The Advent and Development of Chanties

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 10 Apr 24 - 08:58 PM

The September 1842 Huntress reprinting The New Orleans Picayune. Ever so minor differences to Hubbell:

“[From the N. O. Picayune.]
The editor of the Chicora. in his journal of the 27th ultimo continues his pleasure trip to Edisto Island. Big-mouthed Joe’s minstrelsy forms an important feature in the narration. We gave some specimens yesterday of his powers of improvisatorising—here is another—

Our oarsmen are full of spirit and strength, and in four hours more their journey shall be ended, Alas for the poor fellow who fails, or even lags! Joe will be sure to pasquinade him, and never more will he be trusted among his class as worth a farthing. Every thing, upon such occasions, is turned into song—and as our purpose is to afford a true picture of the habits of this part of our population, we will be excused in giving a specimen or two of such improvisations, even at the risk of offending those few pretenders to taste, who presume that because they have skill enough to adjust a cravat or fit a coat, they must also have possess [sic] brains enough to criticize the inherent beauty and propriety of our negro minstrelsy:

One of the oarsmen lags, perhaps, in his work, Joe perceives this, and at once strikes up—

One time upon dis ribber,
        Long time ago,
Mass Ralph ‘e had a nigger,
        Long time ago!

Dat nigger had no merit,
        Long time ago—
De nigger could’nt row wid sperit,
        Long time ago!

And now there is in dis boat, ah,
        A nigger dat I see—
What is a good for nuttin’ shoat, ah,
        Ha, ha, ha, he!

Dat nigger’s weak like water—
        Ha, ha, ha, he!
'E can’t row a half quarter —
        Ha, ha, ha, he!

Cuss de nigger! —cuss ’e libber!
        Ha, ha, ha, he!
'E nebber shall come on this ribber—
        Ha, ha, ha, he!

The delinquent oarsman would sooner die than live under such a rebuke, and hence it is that few failures are ever met with in boat voyages of this kind.”
[The Huntress, Washington City D.C., 24 Sept., 1842, p.3]
https://archive.org/details/sim_huntress_1842-09-24_6_37

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 10 Apr 24 - 08:54 PM

The brief piece serves to reproduce part of a lost / inaccessible article...

Looks like the Chicora never made it through the first year (1842.) Might could put it all back together again from the reprinted bits & pieces though. Here's part of Part I with “Mass Ralph's” intro:

“An Editorial Voyage to Edisto Island. – Have our readers ever visited any of the Sea Islands on our southern coast? During the last week we have done so; and as our journey was not devoid of interest, we shall note a few of its incidents. Our voyage was not after the present improved mode of travelling––under the swift and powerful appliances of steam; but in the old time style of transportation––in a canoe* boat, rowed by eight of the best nerved oarsmen of the African race, to be met with in these parts. Have our readers ever made such a voyage? If not, they can form no adequate idea of its pomp and circumstance. It is not a thing to be resolved upon and accomplished in a moment. There are considerations attendant upon it, too weighty for such expedition. The canoe is to be selected; her capaciousness and swiftness examined; her awning tested as to its water and sun-proof qualities; and her oars and oarsmen tried as to their respective powers of endurance. These being agreed upon, the almanac is carefully to be looked into, whether the tide will suit at Whappoo Cut, or Church Flats, or New Cut––how the wind is likely to blow at Stono, at Dead Man's Bluff, and at White Point––in a word, what are likely to be all the natural phenomena, at all the cuts, flats, bottoms, bluffs, points, et cetera, to be met with on the inland voyages to our Sea Islands. And even these are only the infantile steps of so important and undertaking. The number of fellow mortals to be stowed away under the awning is considered; the correct admeasurement of each estimated; the latest fashions consulted as to the probable size of bustles, and due allowances made for the real or artificial size of the ladies. The children are then enumerated; and the probable time calculated during which they will remain accommodated between uncle Billy's legs, or aunt Peggy's lap, without rehearsing the overture to a nursery opera. Then the pic-nic eatables for the voyage are to be prepared––but of these when we stop to enjoy them. Well, everything is ready; the day has arrived; the morn smiles gloriously and cheeringly upon us. Men, women and children are stowed under the awning; aunt Peggy has done scolding her bandbox; cousin Sally has stopped exclaiming, “good gracious,” about the salt water that has splashed upon her geraniums; and uncle Ralph, having taken a good stiff anti-fogmatic, feels internally convinced that the Temperance reform is a capital thing for everyone but himself; has cursed his last curse at the oarsmen, and is quietly seated at the helm, gazing upon the orient sun, and seeming to defy him to the exhibition of more rubicund face than his. Each oarsman takes his place, releases himself of his jacket, and seems to wonder in his mind, if uncle Ralph goes on drinking, whether his cheeks will not surpass in color said oarsman's red flannel shirt.

