A little while ago Dr.Sam Willis from the Navy Records Society contacted the Mudcat Forum about this book, which they published in 1908. (See the post here: Naval Songs and Ballads). He was interested in recordings of the songs, with a view to putting them on their online publications website (Navy Records Online).

The publication is mainly songs from broadsides and I did most of the legwork, coming up with three sets of songs available: 1) Those for which actual recordings exist for some version of the song 2) Those for which publications exist with versions of the song with tunes 3) Those broadside songs for which we have the actual tune named with the song in the publication.

After looking at the lists, he decided he would like to use option 3 and have the song words as they appear in Naval Songs and Ballads using the tune specified there. We finally produced a short list of about a dozen on these that might be used.

However, being a poor charity they can't afford a commercial recording, so he asked if I knew anyone who might be willing to record some of these. (It doesn't need to be a studio recording - just enough to go on a website, so a tape/digital recorder, computer or video recorder would do).

I've already contacted several people who said they would look at the songs and see if any took their fancy (Jim Mageean and the Keelers, Dave Fletcher and Bill Whaley, Bob and Gill Berry, Tom and Barbara Brown, Graeme Knights, Derek Gifford, Tim Edwards, Kitty Vernon and Derek Burgess), but if anyone on Mudcat is interested and willing to have a look at them we'd be grateful.

I'll put together the words and tunes for the selected songs later this week and either email them on request or put them up in this thread (if it's not too long). Sam's preference was for any arrangement except solo unaccompanied, though even that wasn't ruled out (But I'll take whatever we can get, was the quote!)

Post here or pm me if you're interested.

Thanks
Mick