The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #126347 Message #2864433
Posted By: John Minear
15-Mar-10 - 09:08 AM
Thread Name: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Subject: RE: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Lighter, thanks very much for the information on Robinson. I 'm going to have to try to find a copy of that material. Was it ever published as a collection or is it stil only available as a series of articles? And thanks for the continuing stream of bibliography on "Sally Brown". Surely this tread is living proof that it takes more than one of us to round up the material! I appreciate being able to work with the rest of you. I think it's a rare opportunity and a rare occasion.
Gibb, I am particularly interested in what you are finding out from WHITE, and the dating on that - 1854. The fact that this work on minstrel music, which takes a maritime work song into its collection certainly demonstrates that "Storm along Stormy" had been around for awhile by 1854! And it looks like you are turning up some of the roots for that in a corn shucking song, of all places. I am partial to corn-shucking/shelling songs. Do you know "Sheep shell corn by the rattle of his horn"? [Not a chanty as far as I know.]
I also like the way you are bringing in the riverboat songs. Don't forget that very interesting man named Lafcadio Hearn. A number of years ago, I did a study on "Limber Jim" here on Mudcat, and he wrote a fascinating article for a Cincinnati paper on the songs of the waterfront there. Here's the thread, and a specific post on Lafcadio Hearn's version of "Limber Jim":
I think the quote from Allen (and the one from the MARYLAND...JOURNAL]) is amazing and confirms a lot of what we and you in particular have been suggesting. As I mentioned earlier, the sense of the fluidity of this process is beginning to really take hold with me. The quote sums that up very nicely.
Two other places to look are Thomas Talley and Dorothy Scarborough. A version of Talley's NEGRO FOLK RHYMES is here [but the currently available one in print is updated and expanded if I remember correctly]: