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18 Aug 04 - 07:02 PM (#1250859) Subject: Lyr Add: Johnny Come Down to Hilo From: GUEST,Lighter (w/o cookie) This started on the current thread about the Jame Madison Carpenter Collection. On original recordings now in the Library of Congress, Carpenter recorded former shantyman James Wright in Leith, Scotland, in 1928. The very scratchy and sometimes jumpy records, some of which have been re-recorded on CD by FOLKTRAX, make the lyrics terribly hard to decipher, although the melodies remain clear. After listening to Wright's singing of "Johnny Coime Down to Hilo" fifty times or more - and with some help from Snuffy - I am *fairly* cconfident that this is what the elderly James Wright was singing in Scotland nearly 80 years ago It's not much, but it does provide a "new" and hopefully authentic couplet for this well-known shanty. I once was a fool with lots of tin, I never thought it could get so thin. When Johnny comes down to Hilo! Poor old man! Ohhh, SHAKE her! Ohhh, WAKE her! Wake that girl with the blue dress on, When Johnny comes down to Hilo, Poor old man! Wright sounds fatigued or forgetful, but shouts out SHAKE and WAKE with great force as though a strong pull once came on these words. I believe the song is usually given as a capstan shanty, but as Stan Hugill used to say, "Different ships, different long splices." "Tin," of course, means "money," and one normal meaning of "thin" is "scanty or scarce." Even if the transcription turns out to be less than 100% accurate, I think the resulting couplet is singable, makes sense, and would sound acceptable to a 19th century shantyman. |
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18 Aug 04 - 07:35 PM (#1250891) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Johnny Come Down to Hilo From: Rabbi-Sol This is the way that the late Bernie Klay and the X Seaman's Institute used to sing it down at the South Street Seaport in the 1970s. SOL ZELLER |
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18 Aug 04 - 07:59 PM (#1250920) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Johnny Come Down to Hilo From: GUEST,Henry Do you know how the singers pronounced Hilo? |
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18 Aug 04 - 08:41 PM (#1250943) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Johnny Come Down to Hilo From: SINSULL High Low |
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20 Aug 04 - 03:51 AM (#1251686) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Johnny Come Down to Hilo From: Snuffy On this recording James Wright sings it as Highlow, but there are other instances from Carpenter where it is Heelo. And in one version of Tom's Gone To Hilo, the first refrain is: "Highlow, Heelo". |
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21 Aug 04 - 12:58 AM (#1252768) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Johnny Come Down to Hilo From: Mark Cohen And, for the record, "Hilo" in shanties generally refer to Ilo, on the west coast of Peru. I was greatly disappointed to learn that, after I'd moved to Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii and would stand on the shores of Hilo Bay imagining those great ships approaching the pier with the shantyman belting out the verses to "Leave Her, Johnny"...oh, well, another fantasy bites the black sand. (The whalers did go to Hawaii, but they tied up at Lahaina, on Maui.) Aloha, Mark |
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21 Aug 04 - 08:49 PM (#1253151) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Johnny Come Down to Hilo From: GUEST,Lighter (w/o cookie) James Wright went to sea in 1864 and left the sea 47 years later. He must have been above 80 when Carpenter recorded him. |