USS CONSTITUTION/out of context, poss. War of 1812 log (GENTLEMEN'S MAGAZINE, Oct. 1839)

c.1814-15

- "Grog time a day" [GROG TIME] Antigua/Blacks rowing (SERVICE AFLOAT, 1833)

- "Heigh me know, bombye me takey" Virgin Islands/Blacks rowing (SERVICE AFLOAT, 1833)

- the drums and fifes merrily play, Round the capstan we dance; We soon hear the song,
"Heave, heave, my brave boys, and in sight." Poem/capstan (1825)

[1816: Start of the Blackball Line]

1816, mid

- "Going away to Georgia, ho, heave, O!/ho, heave, O!" Maryland or Virginia/Blacks rowing (Paulding 1817)

1818

- the negroes' song while stowing away the cotton, Savannah, GA/cotton-stowing (Harris 1821)

1821

- "It's oh! as I was a walking out, One morning in July, I met a maid, who ax'd my trade" [NEW YORK GIRLS?] and "All the way to Shawnee town/Pull away - pull away!"
Ohio River, Parkersburg,VA/rowing (Hall 1821)

1822[or earlier]

- "Fine time o' day" Saint Thomas/Blacks rowing (Wentworth 1834).

1825, July

- the sailor sent forth his long and slow-toned "yeo— heave — oh!" Brig leaving Quebec/windlass (Finan 1825).

- "Oh, yeo, cheerly" [CHEERLY]" Brig leaving Quebec/topsail halyards (Finan 1825)

c.1826

- "Haul way, yeo ho, boys!" London/Navy sailors in a pub ("Waldie's select circulating library", 1833)

1828, March

- a wild sort of song, Alatamaha River, Georgia/Black rowing (Hall)

1829

- they began their song, one of them striking up, seemingly with the first idea that entered his imagination, while the others caught at his words, and repeated them to a kind of Chinese melody; the whole at length uniting their voices into one chant, which, though evidently the outpouring of a jovial spirit, had, from its unvaried tone and constant echo of the same expression, a half-wild, half-melancholy effect upon the ear. …It had begun with "Yah! yah! here's a full ship for the captain, and a full pannikin for Peytie Pevterson, la— la—lalla—la—leh; but this sentence, after many repetitions, was changed for others of briefer duration and more expressive import, as they coursed after each other with intoxicating rapidity… Fictional whaleship/capstan ("Tales of a Voyager to the Arctic Ocean", 1829)

1830

- "Sally was a fine girl, ho! Sally, ho!" Cape Fear River, North Carolina/Blacks rowing (Cecelski 2001)

1831

- "De neger like the bottley oh!" [BOTTLE O] and "Velly well, yankee, velly well oh" Guyana/Blacks rowing (Alexander, 1833)

[1832: Invention of Dobinson's pump windlass]

1832[or earlier]

- "Pull away now, my Nancy, O!" and/with "To the Greenland sea/ Black although she be" East India Company ship/capstan (THE QUID 1832)

1832

- "I'm gwine to leave de ole county (O-ho! O-ho!)/I'm sold off to Georgy! (O-ho! O-ho!)" and "Roun' de corn, Sally!" [ROUND THE CORNER] Maryland/Blacks rowing (Hungerford 1859)

1832-33

- the wild song of the negro fire-men, Ohio River/steamboat firemen (Latrobe 1835)

1833

- "'Tis grog time o' day!" [GROG TIME] rowing on ocean ("Waldie's Select Circulating Library," Dec. 1833)

1834, Feb.

- Their extemporaneous songs at the oar, St. Johns River, FL/Blacks rowing (Brown 1853)

1834, Aug-1836

- "singing out" at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains, brig PILGRIM

- "Heave, to the girls!" and "Nancy oh!" and "Jack Cross-tree," brig PILGRIM/ songs for capstans and falls

- "Heave round hearty!" and "Captain gone ashore!" and "Time for us to go!" and "Round the corner, Sally" [ROUND THE CORNER] and "Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!" brig PILGRIM, California coast/driving in the hides (pull)

- the loud cry of "Yo heave ho! Heave and pawl! Heave hearty ho!" brig PILGRIM/spoke windlass

- Sailors, when heaving at a windlass, in order that they may heave together, always have one to sing out; which is done in a peculiar, high and long-drawn note, varying with the motion of the windlass

- "Cheerily, men!" [CHEERLY] brig PILGRIM/catting anchor

- lightening their labors in the boats by their songs, Italians rowing (Dana 1840ff)

1835

- A line was sung by a leader, then all joined in a short chorus; then came another solo line, and another short chorus, followed by a longer chorus, Jacksonville, FL/Blacks rowing (Kennard 1845)

1835, September

- "Ho! cheerly" [CHEERLY] US ship PEACOCK, the Gulf of Mazeira [coast of Arabia]/ as they marched round the capstan, or hauled in the hawser by hand (Howland 1840)

- "Bonny laddie, Highland laddie" [HIGHLAND] capstan (Howland 1840)

1837, April

- "Hi de good boat Neely/Ho yoi!" Charleston, SC/Blacks rowing (Gillman 1852)

- "Oh! Sally Brown" (peculiarly musical, although not refined) [SALLY BROWN] Ship QUEBEC, Portsmouth >New York/pump windlass (Marryat)

1838-39

- "Jenny gone away" [TOMMY'S GONE?] and "Fare you well, and good-by, oh, oh!/oh, oh!" Altamaha River, Georgia/Blacks rowing (Kemble 1864)

1838, December

- "Fire the ringo, fire away!" [MARINGO] Mobile/cotton-screwing (Gosse 1859)

1839, Sept.

- "Fire down below!" [SAILOR FIREMAN] Dramatic scene in a steamboat/Black fireman (BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY 1839)

- "So early in the morning the Sailor loves his bottle oh," [BOTTLE O] and "Round the corner, Sally" [ROUND THE CORNER] and "Tally Ho, you know" [TALLY] & a dozen others, Tahiti/local women singing sailor songs (Reynolds and Philbrick)

c.1840s

- "grog time o' day." [GROG TIME] Clipper-brig CURLEW, New York >Hamburg/ halyards (Rice 1850)

1840, Feb.

- The usual cry is "Ho! Ho! Hoi!" or "Ho! Ho! Heavo!" Whaler, New London > Pacific/hauling (Olmsted 1841).

- "Ho! Ho! and up she rises/Ear-ly in the morn-ing" [DRUNKEN SAILOR] and "Nancy Fanana, she married a barber/Heave her away, and heave her away [HAUL 'ER AWAY]
halyard

- "O! hurrah my hearties O!" short haul to extract whale tooth

1841

- "Grog time o' day/Oh, hoist away" [GROG TIME] New Orleans/stevedores loading a steamboat (THE ART OF BALLET 1915)

1842, February

- casting huge sticks of wood into the mouths of the row of yawning furnaces beneath the serried boilers,accompanying their labor by a loud and not unmusical song, steamboat, Ohio River/Black fireman (THE BALTIMORE PHOENIX AND BUDGET 1842)

1842, April

- "Cheerily, oh cheerily," [CHEERLY] Ship HUNTRESS, New York > China/ hoisting guns from hold (Lowrie 1849)

1842, Sept.

- "O ee roll & go/O ho roll & go" [SALLY BROWN?] whaleship TASKAR/song in diary (Creighton 1995)

1842, October

- "Heave him up! O he yo!" Canary Islands/spoke windlass (Browne 1846).

1843

- "Oh, Jenny gone away" [TOMMY'S GONE?] Virginia/corn-shucking ("The Family Magazine" 1843)

1843, March

- "Oh hollow!/Oh hollow!" [HILO?] and "Jenny gone away," [TOMMY'S GONE?] and "Dan, dan, who's the dandy?" [the monkey-song] and "John John Crow/ John John Crow" [JOHN CROW] South Carolina/corn-shucking (Duyckinck, 1866)

1843-1846

- the firemen struck up one of those singularly wild and impressive glees which negroes alone can sing effectively, Steamboat, Mississippi valley (Illinois)/Black firemen (Regan 1859)

1844

- "Oh, the captain's gone ashore/Hie bonnie laddie, and we'll all go ashore" [GROG TIME?] Mobile Bay/cotton-stowing (Hill 1893).

- "Cheerily men, ho!" [CHEERLY] Port Adelaide/remembering a ship's song (Lloyd 1846)

1844, August

- "Round the corner, Sally!" [ROUND THE CORNER] Society Islands/local imitation of sailor's song (Lucett)

1844-45

- The crew was made up of the hardest kind of men; they were called "hoosiers,"
working in New Orleans or Mobile during the winter at stowing ships with cotton, and in the summer sailing in the packet ships. They were all good chantey men; that is, they could all sing at their…we could reef and hoist all three topsails at once, with a different song for each one, Packet ship TORONTO, NY > London/re: cotton-stowing (Low 1906)

- "Roll and go for that white pitcher, roll and go," London/unloading cargo w/ capstan

1845, Feb.

"Ho, O, heave O" heaving anchor (American Journal of Music and Musical Vistor1845)

- "Row, Billy, row," [BLOW BOYS BLOW?] American sailor returned from Mediterranean/rowing

1845, Sept.

- "Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie" [HIGHLAND] and "Fire, maringo, fire away" [MARINGO] Ship CHARLES CAROL, New Orleans/cotton-stowing (Erskine 1896)

c.1845-1851

- "Carry him along, boys, carry him along/ Carry him to the burying-ground" [WALK HIM ALONG] and "Hurrah, see—man—do/Oh, Captain, pay me dollar" and "Fire, maringo, fire away" [MARINGO] and "Bonnie laddie, highland laddie" [HIGHLAND] many of the screw-gangs have an endless collection of songs, Mobile Bay/cotton-stowing (Nordhoff 1855)

- "Tally hi o you know" [TALLY] Whaleship/weighing anchor (Brewster & Druett 1992)

c.1846-1852

- "Oh sailors where are you bound to/Across the briny ocean" [ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN] Packet ship, Liverpool > Philadelphia/ pump windlass (Nordhoff 1855)

1848

- "O! bullies, O!/A hundred years ago!" [HUNDRED YEARS] and "storm along, stormy!" [STORMY] Hawai'i/non-working, whaling territory (Perkins 1854)

- "Round the corn, Sally" [ROUND THE CORNER] and "Clear the way when Sambo come" corn-shucking, general (AMERICAM AGRICULTURIST, July 1848)

- "Storm along Stormy" [STORMY] minstrel song collection (White 1854)

- "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!/Fire down below" [SAILOR FIREMAN] minstrel song collection (White 1854)

- "Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire/Den tote dat bucket ob water, [boys?]/Dar's fire down below" [FIRE FIRE] minstrel song collection (White 1854)

[1848-1855: California Gold Rush]

1849, March

- "O, yes, O!/ A hundred years ago" [HUNDRED YEARS] Steamer OREGON, Panama > San Francisco/ at the capstan and windlass (Thurston1851)

[1851ff. – Australia Gold Rush]

c.1850s

- "Johnnie, come tell us and pump away" [MOBILE BAY] and "Fire, fire, fire down below/fetch a bucket of water/Fire down below" [FIRE FIRE] and "Only one more day" [ONE MORE DAY] Ship BRUTUS (American)/pumping (Whidden 1908)

- the wildest and most striking negro song we think we ever listened to…one dusky fellow, twirling his wool hat above his head, took the lead in singing, improvising as he sang, all except the chorus, in which the whole crew joined with enthusiasm Steamboat, Alabama river/boatmen (Hundley 1860)

c.1851>

- "Oh fare you well, my own Mary Anne" Ship > Sydney w/ gold seekers/pumping (Craig 1903)

- "When first we went a-waggoning" Ship > Sydney w/ gold seekers/pumping (Craig 1903)

1851, July

- "Fire on the bow/Fire down below!" [FIRE FIRE] Mississippi steamboat/Black firemen ("Notes and Queries" 1851)

1852, late

- "cheerymen" [CHEERLY] and "Hurra, and storm along/ Storm along, my Stormy" [STORMY] Packet ship, Gravesend > Melbourne/topsail halyards (Tait 1853)

c.1853 [or earlier]
- "Hog Eye!/Old Hog Eye/And Hosey too!" [HOG EYE] and "Hop Jim along/Walk Jim along/Talk Jim along" Louisiana/patting juba (Northup 1855)

1853
- "Oahoiohieu" [SAILOR FIREMAN] and "Oh, John, come down in de holler/Ime gwine away to-morrow" [JOHNNY COME DOWN HILO] Red River, LA/ steamboat hands (Olmsted 1856)

1854, early
- "Haul the bowline, the Black Star bowline, haul the bowline, the bowline HAUL!" [BOWLINE] Packet ship PLYMOUTH ROCK, Boston > Melbourne /sheet-style chanty adapted as entertainment (Note: text contains tunes to three other possible shanties) (Peck 1854)

1855, Jan.
- "Whaw, my kingdom, fire away" [MARINGO] Imagined Georgia/Blacks rowing (PUTNAM'S 1855)
- "Hey, come a rollln' down/Good morning ladies all" [GOOD MORNING LADIES] Imagined Georgia/corn-shucking (PUTNAM'S 1855)

1855, Aug.
- "Storm along, Stormy" [STORMY] general reference in fiction to how a crew might sing that song (Farnsworth 1855)

1856

- [Titles:] "Santy Anna," [SANTIANA] "Bully in the Alley," [BULLY IN ALLEY] "Miranda Lee," "Storm Along, John," [STORMALONG JOHN] Clipper ship WIZARD, NY > Frisco/Downton pump, with bell ropes (Mulford 1889)

- "Hi yi, yi, yi, Mister Storm roll on, Storm Along, Storm Along,"[MR. STORMALONG] and "All on the Plains of Mexico" [SANTIANA] and "Aha, we're bound away, on the wild Missouri" [SHENANDOAH] Packet ship, Liverpool > NY (Fisher 1981)

1857

- "Hilo! Hilo!/ Hilo! Hilo!" [HILO?] Maryland/slave song (general reference) (Long 1857).

1857?

- "Row, bullies, row!/Row, my bullies, row!" [BLOW BOYS BLOW?] Rowboat to frigate, New York (KNICKERBOCKER, 1857)

1857, November

- "Oh, poor Paddy works on the railway" [PADDY ON THE RAILWAY] Ship RED JACKET, Liverpool/brake windlass (Chatterton 2009)

- "Whiskey for my Johnny/Whiskey, Johnny" [WHISKEY JOHNNY] Ship RED JACKET, Liverpool/topsail halyards (Chatterton 2009)

c.1857-58

- "Cheer'ly Man" [CHEERLY] and "Come along, get along, Stormy Along John" [STORMY ALONG] John Short of Watchet

1858

- "Hilo, boys, hilo! Hilo, boys, hilo!" Barque TYRER, Casilda, Cuba > London / topsail halyards (Bloomfield 1896)

1858, July

- "Oh, the bowline, bowline, HAUL!" [BOWLINE] Ship, trans-Atlantic/braces (THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY 1858)

- "Pay me the money down!/Pay me the money down!" [MONEY DOWN] and "And the young gals goes a weepin'" [ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN] and "O long storm, storm along stormy" [STORMY] Ship, trans-Atlantic/brake pump (The Atlantic Monthly 1858)

- "Highland day and off she goes/Highland day and off she goes." [HILONDAY?] Ship, unknown/topsail halyards (Atlantic Monthly 1858)

1858, Dec.

- "Heigho, heave and go/Heigho, heave and go'' and "Hurrah, storm along!/Storm along my stormies"[STORMY] and "Hurrah! we're homeward bou-ou-ound!/Hurrah! we're homeward bound" [OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND] Brake windlass (Allen 1858)

- "Oh haulee, heigho, cheeryman!" [CHEERLY] topsail halyards (Allen 1858)

- "Heigh Jim along, Jim along Josey, Heigh Jim along, Jim along Jo!" Blacks rowing (Allen 1858)

c.1858-1860

- "Whisky for Johnny!" Packet ship MARY BRADFORD, London > NY/ to "pull round the yards" (Ward, Lock and Tyler)

c.1859-60

- "O, Riley, O" [OH RILEY] and "Whiskey for my Johnny" [WHISKEY JOHNNY] and "Storm along, my Rosa"[STORMY] Barque GUIDE Boston > Zanzibar/ brake windlass (Clark 1867)

1860

- The leader, a stalwart negro, stood upon the capstan shouting the solo part of the song…they were answered by his companions in stentorian tones at first, and then, as the refrain of the song fell into the lower part of the register, the response was changed into a sad chant in mournful minor key Steamboat, St. Louis > New Orleans (Nichols 1860)

c.1860-61

- "Rolling River" [SHENANDOAH] and "Cheerily she goes" and "Oh, Riley, Oh" [OH RILEY] and "Carry me Long" [WALK HIM ALONG] Clipper ship, Bombay > NY/raising anchor (Clark 1867)

[1861-1865 American Civil War]

1862

- "Sally Brown, the bright mulatter" [SALLY BROWN] Ship SPLENDID New York > China/windlass (Sauzade 1863)

- "Hurrah Santa Anna!/All on the plains of Mexico" [SANTIANA] Ship SUSAN HINKS, Boston > Calcutta/capstan (FIFTY-THREE YEARS, 1904)

1865

- "I'm Gwine to Alabamy, Ohh..../Ahh..." Slaves' songs collection Mississippi steamboat song (Allen 1867)

- "Shock along John, shock along" Slaves' songs collection, Maryland/corn-shucking (Allen1867)

- "Ho, round the corn, Sally" [ROUND THE CORNER] slaves' songs collection/corn-shucking (Allen 1867)

c.1865-66

- "Paddy on the Railway" [PADDY ON THE RAILWAY] and "We 're Homeward Bound" [OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND?] Schooner (?) NASON, out of Provincetown/windlass (Clark 1867)

- A chanty gang was engaged to hoist out the cargo, Zanzibar/stevedores (Clark 1867)

c.1866

- when the sugar began to roll in, the crew found I was at the head of the rope, and a "chanty man." We rolled the sugar upon the stages, over the bows, and at every hogshead I gave them a different song, American schooner, St. Jago, Cuba/ working cargo (Clark 1867)

c.1865-1869

- "Come down you bunch o' roses, come down" [BUNCH OF ROSES] and "Sally Brown's a bright Mulatto"[SALLY BROWN] Ship (all Black crew) DUBLIN Boston > Genoa/ topsail halyards (Adams 1879)

