Gibb,

Remember that Whall was educated in an art-music tradition decades before folksongs were being taken very seriously - especially folk styles of singing. It's very possible that the resemblance he saw between shanty-singing and ballad-singing was influenced by his assumption that neither was *musically* defensible.

My reading of Whall's intention is that he wanted to preserve the "best" shanties primarily out of nostalgia. Nothing wrong with that - we're in his debt! - but like nearly all shanty collectors before Doerflinger, he was not much interested in a close analysis of the material.

Actually the upshot of all this is that the degree of ornamentation used by the mythical "average shantyman" is unknowable, but we have every reason to regard Stan Hugill as way above average in his regard for shantying as an "art" and for his desire to perpetuate its most notable features. If you listen to pre-Hugill "revival" singers, they almost never yelp. Post Hugill, they all do. Regardless of its history and distribution, he effectively made the yelp "mainstream."

JWB,
I'll let you know when my machine is ready. Should be soon.