Regularly and beautifully each oar is dipped into the seemingly glassy water, and as the canoe springs forward at the impulse, “Big-mouth Joe,” the leading oarsman, announces his departure from the city with a song, in whose chorus every one joins––

Now we gwine leab Charlestown city,
        Pull boys, pull!––
The gals we leab it is a pity,
        Pull boys, pull!––
Mass Ralph, 'e take a big strong toddy,
        Pull boys, pull!––
Mass Ralph, 'e aint gwine let us noddy,
        Pull boys, pull!––
The sun, 'e is up, da creeping,
        Pull boys, pull!––
You Jim, you rascal, you's da sleeping,
        Pull boys, pull!––

And thus in an improvisation of as pleasant melody as ever floated over the waters, we are off on our voyage. The river is crossed; the noise and bustle of the city is only distantly heard; and its view is broken at quick intervals by the frequent meanderings of Whappoo Cut. Uncle...”
[William Gilmore Simms, Scrapbook E, p.89]
[The Simms Initiatives, University of South Carolina]

*Just fyi, an American Sea Island “canoe” would be a type of European wherry or overly large jollyboat 'water taxi.' Not the Pre-Columbian narrow beam birch bark or dugout type.

Slight drift: Chicora was the Carolina folklore version of a New World agricultural El Dorado. In local creole it was a settlement or small community built on stilts. A single raised hut or cabin (cabana) is still a chickee.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 10 Apr 24 - 04:19 AM

Hubbell, Jay. “Negro Boatmen’s Songs.” Southern Folklore Quarterly 18 (1954): 244-245.

The brief piece serves to reproduce part of a lost / inaccessible article, “An Editorial Voyage to Edisto Island,” _Chicora_ [Charleston] (13 Aug 1842): 47 and (27 Aug 1842): 63.

Quotes from the 1842 article:

//
Regularly and beautifully each oar is dipped into the seemingly glassy water, and as the canoe springs forward at the impulse, “Big-mouth Joe,” the leading oarsman, announces his departure from the city with a song, in whose chorus every one joins—

Now we gwine leab Charlestown city,
        Pull boys, pull!—
The gals we leab it is a pity,
        Pull boys, pull!—
Mass Ralph, ’e take a big strong toddy,
        Pull boys, pull!—
Mass Ralph, e aint gwine let us noddy,
        Pull boys, pull!—
The sun, ’e is up, da creeping,
        Pull boys, pull!—
You Jim, you rascal, you’s da sleeping,
        Pull boys, pull!—
        
And thus in an improvisation of as pleasant melody as ever floated over the waters, we are off on our voyage.
        Mass Ralph, mass Ralph, ’e is a good man,
                Oh ma Riley, oh!
        Mass Ralph, mass Ralph, ’e sit at the boat starn,
                Oh ma Riley, oh!
        Mass Ralph, mass Ralph, him boat ’e can row,
                Oh ma Riley, oh!
        Come boys, come boys, pull let me pull oh,
                Oh ma Riley, oh!

…Everything upon such occasions is turned into song; and as our purpose is to afford a true picture of the habitats of this part of our population, we will be excused in giving a specimen or two of such improvisations, even at the risk of offending those few pretenders to taste, who presume because they have skill enough to adjust a cravat, or fit a coat, they must also possess brains enough to criticise the inherent beauty and propriety of our negro minstrelsy.
        One of the oarsmen lags perhaps at his work. Joe perceives it, and at once strikes up—

        One time upon did ribber,
                Long time ago—
        Mass Ralph ’e had a nigger,
                Long time ago—
        Da nigger had no merit,
                Long time ago—
       De nigger couldn’t row wid sperrit,
                Long time ago—
        And now dere is in dis boat, ah,
                A nigger dat I see—
        Wha’ is a good for nothing shoat, ah,
                Ha, ha, ha, he—
        Da nigger’s weak like water,
                Ha, ha, ha, he—
        ’E can’t row a half quarter,
                Ha, ha, ha, he—
        Cuss de nigger—cuss ’e libber,
                Ha, ha, ha, he—
        ’E nebber shall come on dis ribber,
                Ha, ha, ha, he—

        The delinquent oarsman would sooner die than live under such a rebuke; and hence it is that few failures are ever met with in boat voyages of the kind.
//

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 03:51 AM

New-York Daily Tribune (24 May 1855): 6.

On the Alabama River, April 22, 1855. Steamboat from Montgomery to Mobile. If the boat runs aground,

//
…the crew (mostly negroes) by the aid of a heavy spar, which they work by a capstan, get her again afloat, accompanying themselves by a wild chant—one voice leading and the others joining chorus. At other times they improvise for the occasion such a song as this:

“Work away my dandy boys,
        Work away—work away;
I think I feel her moving now,
        Work away—work away,” &c.

        The glare of the pine torches lighting up the river and the banks, which seem like enchanted gardens—the song of the negroes as the march round the capstan, their wild and picturesque appearance, and the airy fairy boat looming high above the water—all unite to form a scene as novel to our eyes as it is beautiful.
//

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 08 Dec 23 - 05:43 AM

1959        Khan, Rafik, ed. Guiana Sings. Delaware, OH: Cooperative Recreation Service.

"Rainy Wedder" – popular at boat races in Guyana

Chicken born widout a fedder,
Waitin’ for da rainy wedder;
Down come da yalla gal
is time for us to go.
Heave away, Heave away, ho

The form of the tune and refrain are similar to the "Heave Away" sung by Black fire companies in Savannah, as presented (score) in Allen's _Slave Songs of the United States_ (1867) and as described by O'Donnel of The Philadelphia Press (Jan. 1865) when he visited Savannah at the end of Sherman's march.

