Hi Tom and Charley,

So there a fair amount pre-Hugill for Lloyd et al to draw on.

With regard to "Stormalong" two other collectors who published versions of this work song decades before Hugill did…

Yes, but, again, the one that I'm talking about with regards to Lloyd et. al. is a completely different tune than these others that are in all the collections-- unless I've missed it.

*********
Let me attempt to sort it a bit, since the titles and variants get very confusing! Here is a survey of distinctly different "Stormy" chanteys. For reference (arbitrary), I'll use the names given by Hugill. I'm also going to put the link to my youtube versions, not because they are any good or accurate in any way, but just as a reference for the tune/chorus. The verses are, of course, completely interchangeable and very similar so we can't use the lyrics to distinguish these; we need the tune.

#1. Hugill: "Mister Stormalong" ("Stormalong," "Captain Stormalong") LISTEN
Bullen: "Storm-Along"
Colcord: "Stormalong"
Terry
Sharp: "Old Stormey"
Doerflinger
LA Smith (text only)
C Fox Smith: "Stormalong"
J.E. Thomas(1926)
?Davis & Tozer: "Stormalong"
?Whall: "Stormalong"
?Frothingham (1924): "Stormalong"
Harlow: "Storm Along John" AND "Stormy"

CHORUS:
To me way, you Stormalong
Ay ay ay! Mister Stormalong

#2. Hugill: "Stormy Along, John" ("Come Along, Git Along…")LISTEN
Terry: "Stormalong John"
Sharp: "Stormalong John"
LA Smith
?Masefield (1906):"Storm Along"
Harlow: "Storm Along John II" AND "Old Stormy"

CHORUS
Stormy along, boys, Stormalong John
Aha! Come along, git-along, stormy along, John

#3. Hugill: "Stormalong, Lads, Stormy" ("Ol' Stormalong") LiSTEN
Sharp: "Wo Stormalong"

CHORUS
Ol' Stormalong!
Stormalong, lads, Stormy

#4. Hugill: "'Way Stormalong John" ("Mister Stormalong John") LiSTEN
Harlow: "Stormy II" has some similarities, but appreciably different

#5. Hugill: "Walk Me Along, Johnny" ("Walk Him Along John", "General Taylor")LiSTEN
Nordhoff (hoosiers' chant, text only)
LA Smith (text only)
Terry
Sharp: "General Taylor"

CHORUS:
Walk me along Johnny, carry me along
Carry me to the burying ground
Then away—O storm and blow…

#6. Hugill: "Yankee John, Stormalong" LISTEN
Bullen: "Liza Lee"
Terry
Sharp: "Liza Lee"
Colcord (reprint of Sharp)

CHORUS:
Yankee John, Stormalong

#7. Beck: "Stormalong"

CHORUS:
Yankee Johnny would you stormalong
Brave bad Johnny, would you stormalong

#8. Harlow: "Storm Along John III"
Combines features of #1 and #2

********
Assorted notes…

I don't have with me several texts, like Shay, Shaw, CF Smith, and also my Doerflinger is not at hand. I put a question mark preceding some where I wasn't sure if the song listed as "Stormalong" fit that particular variant.

#1 is the common chantey. It's oral thread continues unbroken.

#2 is the next most common. Hughie Jones has recorded it, listen here, and even that Robert Shaw Chorale did it in 1960. I'd imagine the oral tradition of this would have been healthy.

#3 was noted above on Date: 03 Apr 09 - 11:45 PM. I believe this is probably one of the broken-link chanteys.

#4 is the other broken-link chantey. Harlow lists a variant that is kind of close in some respects, but not really the same. However, the correspondence between between MacColl/Lloyd's 1957 recording and Hugill's 1961 text…having so far found no other texts or earlier recordings…is mysterious! Let's say that Lloyd learned it at sea and Hugill also did get it the same way from Harding. It is still curious that no others picked up on it.

#5, well known by people nowadays, but I am intrigued by TomB's comment,

It may be surprising, given its widespread popularity in the revival, that this shanty is comes only from Sharp & Terry (i.e. Short, ) – and of course Stan had his own Harding the Barbadian version.

It would be good to look into this further to see if nowadays-known versions have a basis in oral versions or in text. I can tell for example that very many of the current versions are imitations of the recording by the Canadian Maritime band, Great Big Sea, itself seeming to be a contrived version IMHO. (It's funny how this song, probably originating among African-Americans of the Deep South, has been recruited as part of a sort of Newfie nationalism.)

#6 is quite different in each printing. Luckily, we do have an oral source in the form of the 1962 recording by Alan Lomax –the one that corresponds to Abrahams text. (And the one I assume was the source for Kasin and Adrianowicz's version)
HOWEVER, there is that question again—Hugill's version, for example, is very different from the Lomax recording. It might represent a different form of "Yankee John" (it most closely resembles Bullen's print version), in which case the oral link to that one appears to be broken. Alternatively, it might just be a horrible failure at remembering/rendering and/or notating the song. I am drawn to rumanci's comment, above:

One thing I CAN add from a dearly remembered workshop given at a Loughborough festival donkeys' years ago by Stan himself, is that unless carried away by going down side alleys of conversation (a frequent, delightful trait FYI) and using collected and shared Caribbean shanties to illustrate a point, he chose rarely to SING some of them himself BECAUSE he felt his Welsh lilt couldn't QUITE do them justice so he preferred to steer people to hear the sources for accuracy and rhythm.

Stan may have just been unable to get the "Caribbean" style, and these attempts at writing them down were very sketchy at best. If this is the case, there is little point in trying recreate Stan notation of this and many other broken-link chanteys….Caribbean ones…ones mostly obtained from Harding…because what's printed is so off.

#7 and #8 are further "Stormy" forms that did not have close correspondences among Hugill's versions.

A quote from Harlow:
"Storm Along John was very popular on all merchantmen, but the 'Badian negroes took great delight in singing the words in many variations and once started would sing one after another, changing the air to suit their mood