Basil May's version has been reissued on CD; Music of Kentucky: Early American Rural Classics 1927 - 37: Vol 2. Yazoo        2014

I haven't played the Basil May track in quite a while but my recollection is that the line in question is pretty audible.

Also I've played Dillard Chandler's much later recording (1963) recently. His line is definitely about a ship called Colonel Carr.



"Basil May's diction is clear through most of the song, but it's very muddy on this phrase, which is obviously corrupted. I've only heard it on vinyl, at 78RPM (in the 60s you could buy an LOC 78RPM single of this, c/w Pete Steele's "Pretty Polly," and I did), but the best I could make of what he's saying is "Captain on a ship that was called Kon Carr." It could as easily be "Kong Kong Karr," as Ruth Crawford Seeger transcribed it from the same recording in "Our Singing Country." The "k" and "r" sounds come through pretty clearly but the words they're part of aren't so easy to understand."