OK, here's the excerpt I'm working on. I've not formated it, for example for italics, so it may miss a little. And obviously the citations refer to items in a bibliography, which won't appear here (but I can provide on request). The context of the passage is an examination of the legacy of Hugill's SHANTIES FROM THE SEVEN SEAS (SFSS) in shaping, not-shaping, and in some cases, being shaped by the Revival. Any feedback is appreciated, thanks. Gibb, A.K.A. Skeptic Sahib

*snip*

...My final example shows just how complicated and subtle the process is, especially when vagueness about origins is overlooked in favor of clout and the desire for a story with which one can identify. It concerns one of the best-known shanties in the current repertoire, often called "Blood Red Roses." It is so entrenched, in fact, that there is surely little interest among practitioners in critiquing its pedigree as a "traditional shanty." In fact, this is just the usual dynamic at work. One does not often go to books seeking information on something which one feels he or she already knows about. It is for the lesser-known shanties that a person would turn to SFSS, and these being less-known gather little momentum. The trajectory of so-called "Blood Red Roses" is one that achieved great momentum despite little being known of it at the start of the Revival.
        In 1879, Captain R.C. Adams, in On Board the Rocket, gave the chorus (text only) of "Come Down, you bunch of roses" as heard sung some decades earlier by an all African-American crew headed out of Boston for Virginia; they followed it by the quintessential Caribbean shanty, "Sally Brown" (1879:65). We do not read of this shanty again until 1924 when, in obvious reference to Adam's text (as well as to Dana 1869), shanty scholar Joanna Colcord wrote,

What would lovers of shanties not give to hear "Captain Gone Ashore," or "Come Down, You Bunch o' Roses, Come Down"? They were sung once, and their names survive, but there is in all probability no one living today who ever heard those tunes lifted to halliards or windlass. (Colcord 1938:35)

Colcord would be proven wrong; however, her statement demonstrates the great rarity of the shanty—at least in Anglo-American circles. A version of this song, although not used as a shanty, was recorded by Alan Lomax in the Bahamas in 1935 (Lomax 1999), entitled "Come Down, You Roses." Lomax recorded what seems to be another related song, "Coming Down with a Bunch of Roses" in Trinidad in 1962 (Lomax 1997). It was a play song sung by schoolgirls, but this would not be the first time Caribbean play songs correlate with shanties (e.g. "Little Sally Rackett"). Doerflinger (1990 [1951]) was the first collector to print a full text and melody for the shanty form, "Come Down, You Bunch of Roses." He called it "very rare," getting it not from an oral source, but rather finding it only in an 1893 manuscript of a sailor from Salem, Mass., Nathaniel Silsbee, who had learned it in the late 1880s. The solo verses have a particularly "downhome" African-American, Southern or minstrel-song flavor, for example:

        Oh, what do yer s'pose we had for supper?
        Black-eyed beans and bread and butter.

        Oh, Poll's in the garden picking peas.
She's got fine hair way down to her knees.
(Doerflinger 1990:22)

A couple other song samples seem to be of a related strain. Harlow documented a sing-out (a form of short shanty or work-chant) "of negro origin," that he heard in 1875 aboard the Akbar out of Boston, having the phrase "Oh Mary! Come down with your bunch of Roses!" (2004:29). And a Gordon Grant book from circa 1931 has, "Ho, Molly come down, Come down with your pretty posey, Come down with your cheeks so rosy. Ho, Molly, come down." This, then, was an uncommon shanty with a curious connection to trade with Massachusetts and that only seemed lived on in, if it was not derived from, music of the Afro-Caribbean world. The phrase, "bunch of roses," if not literal, is perhaps a term of endearment.

The trajectory of the song changes drastically with A.L. Lloyd's rendition of the shanty, as "Go Down, You Blood Red Roses," on a 1956 album, The Singing Sailor. In June of that year, more significantly, Lloyd appeared in the film adaptation of Moby Dick. The tune of his rendition matched that printed by Doerflinger, a text that he clearly utilized on occasion (i.e. as seen from a pattern of other renditions in his recordings). However, the phrases "go down" and "blood red roses" were new. Some now believe these lines were inspired by the image of killing whales, but that legend probably derives from the song's strong association with the film. The performance and picturization of the song in the film are excellent, which is probably one reason why "Blood Red Roses" comes off so convincingly as something "traditional." Other folk revival singers followed Lloyd with similar renditions, such as Paul Clayton, who, being present as a performer at the Moby Dick premiere in New Bedford (Coltman 2008:68-9), was inspired to record it in 1956 on an album in reference to the Moby Dick theme. Apparently it gained such momentum in the late 50s Revival that Alan Lomax included "Blood Red Roses" in The Folk Songs of North America (1960), stating that the song was, "As sung by A.L. Lloyd and Paul Clayton, rarely published." Thus gaining the seal of such luminaries as Lloyd, Clayton, and Lomax, along with the legitimizing effect of popular media, "Blood Red Roses" became a convincing simulacrum of a shanty that once was. Doerflinger, the collector whose book had introduced the shanty to revival singers, recognized this. In the revised edition of his text, 1972, he added to his notes about "Come Down, You Bunch of Roses": "I doubt that the movie version, with a 'blood-red roses' chorus, is authentic folklore."

"Blood Red Roses," however, had already been canonized in the Revival, and Hugill was not immune to its influence. In SFSS, he gave what we have seen to be the original refrain, "Come down, ye bunch o' roses." His version was distinctive, having come from the Barbadian shantyman, Harding. However, he gave an alternate title for the shanty as "Blood-Red Roses." It is a clear possibility that that came from the influence of Lloyd and company, as Hugill mentions both the Moby Dick film and The Singing Sailor LP. He goes one step further in remarking that, "it appears to be a British shanty, probably derived from a song about Napoleon and the British soldiers—'Redcoats' or 'Blood-red Roses' as they were called on account of the red jackets they invariably wore" (1994:274-5).   While I find that to be pure speculation with little to support it, I am nonetheless comforted by the fact that the reader is free to take or leave this opinion. What really counts, Harding's shanty, is there to speak for itself. Moreover, while Hugill did not believe the chantey had African-American origins, on the grounds that "bunch o' roses" was allegedly a phrase characteristic of "true English folk-song," he did allow that, "Of course, the shanty may have passed, like many others, through the Gulf Ports' shanty mart" (275). However, in his 1969 book, Hugill switched over to calling the shanty just "Blood Red Roses" (also preferring the phrase, "hang down"). More disappointingly, the notated tune now pretty much matched Lloyd's rendition. With it, the "Redcoats" theory is stated as strong probability, with none of the other messy details about the shanty's provenance. In addition, he cites "Blood Red Roses" as supposed evidence that this shanty, being allegedly about Napoleon, may be one of the few extant shanties to have originated in the 18th century (1969:33-4; 184). I believe this is an unfortunate case of faith in the Revival dynamics being so strong as to compromise even the "last" representative of pre-Revival shanties. ...

*snip*