By extension, it's the same species of song as sailor's "Heave Away, My Johnnies" (first mentioned AFAIK in 1868).

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 Dec 23 - 12:28 AM

Allen Parker was born into slavery in northeastern North Carolina. (According to David Cecelski, the year of birth was 1838). He wrote about slaves' lives as he remembered in
Recollections of Slavery Times. Worcester, MA: Chas. W. Burbank & Co., 1895.

Parker describes Christmas time, when some slaves had a full week free of labor. The young folk gathered on Christmas Eve for a dance. The musicians made of what they could for makeshift instruments and some provided rhythm by pattin' Juba. Songs were improvisational. One of the songs (pp66-67) corresponds to "Hogeye Man" (Parker has it as "honey man"):

"Sally's in de garden siftin' sand,
And all she want is a honey man.
De reason why I wouldn't marry,
Because she was my cousin
O, row de boat ashore, hey, hey,
Sally's in de garden siftin' sand."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Nov 23 - 08:21 AM

Louisville Literary News-Letter (March 7, 1840):

"We were aroused at daylight by the boatswain's hoarse call of 'all hands up anchor;' and, in a few moments, our capstern [sic] bars were
flying to the [hit] tune of 'Old Zip Coon,' flung by snatches from the fife of a sleepy Orpheus."

This was on an American merchant ship bound from Pensacola to Havana.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 Sep 23 - 07:08 AM

1834        Bache, R. _View of the Valley of the Mississippi, or the Emigrants and Traveller’s Guide to the West._ Second edition. Philadelphia: H. S. Tanner.

Preface dated 1832. Chapter 27 on steamboats of the West (Ohio, Mississippi rivers).

Western style steamboats had boilers on the bow rather than in the center of the boat. The firemen (stokers) were full of noise, song, and whiskey.

pp347-8:
// [a passenger looking to pass the time] may even take a seat, as I have done a hundred times, on the boiler deck, and look down upon the movements of the firemen, who are generally coloured men, and listen to their rude, but frequently real wit, and their songs, when rousing up their fires, or bringing on board a fresh supply of wood, and especially when they are approaching or leaving ports. In these musical fetes, some one acts as the leader, himself oftentimes no mean maker of verses, and the rest join with all their might in the chorus, which generally constitutes every second line of the song. These chorusses are usually an unmeaning string of words, such as "Ohio, Ohio, Oh-i-o;" or "O hang, boys, hang;" or "O stormy, stormy," &c. When tired with the insipid gabble of the card-table in the cabin, or disinclined to converse with any one, I have spent hours in listening to the boat songs of these men.
//

This is the earliest reference I've seen for a "Stormy" song. Also the earliest for what seems to be "Hanging Johnny."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Nov 23 - 08:21 AM

Louisville Literary News-Letter (March 7, 1840):

"We were aroused at daylight by the boatswain's hoarse call of 'all hands up anchor;' and, in a few moments, our capstern [sic] bars were
flying to the [hit] tune of 'Old Zip Coon,' flung by snatches from the fife of a sleepy Orpheus."

This was on an American merchant ship bound from Pensacola to Havana.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 Sep 23 - 07:08 AM

1834        Bache, R. _View of the Valley of the Mississippi, or the Emigrants and Traveller’s Guide to the West._ Second edition. Philadelphia: H. S. Tanner.

Preface dated 1832. Chapter 27 on steamboats of the West (Ohio, Mississippi rivers).

Western style steamboats had boilers on the bow rather than in the center of the boat. The firemen (stokers) were full of noise, song, and whiskey.

pp347-8:
// [a passenger looking to pass the time] may even take a seat, as I have done a hundred times, on the boiler deck, and look down upon the movements of the firemen, who are generally coloured men, and listen to their rude, but frequently real wit, and their songs, when rousing up their fires, or bringing on board a fresh supply of wood, and especially when they are approaching or leaving ports. In these musical fetes, some one acts as the leader, himself oftentimes no mean maker of verses, and the rest join with all their might in the chorus, which generally constitutes every second line of the song. These chorusses are usually an unmeaning string of words, such as "Ohio, Ohio, Oh-i-o;" or "O hang, boys, hang;" or "O stormy, stormy," &c. When tired with the insipid gabble of the card-table in the cabin, or disinclined to converse with any one, I have spent hours in listening to the boat songs of these men.
//

This is the earliest reference I've seen for a "Stormy" song. Also the earliest for what seems to be "Hanging Johnny."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Jul 23 - 08:40 PM

Hi, Gibb.

Jack London, “An Odyssey of the North” (1899):

“[He] swayed back, with a hitch to his skin trousers, and began to sing a chanty, such as men lift when they swing around the capstan circle, and the sea snorts in their ears:

                Yan-kee ship come down the ri-ib-er
                       Pull ! my bully boys ! Pull !
                D’yeh want – to know de captain ru-uns her ?
                       Pull ! my bully boys ! Pull !
                Jon-a-than Jones ob South Caho-li-in-a
                       Pull ! my bully —— ”

(London, a skilled sailor, should have known you don't "pull" while "swinging around the capstan circle. but, hey, it's just a story!)