- "Walk along my Sally Brown," [WALKALONG SALLY] and "Hoist her up from down below" Ship (all Black crew) DUBLIN Boston > Genoa/ working cargo (Adams 1879)

- "Haul the bowline, the bowline haul" [BOWLINE] and "Way, haul away; O, haul away, Joe" [HAUL AWAY JOE] and "Do, my Johnny Boker, do."[JOHNNY BOWKER] Barque ROCKET/ tacks and sheets (Adams 1879)

- "Ranzo, boys, Ranzo" [REUBEN RANZO] and "Shantyman and Sally Brown" [SALLY BROWN] and "Blow, boys, blow!/Blow, my bully boys, blow!" [BLOW BOYS BLOW] and "Away, hey way!/John Francois" [BONEY] and "Hurrah, you high low/My Tommy's gone a high low" [TOMMY'S GONE] and "Hurrah, you rolling river/Ah hah, I'm bound away o'er the wild Missouri" [SHENANDOAH] and "Whiskey Johnny/ Whiskey for my Johnny" [WHISKEY JOHNNY] and "Way, hey, knock a man down/ This is the time to knock a man down" [BLOW THE MAN DOWN] Barque ROCKET/ halyards (Adams 1879)

- "And away you Rio! Oh, you Rio!/ I'm bound away this very day, I'm bound for the Rio Grande" [RIO GRANDE] and "Oh, poor Paddy come work on the railway" [PADDY ON THE RAILWAY] Barque ROCKET/ capstan or windlass (Adams 1879)

- continuous running solo of " way-hey he, ho, ya,"…accompanying the hand-over-hand hoisting of jibs and staysails, and for short "swigs" at the halyards…"hey lee, ho lip, or yu" and the more measured "singing out," for the long and regular pulls at the braces, Barque ROCKET/sing-outs (Adams 1879)

1868

- "What boat is that my darling honey?, Oh, oh ho, ho ay yah yah-ah!/Ah a... yah a...ah!"
Steamboats /Black firemen (McBRIDE'S 1868)

1868, April

- "Away, you rollin' river!/Ah ha! I'm bound away/On the wild Atlantic!" [SHENANDOAH] Atlantic, capstan (Riverside Magazine 1868)

- "Heave away, my Johnny, heave away!/An' away, my Johnny boy, we're all bound to go!" [HEAVE AWAY MY JOHNNIES] Atlantic/ ?? (Riverside Magazine 1868)

1868, Aug.

- "cheerily men" [CHEERLY]
journal article/braces (ONCE A WEEK 1868)

- "Good-bye, fare you well/ Hurrah, brave boys, we're outward bound" [GOODBYE FARE YOU WELL] and "There's plenty of gold in the land, I'm told/ On the banks of Sacramento" [SACRAMENTO] and "Then fare you well, my pretty young girls/ We're bound for the Rio Grande" [RIO GRANDE] and "Valparaiso, Round the Horn" [PADDY LAY BACK] and "Hurrah, Santa Anna/ All on the plains of Mexico" [SANTIANA] and "Good morning ladies all" [GOOD MORNING LADIES] and "Nancy Bell" [HURRAH SING FARE YOU WELL?] and "Sally in the Alley" and "True blue, I and Sue/And England's blue for ever" and "Lowlands" [LOWLANDS AWAY] and "Oceanida" and "Johnny's gone" [TOMMY'S GONE?] and "The Black-ball Line" [BLACKBALL LINE] and "Slapandergosheka" [SLAPANDER] journal article/capstan (ONCE A WEEK 1868)

- there is the hand over hand song, in very quick time, journal article/ hand over hand (ONCE A WEEK 1868)

- "So handy, my girls, so handy/So handy, my girls, so handy" [HANDY MY BOYS] journal article/halyards (ONCE A WEEK 1868)

- "Haul the bowline, the bowline haul" [BOWLINE] and "Land ho, boys, Land ho" and "Haul away, my Josey" [HAUL AWAY JOE] and "Oh, Boney was a warrior, away a yah/John Francivaux" [BONEY] journal article/ single pull hauling (ONCE A WEEK 1868)

1869

- "Hoojun, John a hoojun" [HOOKER JOHN] Brig WILLIAM, Portland, Maine, possible fiction/ hoisting molasses (Kellogg 1869)

- "O, stow me long/ Stow me long, stow me" [STORMY] Fictional American vessel/ windlass (Kellogg 1869)

- "Hand ober hand, O/ Scratch him/Hand ober hand, O" Fictional American vessel/ hand over hand (Kellogg 1869)

- "Ho-o, ho, ho, ho/ Fire down below" [SAILOR FIREMAN] Fictional American vessel/ walk-away (Kellogg 1869)

- "Bonny laddie, Highland laddie/ My bonny Highland laddie" [HIGHLAND] Fictional American vessel/no context (Kellogg 1869)

- "Hilo, boys, a hilo" [HILO BOYS] Fictional American vessel/ topgallant halyards (Kellogg 1869)

- "Heave and she goes, stamp and she goes/O, my poor sailor-boy, heave and she goes" Fictional American vessel/ capstan (Kellogg 1869)

- ''John, John Crow is a dandy, O" [JOHN CROW] Fictional American vessel/ studding-sail halyards (Kellogg 1869)

[1869 Opening of Suez Canal]

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 01 May 10 - 01:01 AM

This is my "set list" of deep water chanties, arranged by decade.

c.1800s-1820s

CHEERLY (2)
FIRE FIRE (1)
Oh Sally Brown, Sally Brown, oh!"

1830s

Black although she be"
BOTTLE O (1)
Captain gone ashore!"
CHEERLY (2)
Heave round hearty!"
Heave, to the girls!"
HIGHLAND (1)
Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!"
Jack Cross-tree,"
Nancy oh!"
Pull away now, my Nancy, O!"
ROUND THE CORNER (2)
SALLY BROWN (1)
TALLY (1)
Time for us to go!"

1840s

ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN (1)
CHEERLY (2)
DRUNKEN SAILOR (1)
GROG TIME (1)
Heave her away"
Heave him up! O he yo!"
Ho, O, heave O"
HUNDRED YEARS (2)
O ee roll & go"
O! hurrah my hearties O!"
ROUND THE CORNER (1)
STORMY (1)
TALLY (1)

1850s

ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN (1)
BOWLINE (2)
BULLY IN ALLEY (1)
CHEERLY (3)
FIRE FIRE (1)
Highland day and off she goes"
HILO BOYS (1)
Miranda Lee"
MOBILE BAY (1)
MONEY DOWN (1)
MR. STORMALONG (1)
Oh fare you well, my own Mary Anne"
ONE MORE DAY (1)
OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND (1)
PADDY ON THE RAILWAY (1)
SANTIANA (2)
SHENANDOAH (1)
STORMALONG JOHN (1)
STORMY (4)
STORMY ALONG (1)
When first we went a-waggoning"
WHISKEY JOHNNY (1)
Whisky for Johnny!"

1860s

And England's blue for ever"
BLACKBALL LINE (1)
BLOW BOYS BLOW (1)
BLOW THE MAN DOWN (1)
BONEY (2)
BOWLINE (2)
BUNCH OF ROSES (1)
Cheerily she goes"
CHEERLY (1)
GOOD MORNING LADIES (1)
GOODBYE FARE YOU WELL (1)
Hand ober hand, O"
HANDY MY BOYS (1)
HAUL AWAY JOE (2)
Heave and she goes, stamp and she goes"
HEAVE AWAY MY JOHNNIES (1)
HIGHLAND (1)
HILO BOYS (1)
HOOKER JOHN (1)
John, John Crow is a dandy, O"
JOHNNY BOWKER (1)
Johnny's gone"
Land ho"
LOWLANDS AWAY (1)
Nancy Bell"
Oceanida"
OH RILEY (1)
OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND (1)
PADDY LAY BACK (1)
PADDY ON THE RAILWAY (2)
REUBEN RANZO (1)
RIO GRANDE (2)
SACRAMENTO (1)
SAILOR FIREMAN (1)
SALLY BROWN (2)
Sally in the Alley"
SANTIANA (2)
SHENANDOAH (3)
SLAPANDER (1)
STORMY (2)
TOMMY'S GONE (1)
WALKALONG SALLY (1)
WHISKEY JOHNNY (2)

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 01 May 10 - 01:35 AM

And here is the "set list" overall. Some 47 songs are commonly known to us today.

ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN (2)
And England's blue for ever"
Black although she be"
BLACKBALL LINE (1)
BLOW BOYS BLOW (1)
BLOW THE MAN DOWN (1)
BONEY (2)
BOTTLE O (1)
BOWLINE (4)
BULLY IN ALLEY (1)
BUNCH OF ROSES (1)
Captain gone ashore!"
Cheerily she goes"
CHEERLY (10)
DRUNKEN SAILOR (1)
FIRE FIRE (2)
GOOD MORNING LADIES (1)
GOODBYE FARE YOU WELL (1)
GROG TIME (1)
Hand ober hand, O"
HANDY MY BOYS (1)
HAUL AWAY JOE (2)
Heave and she goes, stamp and she goes"
HEAVE AWAY MY JOHNNIES (1)
Heave her away"
Heave him up! O he yo!"
Heave round hearty!"
Heave, to the girls!"
HIGHLAND (2)
Highland day and off she goes"
HILO BOYS (2)
Ho, O, heave O"
HOOKER JOHN (1)
HUNDRED YEARS (2)
Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!"
Jack Cross-tree,"
John, John Crow is a dandy, O"
JOHNNY BOWKER (1)
Johnny's gone"
Land ho"
LOWLANDS AWAY (1)
Miranda Lee"
MOBILE BAY (1)
MONEY DOWN (1)
MR. STORMALONG (1)
Nancy Bell"
Nancy oh!"
O ee roll & go"
O! hurrah my hearties O!"
Oceanida"
Oh fare you well, my own Mary Anne"
OH RILEY (1)
Oh Sally Brown, Sally Brown, oh!"
ONE MORE DAY (1)
OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND (2)
PADDY LAY BACK (1)
PADDY ON THE RAILWAY (3)
Pull away now, my Nancy, O!"
REUBEN RANZO (1)
RIO GRANDE (2)
ROUND THE CORNER (3)
SACRAMENTO (1)
SAILOR FIREMAN (1)
SALLY BROWN (3)
Sally in the Alley"
SANTIANA (4)
SHENANDOAH (4)
SLAPANDER (1)
STORMALONG JOHN (1)
STORMY (7)
STORMY ALONG (1)
TALLY (2)
Time for us to go!"
TOMMY'S GONE (1)
WALKALONG SALLY (1)
When first we went a-waggoning"
WHISKEY JOHNNY (3)
Whisky for Johnny!"

"Cheerly Man" and "Stormalong, lads, Stormy" were mentioned most frequently.

Others that were mentioned more than twice are PADDY ON THE RAILWAY (3), ROUND THE CORNER SALLY (3), SALLY BROWN (3), SANTIANA (4), SHENANDOAH (4), WHISKEY JOHNNY (3).

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 01 May 10 - 07:21 AM

EXCELLENT!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 May 10 - 08:19 AM

Gibb-

Love these various sorted lists!

You've really done and provoked an amazing amount of work.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 May 10 - 03:07 PM

Gibb,
Brilliant.
But when does the book come out?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 01 May 10 - 03:21 PM

Very good work, indeed, Gibb!

Something else of interest. In North Carolina in 1922 or 1923, Frank C. Brown collected a call-and-response work song called "Sheep Shell Corn by the Rattle of His Horn." that scans like "Blow, Boys, Blow," and bears a tune that shows some slight resemblance:

http://www.archive.org/stream/frankcbrowncolle05fran#page/134/mode/2up

The chorus, "Blow, horn, blow!" at least makes more obvious sense than the shanty chorus. That suggests to me that it might be the original, but the evidence is too slim to allow a conclusion.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 May 10 - 04:11 PM

Lighter-

"Sheep Shell Corn by the Rattle of His Horn."

Try singing that line a dozen times as rapidly as you can.;~)

Maybe an old whaler swallowed the anchor and composed a corn shucking worksong modeled after "Blow Boys Blow/Congo River."

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 01 May 10 - 04:40 PM

Here's some verses to "Sheep Shell Corn" from Thomas Talley's NEGRO FOLK RHYMES, 1922:

http://books.google.com/books?id=C6YqAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA59&dq=sheep+shell+corn&cd=2#v=onepage&q=sheep%20shell%20corn&f=false

And the tune from Brown, mentioned above by Lighter:

http://books.google.com/books?id=sKlOYEg_5c8C&pg=PA135&dq=Sheep+shell+corn&cd=3#v=onepage&q=Sheep%20shell%20corn&f=false

I've always liked this little rhyme and I think it would make a fine chanty, being the lubber that I am.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 01 May 10 - 07:10 PM

Talley's version isn't much like Brown's with the "Blow, horn, blow" chorus.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 01 May 10 - 08:46 PM

You're right, Lighter. Talley doesn't even have a chorus. It almost looks like the Talley version is a blackface minstrel song. Some of those verses show up elsewhere in that tradition, I think. It seems like the Brown version has "evolved" a bit, but maybe it went the other way. But that is a definitive line about the "sheep shell corn with the rattle of his horn", along with the the "whipoorwill" line. I think you are onto something though with the Brown version. I have that stuck away somewhere, but as I vaguely recall, there aren't really any more verses, are there? Now that you've pointed it out it sure looks like chanty material.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 01 May 10 - 09:26 PM

Thanks for the support, guys.

I forgot to include "Haul on the Bowline" among the shanties that were mentioned several times before 1869.

Oh, the Frank Brown collection also has the steamboat song-cum-shanty "I'll Fire Dis Trip" [i.e. SAILOR FIREMAN].

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 May 10 - 01:05 AM

In AMONG OUR SAILORS (1874), J. Grey Jewell describes his (?) observations of "Sailors' Songs." The preface is dated 1873. He is referring to practices in American vessels, but there is no more context than that, that I can see. His knowledge seems a little shaky, yet his do appear to be independent attestations of now-familiar songs.

As will readily be inferred by those who have read the preceding pages, there is very little to admire in the life of a sailor. Poor fellows! they try at times to enliven their work with songs, and although these are inspiriting for the moment, they are of the most ordinary character, and, as far as my observation goes, there is nothing elevating or beautiful in them. The spirit of poesy does not haunt the forecastle of a ship. I have frequently helped the men of a vessel (on which I was a passenger) haul on the braces, so that I might hear and note their songs. They have certain words and tunes for certain work, and I will append a few stanzas by way of illustration.

Funny that he only thinks of the purpose of shantying as something to "enliven."

First he gives WHISKEY JOHNNY for halyards.

When hauling up the main-yard, after reefing the maintop sail, they sing:

"Whisky makes a poor old man—
    (Chorus.)—O whisky, whisky !
Johnny met me in the street,
Johnny asked me if I'd treat—
   O whisky, whisky !
I said yes, next time we'd meet—
   O whisky is for Johnny!"

Then, HAUL AWAY JOE for the braces. It is hard to say if his observation really does "prove" the link to "Jim Along," or if he is assuming.

At each recurrence of the word whisky, the sailors give a pull on the braces. When hauling taut the weather main-brace, they sing a perversion of the old negro melody, "Hey, Jim along, Jim along, Josey!" but the sailors put it—

"Way, haul away—haul away, Josey—
Way, haul away—haul away, Joe !"

This is repeated over and over again, with any slight variation that may occur to the leader, until they cease hauling. Sometimes this is varied by singing—

" Haul the bowline—Kitty, you're my darling—
Haul the bowline—bowline haul!"

The author's credibility seems to wain when he ascribes BLOW BOYS BLOW to a heaving task. However, I suppose it could work for windlass with no problem--if that's what he saw.

When heaving up the anchor, they sing—

"A Yankee ship came down the river—
    (Chorus.)—Blow, my bully boys, blow !
They keep an Irish mate on board her—
    Blow, my bully boys, blow !
Do you know who's captain of her—
    Blow, my bully boys, blow !
Jonathan Jinks of South Caroliner—
    Blow, my bully boys, blow !"

Next, some evidence that "Ranzo" really did derive from "Lorenzo."

When hauling up the foretop-sail yard, after reefing or shaking out the reefs, they sing a song of more pretensions, as follows:

"Lorenzo was no sailor—
    (Chorus.)—Renzo, boys, Renzo !
He shipped on board a whaler—
    Renzo, boys, Renzo!
He could not do his duty—
    Renzo, boys, Renzo!
They took him to the gangway,
And gave him eight and forty —
    Renzo, boys, Renzo !
"He sailed the Pacific Ocean—
    Renzo, boys, Renzo !
Where'er he took a notion —
    Renzo, boys, Renzo !
He finally got married,
And then at home he tarried —
    Renzo, boys, Renzo !"
These, and like songs, are made to cheer the poor seaman, and in some measure to lighten the heavy load his masters (the captain and his mates) impose upon him.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 May 10 - 06:10 AM

Following a stunning week-long series of programmes on maps, this week BBC 4 are running another on all things nautical.
Friday (I think) is on shanties and sea songs, hopefully done by somebody who knows how to sing them.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 02 May 10 - 10:01 AM

John, the "shanty-like" version has only three stanzas and a "grand" chorus "O! blow your horn, blow horn, blow" (2x).

Brown collected a few other "shanty-like" work-songs connected with corn-shucking. One even has a refrain of "Oho, we are most done," rather like "Let the Bulgine Run," though otherwise there's not much resemblance.

The more I think about the history of shanties, the more significant improvisation becomes. There seem to have been a few (perhaps late) shanties that had more than two or three vaguely "established" stanzas, but Bullen was surely right when he suggested that the lyrics were most often improvised.

That explains why most field-collected shanties are only two or three stanzas long. After that, the shantyman sang whatever came into his head, rhyming or not. Writers may have begun to think of the shanty as a "song genre" only when they noticed interesting tunes and that some recognized stanzas were almost always present in a "performance."

Before that, it was just somehwhat tuneful shouting.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 02 May 10 - 11:24 AM

Brown also gives a "corn-shucking hollow" [sic] called "The Old Turkey Hen," with the repeated chorus "Ho-ma-hala-way." Sounds like it may once have been something like "Oh, my! Haul away!"

