Thanks Marc for that way too generous complement.

On another line of sourcing orgins that IMO has been far to neglected is shanties that were born out of slavery & prisons or shaties that have gone from the sea into the prisons. I haven't found many that cross but there are a few.
One being "Drinking That Wine" most recently brought to the forefront by those singing it in the Manhaden Fisheries. But it's also foound in the Prison. It's been recorded & collected by Bruce Jackson in his Wake Up Dead Man" as a 'logging' song (axe) & a flatweeding song (hoe) & earlier by Lydia Parrish in her 'Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands' collection. She 1st heard it sung by a prison road gang cutting weeds (which was usually done to the work of a hoe). Odum & Johnson published a text as early as 1925. "Hard Times In Old Virginia" (recorded on my "Fathom This" & on Kasin & Adrianowicz's "Boldly From The Westward") is one that has it origins in slavery. Again, in Lydia Parrish's collection. Also on both those CD's is "Good-Bye, My Lover, Good-Bye". Again found in the prison repertoire of Louis "Bacon & Porkchop" Houston & Jesse "GI Jazz" Hendricks & recorded by Jackson as a cotton song in 1964. "Good-Bye My Riley-O" (again on 'Fathom This' is another whose orgins are in slavery. This is again found in Lydia Parrish's collection. Frankie Quimby told me that "Riley" was the nickname of a slave driver who was well liked & therefore his real name could not be mentioned & would be missed when gone.

Barry