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 09:11 PM

Delighted to notice a batch of songs collected by Cecil Sharp in New York from a Robert Wheelwright in 1916. They are manuscript notations archived at the VWML. As far as I've seen, Sharp never prepared them for publication (one supposes that Sharp had more or less "finished" what he wanted to say about chanties by this time?).

In a page from Sharp's diary (also archived in VWML), Sharp says briefly of his encounter with Wheelwright that the latter was "a youngish fellow" and that he noted "5 chanteys" from him. Sharp may have been using the term "chantey" loosely in the diary. In the manuscripts, Sharp labels only 3 of the 5 as chanties. The other two are variations of "Van Dieman's Land" and "High Barbaree" which, by current custom, tend to be classified as "sea songs", "ballads" etc. notwithstanding Hugill's generous inclusion of these items in his anthology on the rationale that he found some or other instance of these songs "used as work-songs."

Of the three items labeled as chanties, I posted texts of two in the Mudcat thread about "Caribbean Chanties": "Bulldog Don't Bite Me" and "St. John Seegar."

The third could be considered a variation of "Blow Boys Blow," with the title "Pull my bully boys Pull".

Despite the obvious relationship to "Blow Boys Blow," this variation is set in a minor key and has a different melodic shape. It also has an additional partial line/chorus tacked on the end of the stanza.

TEXT:
A Yankee ship dropped down the river
Pull my bully boys pull
A Yankee ship dropped down the river
Pull my bully boys pull
Yeo ho, heave ho, [one measure only]
O pull my bully boys pull

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 15 Nov 22 - 04:57 PM

Steve:
Me: What you like to think is the foundation of your chanty narrative.
You: I'm personally happy with the idea of 'proto-chanties'.

Yes.you.are. And your personal happiness is not pre-1842AD anything.

For scale: I suspect the proto-chanty concept is younger than Mudcat. The nautical fife is older than vowels and spaces between words.

PS Standing question: I've only word searched Seamen's Manual, not read it proper. Fwiw, only hit from 'the list' was "jack-screw" (with the hyphen.)

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Nov 22 - 03:47 PM

Phil
I use the word chanty to refer to Dana's examples simply because at least some, if not all, of them are referred to as chanties later on.

So no, not agreed. These specific songs, some from even earlier, are referred to as chanties later on. Okay, so we can say they eventually became chanties when they were used aboard ship, or even by the stevedores with a 'chanteyman'. I'm personally happy with the idea of 'proto-chanties'.

I have had 'Two Years BTM' for many years but the question still stands, does the Seaman's Manual have anything relevant? This I haven't seen.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 15 Nov 22 - 11:14 AM

"Subject: RE: Maritime work song in general
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Nov 22 - 09:57 AM

Hi Phil,
Does that Dana Seaman's Manual have any useful info on chanties?

Regarding the discipline and lack of verbal communication on the stricter merchant ships, this was very likely because many of the men and officers would have been ex RN and old habits die hard."

Steve:
Two Years Before the Mast is choc-a-bloce with references to maritime work song. 1842AD: No 'chanties' anywhere by anybody... so far. Agreed?

...this was very likely because... Check your post history in the other thread. What you like to think is the foundation of your chanty narrative. Change the thinker, change the likes.

Me? A singing fifer would be 'not likely.' I find the singing fiddlers and drummers pretty much the same in the pre-1842 document record.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 04:21 PM

From that "other" thread:

Steve: Also of note is the reference to Americans (likely African Americans) using the songs to greater effect. A lot of Gibb's early references to the earlier songs are of African American rowers, in e.g., the Georgia Sea islands.

You've got Englishmen singing Canadian boat songs to South American Indians and Portuguese Jesuits translating Ch? Nôm to Latin and English, American and Italians trading songs on off the American west coast.
   
Why would African-Americans be likely, notable or... anyways different from the rest of humanity?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 05 Oct 22 - 11:08 PM

In _Slave Songs of the United States_ (1967), Allen/etc. offer "Heave Away," which is recognizably the chanty (presumably familiar to most in the sailor version) "Heave Away, My Johnnies." It was a song of Savannah firemen.

Since Stan Hugill ended up reprinting it, I recorded a sample of it back when I was doing all of Hugill's examples:
https://youtu.be/iJXXW94LLbI

The editors of _Slave Songs_ say they got it from Kane O'Donnell, a journalist from Philadelphia.

O'Donnell had been a war correspondent for _The Press_ of Philadelphia, in Savannah in Dec 1864/1865, at the time when General Sherman took the city.

In the Jan. 6, 1865 edition of The Press, O'Donnell's observations of Savannah were printed. One observation was of Sherman's inspection of the city's Black fire companies.