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 02 May 10 - 03:15 PM

Lighter, I found the complete collection of Brown on line and now you've got me looking. Here are a few interesting items. First of all, on the page across from "Sheep Shell Corn", at #195, there is another corn husking song called "Jimmy My Riley", with a chorus of "Jimmy, my-Riley ho."

http://www.archive.org/stream/frankcbrowncolle03fran#page/232/mode/2up

And on the page after "The Old Turkey Hen" that you mentioned at #205, there is "Up Roanoke and Down the River", another cornhusking song. It looks particularly old, and has a chorus of "Oho, we are 'most done."

http://www.archive.org/stream/frankcbrowncolle03fran#page/238/mode/2up

At #230, there is "Whip Jamboree" from a line of sea captains. There's a couple of good verses here (and on the page across from it, a verse from "Hog-eye Man"):

http://www.archive.org/stream/frankcbrowncolle03fran#page/260/mode/2up

And back at #186, there's a country version of "Hog-eye Man" called "Row the Boat Ashore":

http://www.archive.org/stream/frankcbrowncolle03fran#page/224/mode/2up

And there's more.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 May 10 - 05:15 PM

John et al-

The Corn husking songs are real fun for connections. The one titled "De Shucking ob de Corn" (# 199, pp. 235-236) is clearly related to one my mother's nursemaid used to sing her:

Fight Wid Ole Satan

(From singing of Ella Robinson Madison in early 1920's as remembered from Dahlov Ipcar and as collected by Winifred (Wendy) Holt)

I had a fight wid ole Satan de odder night,
As I lay half awake;
Ole Satan, he come to my bedside
An' me he began to shake;
He shook me long an' he shook me strong,
He shook me plumb outa bed;
He done grab me by de collar and he looks me in the face,
An' whaddaya reckon he said?

"Whad he say, Aunt Jane?
Whad he say?"

"All de gole in de mountain,
All de silber in de mine,
Shall all belong to you, Aunt Jane,
If you will only be mine."
He led me to de winder an' the sight was dark
An' de moon was shinin' bright;
De hills an' the mountains all aroun'
Lay terror to my sight;
He said, "All des t'ings will be yours while you live
If you will be my general when you die."
But I look ole Satan right plumb in de eye
An' whaddaya t'ink I said?

"Whaddaya say, Aunt Jane?
Whaddaya say?"

"Getcha gone, ole Satan!
Don't you ever come 'round here again;
You might fool a white man wid dat tale
But you can't fool yo' ole Aunt Jane;
Live humble, humble youself,
I got glory an' honour, praise Jesus!"

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 May 10 - 08:57 PM

BALLOU'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE, vol. 40, for August 1974. There is a story by a Colonel Brevet. He includes mention of two familiar shanties, however no realistic context is given. In fact, they are presented in the story as if they were, possibly, entertainment (not work) songs. At this point in history, I think we have reason to suspect that the chanties he gives may have been culled by some earlier text, however, for now I will treat them as independent attestation.

He uses the terms "chanty-man" and "chanty."

The men seemed of my opinion, for they went forward singing merrily one of those peculiar ditties that sailors always affect, and which you hear nowhere but in the forecastle, or else from the chanty-man when all hands are employed together doing heavy work.

The song in question ran, as nearly as I remember, as follows:

" Whiskey is the life of man—
          Whiskey, Johnnie,
Whiskey is the life of man,
So whiskey for my Johnnie, OI
Whiskey makes mo work like fun—
       Whiskey, Johnnie,
Work from rise till set ot sun,
With whiskey for my Johnnie, Ol"

I wont give you any further infliction of this peculiar song, for, like the "Higgins story," it takes a month of Sundays to get over the introduction; but I will add that if any reader wants to learn the air of this marine sonata, all he has got to do is to hum "Soapsuds over the Fence," and then he can warble it to his satisfaction.

Anyone know that ditty?

Nothing of note transpired during the night, so at six in the morning we prepared to leave Bava and the treacherous Kanakas, hoping that no other ship would ever be entrapped into capture by the wily natives.

"Way, haul away, haul away, my Josey l
Way, haul away, haul away, my Jol"

roared the gunner in stentorian voice, as he led off in a sonorous chanty, the crew joining in with wild glee, their exuberance of joy knowing no bounds at the prospect of getting away from such inhospitable regions;

More evidence to connect "Jim Along"? Or has the supposed connection become the appearance of reality in the writings of such authors? (I'd lean towards the former.) In any case, it is notable that nowadays few (in my experience) would connect HAUL AWAY JOE to the minstrel song.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 May 10 - 09:20 PM

The next reference I am logging in has the very same two shanties as the last (different lyrics, however), which is one reason why I begin to become skeptical of the authenticity of these attestations -- i.e. in a time after such articles as the one in Chambers's Journal. In any case, these are unique lyrics so far as I can see.

This is from THE RIVERSIDE MAGAZINE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, Sept. 1870. There is a story by a "Taffy Jack."

The setting is of a ship bound out from New York. The word "chanty" is used. I am noting that, because, before 1870, we've actually not seen that word used often.

Forty-eight hours after that we were off Sandy Hook with our jib-boom pointing toward the open sea, and all hands on the main topsail halliards, pulling away to the roaring chanty, —

"We all of us feel very sad,
   Whiskey, O Johnnie :
To leave our true loves is too bad,
   Whiskey for my Johnnie."

...

"All hands on that main brace now," sung out the mate, and away we went all together, O-he-e-o —

"O-o-o-once I knew a Yankee gal,
She was so neat and pretty:
All haul away, haul away, Joe.
And if I didn't kiss her once, I didn't do my duty:
All haul away, haul away, Joe."

That time I belayed, and squeaked out "All fast"


I like the detail of the extended "O-o-o."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 May 10 - 09:46 PM

Courtesy of John Minear's link, which I neglected to log earlier:

The May 1884 edition of THE UNITED SERVICE contains recollections of a soldier in a piece called "First Scenes of the Civil War." The author notes that during the Battle of Fort Sumter, Charleston, April 1861, guns were hauled up onto the fort by means of the work-song SANTIANA at a capstan.

Work and sleep were the sole occupations in Sumter. There was no idling and no amusements. The work was hard and the workmen few. In heaving and hauling the men soon learned the value of a song in securing combined effort. The favorite song was one having the refrain, "On the plains of Mexico." We had rigged a shears, and with an improvised capstan walked the guns from the parade to the terreplein (a hoist of fifty feet) as an accompaniment to the favorite songs. ... I had given the word, " Avast heaving !"— the use of nautical terms must have been suggested by the song, —and ordered three men up to man the watch-tackle.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 May 10 - 10:14 PM

Earlier I forgot to add this connection. It comes again from Allen's SLAVE SONGS (1867), which was complete by 1865. It is "Heave Away"

The connection to the more familiar "Heave Away, My Johnnies" is obvious. So far, we have seen that one in a deep-water context in the Riverside Journal, 1868. It is impossible to say which song came first. One can decide for oneself whether they think the "Irish Emigrant" version or this steamboat song is more likely to have influenced the other. My guess would be that the steamboat song was the original. Hugill shows nicely how the verses of the emigrant ballad of "Yellow Meal" could have been fitted to the "Heave Away" chanty framework. The process is comparable to what I believe was likely to have happened in the case of "Knock a Man Down"/"Blow the Man Down."

Allen says:

This is one of the Savannah firemen's songs of which Mr. Kane O'Donnel gave a graphic account in a letter to the Philadelphia Press. "Each company." be says, "has its own set of tunes, its own leader, and doubtless in the growth of time, necessity and invention, its own composer."

The lyrics are as follows:

Heave away, heave away!
I'd rather court a yellow gal than work for Henry Clay.
Heave away, heave away!
Yellow gal, I want to go,
I'd rather court a yellow gal than work for Henry Clay.
Heave away, Yellow gal, I want to go!

Since many have not heard this song -- it was edited out for the abridged version of Hugill-- here is a rendition I did. It's one of my favs.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 May 10 - 10:53 PM

This next reference from the 1870s is intriguing because it seems to relate to Adam's ON BOARD THE ROCKET. The text is A VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD (1871), by Nehemiah Adams.

If I am getting it right --the text may need further examination-- Nehemiah was the father of R.C. Adams of "Rocket" fame and his 1879 account. The younger Adams' adventures seem to have been in the late 1860s. The voyage that Nehemiah describes looks to have been started in October 1869, *after* the stuff that happened in ON BOARD THE ROCKET. The father went to sea for his health, aboard a ship GOLDEN FLEECE, of which his son was the captain, and which was bound out of Boston for Frisco, Hong Kong, and Manila.

First he mentions some pump shanties.

...the boatswain's "Pumpship " at evening, when twelve or fifteen men entertain you with a song. Every tune at the pumps must have a chorus. The sentiment in the song is the least important feature of it, — the celebration of some portion of the earth or seas, other than here and now : "I wish I was in Mobile Bay, " " I'm bound for the Rio Grande," with the astounding chorus from twenty-eight men, part of whom the fine moonlight and the song tempt from their bunks, is an antidote to monotony.

The first named probably refers to "Knock a Man Down". But neither that (BLOW THE MAN) nor RIO GRANDE are usually associated with pumping, so...

