Of course that last guest was me.

Worth mentioning too is that Williams's texts are fuller than many. In other words, instead of the two- or three- stanza shanties we often see, his usually to five or six or more. (Only the standard two in "Drunken Sailor," however!)

As to how closely the 1909 texts resemble what Williams learned from Owen and Sweeney: despite what I said earlier, it could be that Williams added occasional stanzas that he'd learned later in the innocent belief that all dated back to a single integral text.

But the repertoire itself, and many of the stanzas, would still be tethered to the 1870s.

A minor point, perhaps, is that the African-American Williams sang the same shanties as the European Americans.