//
It is not generally known that the fire-engines of Savannah are, with the exception of their white captains, entirely manned by the slaves, who are immediately officered by firemen of their own. Two or three thousand of those black firemen, all of them delivered bondmen passed by the Exchange, singing twenty or thirty different songs. Their singing is the great character mark of the negroes. Marshaled by their uniformed foremen (most of whom look like stalwart and intelligent fellows), and carrying banners of welcome on which the words “Union,” “Freedom,” “Gen. Sherman,” and “the rebels” were conspicuous at times, they marched on with enthusiasm, making the air wild with their strange, hoarse, musical voices. No singing in the world is like it, and most of the songs are untranslatable. Half a dozen of these airs or choruses rang in the ear at once, as the firemen passed by, keeping all the while the orderly step of soldiers. The verses for the greater part were extemporized by the leaders, each company joining in its own chorus, for I am informed that the different bands of firemen have tunes peculiar to themselves. I caught a few words of one song:
        “I work all night
        ‘Till broad daylight,
And all his fellows joined in:
        “I cannot work any mo’.”
        This refrain alternated constantly with a line extemporized by the leader, and was a never-wearying repetition. There was another, on the same principle, composed of recitative and a short refrain of powerful volume and wonderful effect, called “Granny Ho!” A contraband friend explained to me another as being a “Hoojah song,” and I learned that the Hoojah was a fellow who stole vessels, but whether this song has any connection with Admiral Dahlgren, the blockade-runners, or the pirate Alabama, I could not exactly discover. The tune, however, was enchanting in its way, and more fresh and musical than any of the airs lately in vogue in the negro minstrelsy of the North, which used to pirate so much from the plantations, while it made fun for the oppressors of the slave. The words were extemporized by a smart-looking foreman, and were full of merry points about General Sherman, the rebels, and the great theme of freedom. The chorus was larger and quicker than usual, and wound up with the meaning or unmeaning interrogatory:
        “Yaller gal, don’t ye want to go?”
        The effect of this song was especially great upon the inspired singers, who sang it through with the seriousness peculiar to the slave, and laughed loudly at the end or between verses. I asked one of the firemen if he could tell me the words, but he grinned: “Lor’, I dunno mass’r; de boys mak’t up as dey go ‘long.” I am satisfied that all effort to transcribe these songs is vain. The firemen did not pride themselves especially upon the day’s display, which was much inferior to their annual parade, and gotten up at short notice to please Gen. Sherman; but to every Northerner it was the rarest entertainment which Savannah has given, and perhaps none enjoyed it more than the conqueror of Georgia. As I learned, the slaves (and now the freedmen) had a hundred different songs which they sung at a fire, and that was the place (my informant told me) to hear them sing in their best humor.
//

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 20 Sep 22 - 09:48 PM

RE: Wallack & Sally Brown lyrics, origins &c: Origins: Faithless Sally Brown

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: meself
Date: 01 Jul 22 - 08:24 PM

No, but look forward to them! It's possible I slept through the one from "p. 56" - I don't know what page I'm on in the audiobook ... !

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Jul 22 - 07:49 PM

Have you reached these passages yet?:

“By this time the singing stage [of drunkenness] was reached, and I joined Scotty [a 17-year-old Scottish sailor] and the [19-year-old] harpooner in snatches of sea songs and chanties. It was here, in the cabin of the [sloop-yacht] Idler [on which the harpooner was ‘caretaker’] that I first heard ‘Blow the Man Down,’ ‘Flying Cloud,’ and ‘Whisky, Johnny, Whisky.’ Oh it was brave. I was beginning to grasp the meaning of life.”

P. 56, ref. to San Francisco, 1892 :

“We got to singing. Spider [Healey, ‘a black-whiskered wharf-rat of twenty] sang ‘The Boston Burglar’ and ‘Black Lulu.’ The Queen [‘of the Oyster Pirates,’ Spider’s niece] sang ‘Then I Wisht I Were a Little Bird,’ And her sister Tess sang ‘Oh, Treat My Daughter Kindly.’” [P. 58:] “And Spider sang:

                Oh, it’s Lulu, black Lulu, my darling,
                Oh, it’s where have you been so long?
                Been layin’ in jail,
                A-waitin’ for bail,
                Till my bully comes rollin’ along.”

P. 192, ref. to 1897:

“[In ‘a borrowed whitehall boat’ off Benicia, Calif.] riding on the back of the unleashed elements…I sang all the old songs learned in the days when I went…to the oyster boats to be a pirate — such songs as : ‘Black Lulu,’ ‘Flying Cloud,’ ‘Treat My Daughter Kind-i-ly,’ ‘The Boston Burglar,’ ‘Come All You Rambling, Gambling Men,’ ‘I Wisht I Was a Little Bird,’ ‘Shenandoah,’ and ‘Ranzo, Boys, Ranzo.’”

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: meself
Date: 01 Jul 22 - 06:05 PM

Don't know if this is a well-known reference or not, but I've been listening to the audiobook rendition of Jack London's 'John Barleycorn (or Alcoholic Memoirs)', and he recounts a drinking bout with a 'harpooner' and 'sailor' on a docked ship in California, and the three of them singing,

Yankee ship come down de ribber,
Pull, my bully boys, pull!