The sailors were a merry set. Though only half of the crew—that is, one watch—were required each night at the pumps, all hands at first generally turned out because it was the time for a song. It was a nightly pleasure to be on the upper deck when the pumps were manned, and to hear twenty men sing. When making sail after a gale, the crew are ready for the loudest singing, unless it be at the pumps. For example, when hauling on the topsail halyards, they may have this song, the shanty man, as they call him, solo singer, beginning with a wailing strain:

Solo : O poor Reuben Ranzo! (twice. [EACH LINE IS REPEATED])
   Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!
Solo: Ranzo was no sailor!
Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!
Solo : He shipped on board a whaler!
Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!
Solo: The captain was a bad man!
Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!
Solo : He put him in the rigging!
Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo !
Solo: He gave him six-and-thirty —

by which time the topsail is mast-headed, and the mate cries, "Belay!"

When the mainsail is to be set, and they are hauling down the main tack, this, perhaps, is the song : —

Solo: " 'Way! haul away! my rosey ;
Chorus: 'Way ! haul away! haul away! JOE!"

the long pull, the strong pull, the pull altogether being given at the word "Joe;" then no more pulling till the same word recurs.

When hauling on the main sheet, this is often the song, sung responsively : —

Shanty man: "Haul the bowline; Kitty is my darling.
       Crew: Haul the bowline, the bowline haul!"

Now, these are some of the exact same shanties --same lyrics-- as RC Adams published in 1869. What to make of that? Why did the son, the experienced sea captain, need to reproduce the exact shanties as his dad, a passenger? Did he dictate these lyrics to his father in 1871? Minimally, if the father did hear these in 1869 (and out of some laziness, the son reproduced the same), then we need to date RC Adam's ROCKET shanties to 1869 (a minor change in dating).

FWIW, this Adams also uses the term "shanty man," but not the term "shanty."

The text is here.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 May 10 - 11:35 PM

There is a reference to HILO BOYS in a piece of historical fiction (?) in CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL, Nov. 1876.

The narrator, an Englishman coming from Calcutta, has somehow found himself in a boat off Malaysia with some Papuans. There is some sort of boat race.

The next point was to make the Papuans sing. They are regular darkies; and dear old Captain Orde used to say that without a song a nigger couldn't pull against a fly ; with it, he could haul against a rhinoceros. So whilst Abou was arranging the oars, I got a lot of Papuans, and began to teach them a medley. I could not for the life of me remember the words, but the chorus went: ' Hilo boys, hil-lo !' The rest of it is unimportant, and can be supplied with any gibberish ; so I filled in with Papuan, and taught them to pull strong and slow to the words 'Hilo boys, hil-lo!' There is instinctive time and melody in the poor fellows' composition, and they took to it wonderfully kindly. We pulled away at this slow and steady, and then I taught them another which had a chorus of 'Walk away.' This was much faster, and I soon got them to pull tremendously...

Then came the proa race, for which we took our place in a line. Moussoul started us with a matchlock, and Tamula got ahead at once, followed by the other proas. We were last, singing our ' Hilo boys, hil-lo !' keeping about a hundred feet in rear of old Tamula, and going so beautifully that Abou was in raptures, and whispered to me that we could win....

Any ideas on what this "Walk away" song might have been?

LINK

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 May 10 - 12:28 AM

THE LOG OF MY LEISURE HOURS (1872), by "An Old Sailor," original preface 1868. I am confused to what this is -- fiction, or an autobiography. The author seems to switch from first person to third person midway through. In any case, the narrator claims to describe a voyage in a schooner CLEOPATRA to Georgetown, Guyana. On one scene, the loading of molasses and sugar is being accomplished. The writer says it was 1831. Thoughts on the authenticity of this?

Log of Leisure

Here is the passage of interest. Shanties are not mentioned in the book.

As the entire energies of the owners and their agents were devoted to the speedy discharge and loading of the Cleopatra, she was never detained in port, either at London or in Demerara, for more than ten or twelve days at a time. But the work in the West Indies was the heaviest; it was almost unremitting. After the seamen concluded their day's labour, a gang of negroes came on board, who worked the whole night, discharging cargo or taking on board hogsheads of sugar; and their never-ceasing songs, as they walked round the capstan, or when "screwing" or "swamping" sugars in the hold, left little chance of repose to the whites, who had been at similar work during the whole of the day.

The implication is that the crew, out of London, was all White. And though they participated in the loading of the cargo, it was the local (Guyanese) Black workers that sang songs as they worked.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 May 10 - 08:08 AM

Gibb-

I suppose that "Walkalong, Boys" might be related to the halyard shanty "Walkalong, My Rosie" as cited by Hugill, pp. 273-274, which has two pulls and would work well for the coordination of rowing.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 03 May 10 - 11:00 AM

Here's a reference to and a verse from "Blow the man down". It is in YANKEE SWANSON: CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE AT SEA, by Andrew Walfrid Nelson, 1913. The reference is to 1877. The verse given is:

    "Blow the man down in Grangemouth town,
       hay, hay, blow the man down."

The task at hand is one of hoisting the anchor.

http://books.google.com/books?id=uzRDAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA82&dq=%22Blow+the+man+down&lr=&cd=353#v=onepage&q=%22Blow%20the%20man%20down&

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 03 May 10 - 11:07 AM

And here's a reference to "Cheerily, men!" from 1876, from THE FIRST TEN YEARS OF A SAILOR'S LIFE AT SEA, by Charles Chapman. The setting is in "the Downs" and the task is one of hoisting the anchor.

http://books.google.com/books?id=PY09AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA279&dq=Cheerily,+Men&lr=&cd=124#v=onepage&q=Cheerily%2C%20Men&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 03 May 10 - 11:38 AM

I may have missed this, but here is a reference to "Hanging Johnny", or more specifically, "Hangman Johnny". Actually it is two references to the same material. The earliest is from 1867 in an article entitled "Negro Spirituals", from THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. The second is to a book entitled ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT, published in 1882, but referencing the year 1862. Both are by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. The song was being sung by a squad of men coming in from picket duty. Apparently these were freed slaves serving in the Union Army in South Carolina. The verses are:

    "O, dey call me Hangman Johnny!
          O, ho! O, ho!
      But I never hang nobody,
          O, hang, boys, hang!

    O, dey all me Hangman Johnny!
          O, ho! O, ho!
    But we'll all hang togedder,
          O, hang, boys, hang!"

http://books.google.com/books?id=250GAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA693&dq=Hangman+Johnny&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Hangman%20Johnny&f=false

And

http://books.google.com/books?id=ITcOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA220&dq=Hangman+Johnny&cd=2#v=onepage&q=Hangman%20Johnny&f=false

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 03 May 10 - 11:46 AM

Here's a version of "Haul Away, Joe" from 1877, from a book entitled CRUMBS SWEPT UP, by Thomas De Witt Talmage, in an piece called "Fallacies About The Sea". There are some interesting verses here. There is reference to the ship "Kangaroo", and sailing away from "Milfred Bay".

http://books.google.com/books?id=J1g1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA368&dq=%22Haul+Away,+Joe%22&lr=&cd=38#v=onepage&q=%22Haul%20Away%2C%20Joe%22&

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 03 May 10 - 12:08 PM

Here is a translation of a Scandinavian work of fiction by Jonas Lie, entitled THE PILOT AND HIS WIFE, reviewed in 1875, and translated in 1876, so written sometime before that. It contains a reference to "Haul the bowline". It's not clear to me what he task is here.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DkksAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA133&dq=%22Haul+the+bowline%22+The+Pilot+and+his+wife&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=f

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 03 May 10 - 04:14 PM

Here's a work of fiction published in 1878-79 by Horace Elisha Scudder called THE BODLEYS ON WHEELS. There is a section called "On Building a Ship", and in that section one of the girls reads a story that she has written about "The Happy Clothes-Dryer", which is about two pine trees in a forest in Maine that carry on a conversation about becoming masts on a ship. One is called "Tall" and one is called "Short". In this conversation, they mention and quote a few lines from a number of chanties: "Do, my Johnny boker, do!", "An' away, my Johnny boy, we're all bound to go!", "Away, you rollin' river", and three verses of "Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo!" Then there is an interesting verse from what appears to be a another version of "Shenandoah":

    "Aha! I'm bound A W A Y
    Across the broad Atlantic!"

And then another verse from "Johnny Boker":

    "Oh, do me, Johnny Boker, the wind is blowin' bravely!
          Do me, Johnny Boker, do!"

And another "Ranzo" verse. The children end up acting out the story, so all of these songs are being sung by children almost as children's songs. The author seems to presuppose that they were that well known by then! Here is the reference:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Pv0LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA173&dq=The+Happy+Clothes-Dryer&lr=&cd=19#v=onepage&q=The%20Happy%20Clothes-Dr

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 May 10 - 04:19 PM

John-

Where one's research leads one is an endless source of amazement!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 May 10 - 09:10 PM

Thanks for these, John. Now to dissect them a little!

"Here's a reference to and a verse from "Blow the man down". It is in YANKEE SWANSON: CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE AT SEA, by Andrew Walfrid Nelson, 1913. The reference is to 1877."

The ship FORSETTE out of Höganäs, Sweden, is off Bodo, Norway. It says,

When the kedge was down, we took in the slack on the line and tripped our anchor, after which all hands manned the capstan and away we went as fast as we could run around the capstan. After we got a little way on her it was easy work, because there was no current in the inlet just then. We took the line off the capstan, and all hands tailed on to the rope with a will, brought on by splicing the main brace a couple of times, and by the cook's lusty singing, " Blow the man down in Grangemouth town, hay, hay, blow the man down," and several other chanteys.

So, just to clarify, they are indeed hauling (catting anchor).

