Some years ago Johnny Collins and Jim Mageean recorded "Coming of Age" (Columns Disc/ Universal Productions), a cracking good collection of 21 favourite shanties to celebrate 21 years singing together. If you can get hold of it, you will hear a number of WI shanties in fine style. Quoting their sleeve notes :-

Bully in the Alley - (WI halyards) One of several negro shanties referring to the place Shinbone Alley (geographical or anatomical?).

John Dead - (WI whaling) Collected in Barouvalie, St Vincent, by Roger Abrahams. It was used for calling out any 'chicken' negro whaler (Grey Goose [so-called in the shanty]) to come out and hunt "Mr Fox" (the whale). Brought to our attention by the fine Scottish shantyman Rob Mhacgregor.

Blackbird get up [mentioned by Padre above] - (WI whaling shanty) A shanty from Roger Abraham's collection "Deep the Water, Shallow the Shore", from the negro whalers of Barouvalie, St Vincent, who always sang this shanty when being rained upon.


The CD has a number of other shanties collected from black crews, but not necessarily Caribbean.

Not sure if you would include Florida for your purposes, but the CD also includes "Johnson girls", which the notes say was collected in 1940 from the crew of the Menhaden fishing vessel "The Boys", working out of Mayport.

A. L. Lloyd's version of "Emma let me be (Sail 'er down the bay to Julianna)" is well known, but Lloyd apparently altered the distinctive cadence of the song. Would like to know what it sounded like in the mouth of a WI shantyman. Subtle changes by collectors can be really significant, as any who can compare the "standard" version of "Sailboat Malachi" with the original recording of Frederick McQueen ("The Real Bahamas") will appreciate.

Not sure if you could strictly call it a shanty, maybe more of a stevedores' song, is "Fire Marengo".

I'm told that people of mixed race in the Caribeban in 19th cent were called "cholas", so perhaps "Shallow Brown" could be included. Admittedly, not at all rare.

Do you want to draw a line between Caribbean shanties and those sung by black American crews? If so, things could get tricky, but you would be able to include "Shiny-o", which had a thread to itself last year.