He was 14 at the time, which would have made it in 1890. It is curious that they apparently employed 'Negro dialect' in their singing.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvHA0p7yX8s&list=PL9nYIzaF1_qa_PRy3AzRKj8tvZ2qD7 ... at 1:30:25, approximately.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Jun 22 - 11:55 AM

Concerning Stan Hugill's vocal "hitches"...

Los Angeles Herald (June 26, 1906), reprinted from The London Express:

"To hear a chantey in its full effectiveness, you must needs be sufficiently distant not to catch the jarring falsetto into which mercantile jack inevitably breaks, nor to hear his impromptu anathemas upon the skipper and the mates."

The chanteys mentioned are all familiar, but I haven't noted these words elsewhere:

"'Good-by, fare ye well' ... a sailor chant of farewell to 'a fair little maiden,' who is told 'the does blow, and the ship must go.'"

And in "Homeward Bound" we "come to the West Indee docks."

These are about the only lyrics given in the article.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 04:19 AM

*Correction: Chanties and yeo are English and celeusma.

French, Spanish &c &c would be: calomar, caloma'r, celeuma, celeumaris, celeume, celeusina, celeusma, celeusmata, celeusmate, celeusmatique, celeusme, celeusta, celeustes, celéustica, celéusticamente, celoma, celóma, celomáre, keleusma, keleusme, keleustes, proceleusmatic, salema, saloma, salomador, salomar, salomare, salomear, zalama, zalamar, zaloma, zalomar, zaleuma... or another.

“Yeo” is English for heu. The h is silent.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 04:09 AM

Steve: In your opinion, Phil, what is the difference between celeusma and the known sing-outs (repeated phrase like 'Yeo heave' or '1,2,3') which are known to have preceded the chanties by centuries and were still in use alongside the chanties?

Difference would not be my word choice. Simple cadences; sing outs; fiddle/fife instrumentals; Spanish, French, Italian &c, and pre-19th century anything are not chanties. All are celeusma.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 03:55 AM

Gibb: RE celeusma, fwiw, neither is it a legal play in Scrabble.

Like Steve in another thread, I would think you've got your (sub)genre taxonomy backwards. You're diagramming bebop and sorry jazz didn't make your cut.

Otoh, the standard dictionary definitions of celeusma (not yours or mine) wouldn't require an alternate/parallel universe of Western music if Stan Hugill, or any other multilingual chantyman, merely switched to Spanish &c as a gritadore, salomadore &c, &c.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 01 Mar 22 - 09:52 PM

Some here might be mildly interested in—or amused by—this graphic I made.

"A Partial Taxonomy of American Maritime Music"

The context for the graphic is to facilitate and consolidate some discussions in a course I teach about "American Maritime Music" (the boundaries in the title of which are deliberately fuzzy). So, what's in the graphic must be very selective and on-point.

The graphic attempts to show, in haphazard combination, SOME* of the relationships between AND approaches to categorization of things under the headings of "maritime music/sound" (quickly zooming into Anglophone sailing ship contexts) and "American music" (focused on parsing certain items relevant to the discussions). The end result, rather than a useful taxonomy in any general sense, is to illustrate 1) the position of the chanty genre/form of song and 2) common ways of conceptualizing "chanty" as a category.

The two "sides" (American Music / Maritime Sound) function to make categories #4 and #5 possible. The overall structure wants to account for dichotomies like: vocal/instrumental, work/leisure, group/individual, maritime/terrestrial, formA/formOTHER, short/long, song/cry. I think each person's perspective on which of such dichotomies are significant, and where they fall on each side of the (prioritized) dichotomies, constitutes in sum their "take."


*Sorry, "celeusma" didn't make the cut.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 07:03 AM

How did shantyman(men?) perform more than one task at the same time?

Lighter: 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….

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

So far, the oldest American reference I've found for rhythmic sound accompanying maritime tasks is 1627 (Smith.) However, it's dirt simple rowing chant and not labeled “call-and-response.”

The Western nautical antiphon dates back 2,400 years. It's universal. Sailors, oarsmen &c coexisted on large sea-going vessels up until the early 1800s and the advent of steam.

“It seems likely...” sailor shanties' wide range of application specific tempos &c must have played second fiddle to the navigator's needs and the rowers' relatively limited/fixed repertoire.

“It seems likely...” shanties could not fully develop or be taken full advantage of unless, and until, sail was a vessel's primary means of propulsion.