"And here's a reference to "Cheerily, men!" from 1876, from THE FIRST TEN YEARS OF A SAILOR'S LIFE AT SEA, by Charles Chapman. The setting is in "the Downs" [English Channel] and the task is one of hoisting the anchor."

It is a brigantine, "M--", of Goole (Yorkshire), circa early 1840s.

At the end of that time the sound of the sailors "Oh-ye-hoy" was to be heard all over the roadstead, together with the sound of the " pawls " of the windlass. Then as the anchors came up to the hawse pipes, and when the cats were hooked on, there came over the still waters of the Downs the familiar song, "Cheerily, men!" from all quarters, which, together with the rattling of chains, the squeaking of the blocks, the throwing down on deck of coils of rope, and all the various noises, including the boatswain's pipe, and the more gruff boatswain's voice, gave one the idea of working life.

I'd guess the "oh-ye-hoy" was one of those pre-chanty cries at the old fashioned windlass. CHEERLY is here being used for catting anchor again.

In 1840 Melbourne, there is also this note:

all hands clapped on to the weather main topsail brace, and hauled on it with a will, and with a "Yo— he—hoy!"

And later, out of context,

ln the interest of the poor fellows who are no longer able to clap on a rope and sing out, "Oh—heave—hoy !'

More singing-out, but not chanteying. I'd say this is consistent so far with what we've seen from that time period--perhaps especially in British vessels.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 May 10 - 09:22 PM

Great "Hangman Johnny"!

I doubt you'll ever hear a verse like this today!:

My presence apparently cheeked the performance of another verse, beginning, "De buckra 'list for money," apparently in reference to the controversy about the pay question, then just beginning, and to the more mercenary aims they attributed to the white soldiers.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 May 10 - 09:40 PM

"Here's a version of "Haul Away, Joe" from 1877, from a book entitled CRUMBS SWEPT UP, by Thomas De Witt Talmage, in an piece called "Fallacies About The Sea". There are some interesting verses here. There is reference to the ship "Kangaroo", and sailing away from "Milfred Bay". "

Ha! Who knows where the author got this from? I wonder if he heard it in a trans-Altlantic voyage, or if culled from elsewhere. In any case, he has mixed up HAUL AWAY JOE with the sometimes-chantey (according to Hugill), ABOARD THE KANGAROO.

Away ! Haul away ! Haul away, Joe !
Away! Haul away! now we are sober
Once I lived in Ireland, digging turf and tatoes,
But now I'm in a packet-ship a-hauling tacks and braces.[//]
Once I was a waterman and lived at home at ease,
But now I am a mariner to plough the angry seas.
I thought I would like a seafaring life, so I bid my
       love adieu,
And shipped as cook and steward on board the Kangaroo.
Then I never thought she would prove false,
Or ever prove untrue,
When we sailed away from Milfred Bay
On board the Kangaroo. [//]
Away ! Haul away ! Haul away, Joe !
Away Haul away ! Haul away, Joe !

"On board the Kangaroo" is mentioned as a popular song (i.e. non-chantey) in this March 1868 article from THE MUSICAL WORLD.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_JkPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA215&dq=%22on+board+the+kangar

So I wonder if Talmage was hearing a chantey or a forebitter.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 May 10 - 11:36 PM

Lie's Norwegian story LODSEN OG HANS HUSTRU came out in 1874.

The English translation goes,

By the occasional howls, rather than songs, which were heard around the capstan, and which accompanied the different kinds of work, it was not difficult to understand that the crew had become excited, for they had expected to have quiet until after mess-time, when around the poop they should exchange news and communications. The usual English song for hauling the bowline —

Haul the bowline,
The captain he is growling —
Haul the bowline,
The bowline haul!

was sung with offensive application by the sailors sweating and half naked in the sun, who hauled the bowline and spread the topsail. During the heavy haul wherewith they at last got the huge anchor up on the bow, the mate had shouted and encouraged them:

"Take — my men — hold — haul!" but the closing words of the song —

Oh, haul in — oh-e-oh!
Cheer, my men!

were uttered with a derisive howl.

I suppose BOWLINE is being used to haul forward a tack. And CHEERLY is again being used for catting anchor.

Here is the original Norwegian:

Af de enkelte snarere Hyl end Sange, som hørtes om Gangspillet og ledsagede de forskjellige Arbeider, var det ikke vanskeligt at forstaa, at Mandskabet var kommet i en ophidset Stemning; thi man havde ventet at have Fred til over Skaffetiden, da man omkring Ruffet skulde udveksle alskens Nyheder og Efterretninger. Den vante engelske Opsang for Bouglinehal:

Haul the bowline,
the captain he is growling,
haul the bowline,
the bowline haul!

blev sunget med forarget Hentydning af de i Solen svedende, halvnøgne Matroser, der halede Bouglinen og strakte Mersseilet. Under de tunge Hal, hvormed man tilslut kattede det svære Anker op for Bougen, havde Styrmanden raabt et opmuntrende:
„Sæt „„Kjelimen — hal"" paa!" — Men Endeordene i Sangen:

„Aa hal i — aa — i aa —!
„Cheer my men!"

udstedtes med haanlig Hujen.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 04 May 10 - 12:12 AM

"Here's a work of fiction published in 1878-79 by Horace Elisha Scudder called THE BODLEYS ON WHEELS."

I saw this earlier, John, and was fascinated by its use of "chanty" as a verb, as if French.

' Do, my Johnny Boker, do !' "

And Short pretended to chanty a sailor's song.

"An' away, my Johnny boy, we 're all bound to go!" must be HEAVE AWAY MY JOHNNIES

The REUBEN RANZO verses (repetition):

' Oh, Reuben was no sailor:
Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo !'
...
" You hear of Reuben Ranzo,
Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo!"
...
" Oh Reuben was no sailor:
Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo! "
...
" Oh, Reuben was no sailor:
Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo ! "

The SHENANDOAH and HEAVE AWAY samples compare well with the lyrics given in "The Riverside Magazine for Young People" Apr., 1868, cited earlier by Lighter. I don't know who wrote that piece, but, chances are, if Scudder did not, then he has culled his chanties from there. Scudder was the editor of that children's magazine, so these are probably being rehashed. Perhaps Lighter will mention what some of the other chanties were in The Riverside Magazine -- they may match others in this story by Scudder.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 04 May 10 - 08:14 AM

Here is an interesting version of "Shenandoah" from UNDER THE NORTHERN LIGHTS, 1876, by Januarius Aloysious MacGahan. He is on the ship "Pandora" and sailing in Artic waters. They are at the capstan, hoisting anchor. Here are the verses he gives:

"Oh, Shanadoa, I longs to hear you.
Ha! ha! the rolling water.
Oh, Shanadoa, I longs to hear you.
Ho! ho! the cold, pale water.

Oh, Shanadoa, I've seen your daughter,
Ha! ha! the rolling water.
Oh, Shanadoa, I've seen your daughter,
Ho! ho! the cold, pale water.

Oh, Shanadoa, I loves your daughter.
Ha! ha! the rolling water.
Oh, Shanadoa, I loves your daughter.
Ho! ho! the cold, pale water.

When I return I'll wed your daughter.
Ha! ha! we are bound away.
When I return I'll wed your daughter.
Ho! Ho! the rolling water.

For seven long years I woo'd your daughter.
Ha! ha! old Shanadoa.
For seven long years I woo'd your daughter.
Ho! ho! the rolling water.

Oh, Shanadoa, where is your daughter?
Ha! ha! the rolling water.
Oh, shanadoa, where is your daughtrer?
Oh! oh! the cold, pale water.

Oh, Shanadoa, beneath the water.
Ha! ha! the rolling water.
Oh, Shanadoa, beneath the water.
Oh! oh! the cold, pale water."

Oh, Shanadoa, there lies your daughter.
Ha! ha! the rolling water.
Oh, Shanadoah, there lies your daughter.
Oh! oh! the cold, pale water."

The verses are interspersed with commentary about the anchor coming up. Here is the source:

http://books.google.com/books?id=NC4mAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA213&dq=%22Oh,+Shanadoa,+I+longs+to+hear+you.&cd=2#v=onepage&q=%22Oh%2C%20Shan

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 04 May 10 - 08:45 AM

I've already posted that one from MacGahan's biography.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 04 May 10 - 09:29 AM

Sorry, Lighter. I didn't scroll back far enough. It's a good one.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 04 May 10 - 11:23 AM

And maybe half improvised. Or idiosyncratic, which is almost the same thing.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 05 May 10 - 01:16 AM

The verses are interspersed with commentary about the anchor coming up.

I am not sure what to make of it, though. Because first they are puling up the slack, and able to more or less "run" around the capstan. Then the mudhook is stuck and they are trying to break it out, etc. How is it that Shenandoah is working throughout this whole process? Conventional wisdom would say that it was sung during the really hard heaving i.e. at slow speed, and that the chantey would be have to be changed to match other tempi. So...either something is happening here that is different than the conventional understanding, or the Shenandoah text is just being used, with artistic license, to unify the writing and without regard to authentic context. (??)

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 05 May 10 - 03:13 AM

Logging in this item mentioned already on the "Sydney" thread. "Marcia's Fortune," a story by Katharine B. Foot, appearing in SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, vol 13 (April 1877).