When mariners sang sacred & praise music to the rowing tempo, and used one label for all of it, the genre boundaries get even fuzzier.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Jan 22 - 01:34 PM

Thanks, Steve. Sorry for the idiot typos.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Jan 22 - 11:08 AM

That's an important resource, Jon. Nice to see this thread back. Any new developments from Gibb?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Jan 22 - 06:39 PM

On October 13, 1905, the Boston Evening Transcript printed a letter from former "chantieman" George Meacom of Boston, "Master Mariner." Meacom listed 19 chanteys he recalled siging "more than one half of a century" earler, i.e., in the early to mid 1850s:

"Pumping chanties":

Mobile Bay ("Johnnie come tell us and pump away")
Fire, Fire, Fire Down Below
One More Day
Old Joe (an 1840s minstrel song)

"Anchor chanties":

The Wide Missouri
Leave Her Johnnie
The Black Ball Line
Homeward Bound
Lowlands
Poor Paddy Works on the Railway
"and others"

"Setting sails chanties":

Reuben Ranzo
Blow, Boys, Blow
Storm Aong
Whiskey for My Johnnie
Haul the Bowline
Haul Away Joe
Tom's Gone to Ilo
I Am Bound Away
Paddy Doyle's Boots
"and others"

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 09:09 PM

Yeah, Steve, it's pretty overwhelming. The "language" of minstrel songs is so often the same as the language in chanties. Hard, for me, to know where to start because there is just so much.

That's why when I say that when I squint my eyes (squint my ears?) and listen to "South Australia," I hear a down-home Southern US-style minstrel song that might as well be about being bound for "Alabama" or "South Virginia."

For example, "RING DE HOOP AN BLOW DE HORN":
In Carolina whar I was born
I husk de wood an chop de corn
A roastin ear to de house I bring
But de drivers kotch me an dey sing

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 05:56 PM

Just been trawling through a whole load of early minstrel songs and lots to relate to chanties. Too many to add in here so I'll start a new thread tomorrow.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 11:17 AM

In your opinion, Phil, what is the difference between celeusma and the known sing-outs (repeated phrase like 'Yeo heave' or '1,2,3') which are known to have preceded the chanties by centuries and were still in use alongside the chanties?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 10:20 AM

Lighter: If you dial the dictionary back to Purcell's century you get this:

Celóma, the mariners-crye when they tug at a cable, weigh anker, or hoife-failes.
Celomare, to cry all together as mariners do, when they weigh anker or hoife-failes.
[Vocabulario Italiano & Inglese, Torriano, 1659]

The biblical definition leans toward "command." Which, I note, is often the first and last word spoken when chanting.

The only thing we're missing to meet the TikTok chanty basics is some late-19th century A&R.

A chanty is more than that but... so much more one can excuse the celeusma altogether from history? Or.... maybe you need to start over at the beginning now that you know what a celeusma is to begin with.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 09:59 AM

Lighter: Evidently Mudcat doesn't like printing Greek.

Tell me about it. I bet it previewed just fine tho...?

Steve & Lighter: I'm only up to the 1600s. Who knows what the Africans are going to do to take them from the Iron Age and no alphabet or maritime traditions - to the most sophisticated form of nautical song the world has known... all without reference to the Western celeusma and in one hundreth the time. Clev-er fellows.

And, not exactly sure just yet but... celeusma seems to have fallen out of usuage about the same time Western sailors stopped using them, c.19th century... weird huh?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 06:42 AM

Evidently Mudcat doesn't like printing Greek.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Jan 21 - 04:41 PM

The Greek is "???e?sµa."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Jan 21 - 04:40 PM

The Oxford English Dictionary calls "celeusma" "Obsolete" and "rare" in English.

It is defined as "A watchword, battle-cry; the call of the signalman who gives the time to rowers."

Adams's "Compendious Dictionary of the Latin Tongue" (1805) defines it as "the musical cry, by which seamen incited one another to ply their oars."

A "call" or "musical cry."

Something of a regularly shouted command in the former case and a "sing-out" in the latter.

Hardly a chantey in the 19th century sense.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Jan 21 - 01:24 PM

That's what I like to see, a bit of spirit!

So perhaps you can now inform us what you think the lines of transmission are that finished up with the western oceanic chanty.
And maybe perhaps a little proof?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 19 Jan 21 - 01:10 PM

Now have you any direct evidence that specific songs were carried over from Africa via African Americans in an unbroken chain or is that not what you are saying?

Steve: No.you.are.neither.African.nor.American. Put the Black gentlemen down and back away slowly.

Now that you know you are a freshman to your own nautical work song tradition (Western & British) – you, of all people, I shouldn't have to tell where to begin the learning process – in your own tradition – Western & British.

Aeneas and Purcell lived 2000+ years apart but the latter couldn't pick up a European dictionary that didn't describe the Sailor's Chorus with the exact same word Aeneas himself used for his sailors' chorus. There are no West Africans or Americans or Afro-Americans involved. They are still mired in the Iron and Stone Ages respectively. They don't have alphabets as yet much less a unionized maritime industry.

Only after you know your own traditions backwards and forwards will you be able to defend yourself from the American Afro-centric smoke getting blown up your arse about where you & Purcel & Aeneas are coming from.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Jan 21 - 11:18 AM

Hi Phil,
In that case they obviously are celeusma. Most of us have never come across this term before. We are admitting our ignorance. Okay so chanties are types of celeusma. Now have you any direct evidence that specific songs were carried over from Africa via African Americans in an unbroken chain or is that not what you are saying?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 18 Jan 21 - 06:14 PM

My turn:

The celeusma has been defined for the last 2400 years as - the rhythmic sounds that sailors make when going about tasks in unison. Clearly, it's not my doing.

How could African-Americans differentiate (proto)chanties so greatly they would not meet the musical definition of a celeusma throughout their evolution?

Whatever else they may be, how are they not celeusma?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 18 Jan 21 - 04:17 PM

Subject: RE: Sea Chanteys All Over The News [TikTok]
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Jan 21 - 03:08 PM

'utterly and completely ignorant of the subject matter?'

Speaking for myself only, the answer is YES!

Which is why we're waiting for you to pronounce in language we can understand.

But you didn't wait:
Gibb presents a very persuasive case that chantying evolved directly from African-American activities.

Henry Dana and the Italians both did 'proto-chanties' or whatever on the 19th century Amercian west coast. The Italian word for (proto)chanty is older than Italian dictionaries.

What is it you need explained and why me?

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 28 May 20 - 01:33 PM

The Musical Magazine-Musical Courier (Evanston, Ill.) (Apr. 6, 1916), p. 64:

"Dr. Kinkeldey gave a talk with illustrations, on the subject, 'Why Folk Music?' This was a most interesting and well expressed talk. He spoke of the English folk song and sang the humorous song, 'Brisk Young Bachelor.' The sailors' songs, 'Chanteys,' with their rhythmical mood, were illustrated by 'Haul Away, Joe' and 'Johnnie Bowker,' stupid songs, both of them."

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 28 Sep 19 - 06:10 PM

Maritime work song tradition is measurably older than the English (chanty) + French (chanson) languages laid end-to-end.

And there are more allowances, and synonyms, for 'sailor' than one can count. American cotton screwers were land based unions working alongshore. G. E. Clark's and Charles Nordhoff's chantymen wouldn't meet the dictionary definition of chanty. Neither would T.W. Higginson's gospel singing, U.S.A. infantry oarsmen.

U.S. and Royal Navy fiddle, fife & drum instrumentals or Catholic vespers as capstan cadences would not be a 'qualitative' step backward on any scientific or practical level. Both are older than, and coexisted with, the chanty era.

The usage of the chanty genre label and the practical application of nautical work song have entirely different critical attributes and sorting criteria.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Sep 19 - 09:37 AM

So there have been chanteys as long as there have been boats. That's what I thought... Yet the examining of the 19th century ones remains fascinating. Of the English ones at least. Must be Dutch Spanish Portuguese ones too, 19th c I mean.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Sep 19 - 09:02 AM

Mrrzy's musing about why rowing song are not usually thought of as chanteys, led me to check the definition of the word in major dictionaries.

Definitions range from extremely specific (Chambers's 1908): "a sailor's song, usually with a drawling refrain, sung in concert while raising the anchor, &c."    (Sorry about "sung in concert": hmmm, meanings change.)

To the most general (Macmillan): "a song that sailors sing."

As for the two most prestigious dictionaries, Oxford allows wiggle room:

"A sailor's song, esp. one sung during heavy work"

that Merriam-Webster doesn't :

"a song sung by sailors in rhythm with their work"

Folklorists generally require that a "chantey" must be sung by sailors for shipboard work. If rowers are sailors and small boats propelled by oars are ships, then folklorists should consider rowing songs to be chanteys.

But they don't, because they're not. On the other hand, the teeming millions who define "sea chantey" as "any song related to the sea" would have no problem applying the word to a rowing song.

And, of course, one may speak "figuratively" too.

So that's settled....

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 27 Sep 19 - 03:05 PM

Naval science considers the Battle of Lepanto (1571) to be the turning point from muscle to wind power but large vessels continued to use oars and sweeps as auxiliary propulsion until the advent of steam.

The chanty era began and ended entirely within the steam age. The steam powered rotary printing press had far more effect on popular culture than sails, oars or engines.

Chanties sound less like 18th century plain song or plain chant and more like 19th century popular song because... they were produced, packaged and consumed by 19th century popular culture.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Sep 19 - 01:18 PM

Question: are y'all positing that the shift from dugout/early boat to sails and requiring a crew brought a *qualitative* change in the worksongs sung? That actually might make sense, given the class distinction between crew and officers which was likely absent in canoes. The dugout folks would certainly have had seafaring work songs. Which we don't call chanteys for a reason which escapes me (2nd question).
I am thoroughly enjoying this thread. Thanks, refresher.

Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 26 Sep 19 - 09:36 AM

Dr. J. E. Crockett of Boston wrote a *very* brief note to the Boston Herald in 1916 about chanteys he'd sung at sea in his youth:

"The words of the solo of all chanties were mostly made up or improvised, mostly as hits on matters pertaining to the ship, officers, and crew."

He gives on stanza of a chantey that used the pattern of "Sing Song Kitchee Kitchee Ki Me O" (as "Sing song Polly, can't you ri-me-o?")

He gives one couplet to illustrate:

"I knew a fellow and his name was Bill,...
And he went around gathering swill."

Crockett mentioned that he'd recently "turned 83."


So he was presumably at sea about 1850.

The use of couplets (often with a repeated line) with nonsensical refrains to satirize people, places, and things may have reached a pinnacle in World War One's "Hinky Dinky Parlez-Vous."

"Johnny Fill Up the Bowl" (and"When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" functioned similarly in the Civil War.