Just then the sound of a voice singing reached her ears, and she turned her head to see a little boat, with two men in it, row past—as near in shore as was safe. One was a gunner, and the other a man she knew well,— a broken-down sailor who had once shipped " able-bodied seaman," but whose day for that had long been over. As he rowed he trolled out an old sea-song, sung by many a sailor as he weighed anchor or reefed top-sails, outward bound. It was this:

"I'm bound away to leave you;
Good-bye, my love, good-bye!
Don't let my absence grieve you;
Good-bye, my love, good-bye!"

This is the first mention of this song (?), later to be mentioned, with tune, by Alden.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 07 May 10 - 12:41 PM

Here is an interesting book published in 1921 about the maiden voyage of the clipper ship, "Sheila" in 1877, by the Captain, W. H. Angel, called THE CLIPPER SHIP "SHEILA" . Interspersed throughout this detailed account are sea shanties. They are not usually put into work contexts, but merely given as examples. Do they come from this voyage in 1877, or from later recollections/collections? I can't tell from scanning the text and there are no clues otherwise. I haven't had time to compare them to other collections to see if they might have come from somewhere else. Captain Angel says in his Preface, "The whole of this book has been written up by the Author from carefully kept logs, and its accuracy can be vouched for." Here is a list of the shanties and their page numbers.

"Outward Bound" 51-52
"Unmooring" 52-53
"Goodbye, Fare You Well"   55
"Across the Western Ocean"   59
"Bound for the Rio Grande"   64
"Reuben Rantzau"   73-74
"Sally Brown"   74-75
"Stormalong"   75
"Poor Old Man"   88
"Old Horse"   92-93
"So Early In the Morning"   120-121
"Johnny Boker"   120
"Paddy Doyle" 121
"So Handy, My Girls"   140-141
"Whiskey, Johnny"   144
"Poor Paddy Works On the Railway"   141-142
"Blow the Man Down"   162
"Blow Boys, Blow"   162
"A Roving"   163
"Rolling Home"   186-189
"Haul Away, Jo"   187-188
"Hilo, John Brown, Stand to Your Ground"   269-270
"One More Day, My Johnny"   277
"Farewell, Adieu"   278-279

Here is the link:

http://www.archive.org/stream/clippershipsheil00angeuoft#page/n7/mode/2up

And here is a note about all of this basically laying out the same information by Gibb on the "Rare Caribbean" thread, which I just came across:

Detail.CFM?messages__Message_ID=2608223

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 07 May 10 - 12:51 PM

I'm wondering if I've missed something. Does it strike anybody as strange that the so-called "oldest chanty of all", namely "A-Roving" hasn't showed up prior to the "SHEILA" source just posted?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:06 PM

There's no real evidence that "A-Rovin'" itself is unusually old, even if the general idea appeared in a completely different song in 1607.

The earliest polite version seems to be in [William Allen Hayes, ed.] Selected Songs Sung at Harvard College: From 1862 to 1866. (Cambridge: pvtly. ptd., June, 1866), pp.30-31.

So it could be a clean song that got bawdified and shantyized rather than the other way around. However, Whall gives the three tamest stanzas of the anatomical version as having been part of the shanty repertoire of the 1860s.

Harlow prints part of a version he presumably learned in 1876.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:12 PM

Lighter-

"There's no real evidence that "A-Rovin'" itself is unusually old..."

That's an interesting thought, given the conventional belief on the part of the folk music community. But let's re-examine the evidence.

My family certainly sang that song from 1940 on, as did our friends in Long Island.

I'll see what I can dig up.

With regard to literary references:

In the Fireside Book of Folk Songs, © 1947, it's described as "one of the oldest of the capstan shanties; originally a shore song, p. 168. Cecil Sharp collected a shore version called "We'll Go No More a-Cruising" as cited by Hugill in his discussion of the origins of the song in Shanties of the Seven Seas, p. 44. Frank Shay traces the song back to 1608 to Thomas Heywood in his play The Rape of Lucrece in An American Sailor's Treasury, © 1948, p. 86. It appears to be John Masefield who first mentions in Sailor's Garland, © 1906, p. 323, the connection with The Rape of Lucrece. Capt. Whall in Sea Songs and Shanties also mentions the connection with The Rape of Lucrece, p. © 1910, p. 61, as does Joanne Colcord in Songs of American Sailormen, © 1938, p. 28, and Frederick Pease Harlow in Chanteying aboard American Ships, © 1962, p. 51. Frank Bullen doesn't mention the song at all, nor does C. Fox Smith.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 10 May 10 - 05:19 PM

Here's a reference from January, 1874, in the APPLETON'S JOURNAL, VOL. XI, in an article by Samuel A. Drake entitled "The Pepperlls of Kittery Point, Maine", to "Heave Away, My Johnnies". The verse is

   "Then heave away, my bully boys,
       Heave away, my Johnnies!"

There is also reference to this song, which is unfamiliar to me:

    "Then heave up the anchor, boys,
       Brace round the main-yard;
    Haul taut your port bow-line,
       And let the good ship fly!"

Here is the link (click on p. 66 - I had trouble with this link):

http://books.google.com/books?id=rAMZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA65&dq=The+Pepperell's+of+Kittery+Point&lr=&cd=17#v=onepage&q=The%20Pepperell'

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 10 May 10 - 05:33 PM

Here is another reference (snippet only) from 1875 to "Heave away, my Johnnies", from ST. NICHOLAS, VOLUME 3, by Mary Mapes Dodge.

    "Heave away, my bully boys,
    Heave away, my Johnnies;
    Heave up the anchor, boys,
    Brace round the main yard,
    Haul taut your port bow-line,
    And let the good ship fly."

Which answers the question in my previous post about that additional verse. They appear to be the same, and thus it is all one song. Is this the same chanty as "Heave away, my Johnnies"?

http://books.google.com/books?id=p3IXAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Heave+away,+my+johnnies%22&dq=%22Heave+away,+my+johnnies%22&lr=&cd=20

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 10 May 10 - 05:34 PM

Thanks, John. Just to add that these songs were said to be sung whilst heaving at the windlass, and that the author uses the term "shanty" -- in quotes, as if it weren't common knowledge.

I don't recognize the second one, but it looks like a "grand chorus" section to a song.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 10 May 10 - 05:42 PM

Charley, I believe the idea that "A-Rovin'" is "one of the earliest shanties" is based entirely on Masefield's hasty conclusion, based on his observation that the theme and even some of the rhymes of Heywood's song are much the same as those of "A-Rovin'".

Otherwise, though, the songs are dissimilar.

Heywood:
http://books.google.com/books?id=BNUUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA233&lpg=PA233&dq=%22feele+man%22&source=bl&ots=TSwGSRBj2J&sig=V5Y2fvB_OAXNr8mDhdARvW5TlhY&hl=en&ei=UnvoS_XTLsSblgf-7-WlAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22feele%20man%22&f=false

(Pp. 232-33).

What text of "A-Rovin'" did your family sing in the '40s?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 10 May 10 - 05:57 PM

John,
re: the second reference.

With the info available, I strongly suspect that the 2nd/Dodge reference was just copied from the 1st/Drake. The author combined the two song fragments in a work of fiction.

Even the Drake reference may be inaccurately reproducing HEAVE AWAY MY JOHNNIES.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 May 10 - 07:47 PM

Lighter-

There were two sources for "A-Roving" in my family, my uncle Richard Dyer-Bennet and our old family friend Dennis Pulisten of Brookhaven, Long Island; both of them were born and raised in England. Their versions certainly predated the popular "Fireship" version that surfaced in about 1951. I'll have to check with my mother tomorrow and see if she can add any more notes.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 10 May 10 - 08:18 PM

Thanks, Charley. Only *one* authentic unbowdlerized seafaring text of "The Fireship" has ever been printed (by Ed Cray).

If you've got another one, the world demands it!

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: John Minear
Date: 24 Oct 10 - 10:34 AM

In his new book, JOLLY SAILORS BOLD (published by CAMSCO), Stuart Frank gives us a list of tunes found in a journal kept by Frederick Howland Smith, a whaleman. He first sailed in the Lydia on October 9, 1854. The tune list is found on a page of one of his journals kept during the period between 1854 and 1869. Frank says that it was "probably written down while serving as third mate of the ship Herald just after the Civil War." (p. 358).

One of the songs that shows up on this list is (#178) "Fanny Elssler Leaving New Orleans". We already know this song as a version of "Grog Time Of Day". Here is Gibb's original posting on this song with the lyrics:

Detail.CFM?messages__Message_ID=2875848

And here is a link back to one of the early accounts:

http://books.google.com/books?id=LOxCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA212&dq=%22Grog+Time+o'+day%22&hl=en&ei=OSzDTI_NJ8aAlAe457gE&sa=X&oi=book_resu

Fanny was a ballerina and toured the US in 1840-1842. Frank says that the lyrics for the song were "miraculously preserved through ephemeral publication in THE NEGRO SINGER'S OWN BOOK (circa 1845)." (p. 374) I was unable to find a full copy of this book on Google Books.

We don't know either from Frank or from Frederick Smith's journal when Smith learned this song. But we do know that sometime between 1854 and 1869, the title at least shows up on board of a whaling ship. Frank says that this list of songs were probably ones that Smith knew and sang. Frank calls this song a "cargo-loading" song, "evidently originating with African-american longshoremen in New Orleans...." (p. 374).

So, this puts this version of "Grog Time Of Day" at sea between 1854 a