1977        Jones, Bessie & The Georgia Sea Island Singers. _Georgia Sea Island Songs_. New World Records 80278.

From the Notes by Alan Lomax.

1960 Lomax made his first trip to the Sea Islands and recorded people led by singers surviving from Parrish's day.
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Lydia (Mrs. Maxfield) Parrish, wife of the painter, had much to do with the authenticity of the songs in this collection…

She sponsored the formation of a society of the best singers and dancers, the Spiritual Singers of Georgia, whose members each received a button distinguishing him or her as a "Star Chorister" and signified that he or she was a folk singer and dancer in the old tradition. The regular meetings and performances of this group afforded an opportunity for the best singers on the island to continue their art and to keep alive a
remarkable body of songs and an even more remarkable musical style, very African in character. I first heard them when I visited St. Simons in l935, in the company of Zora Neale Hurston, the great black folklorist, who had worked with Mrs. Parrish. When I returned twenty-five years later with a stereo rig adequate to record this multipart music, I was greeted as an old friend. During that visit I recorded Group A (as designated in the notes that follow), led by surviving members of the original island singers, Joe Armstrong and Willis Proctor.
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Later, the group "the Sea Islands Singers," was formed to tour the country and present the style, composed of Big John Davis, the community leader; Bessie Jones, song leader; Peter Davis, bass; Henry Morrison, Emma Ramsay, and Mable Hillary.

A few work songs are on the album, but I've only seen fit to excerpt two here. And the first, "Raggy Levy," is only to elucidate Parrish's text. Though classified it under the category of chantey, I am having a hard to envisioning it as the sort of song that could correspond with sailor worksongs. It has the "grunt" that, like in menhaden chanties, comes *after* a line of singing. The performers are the touring troupe: John Davis, leader; Peter Davis, Bessie Jones, Henry Morrison, and Willis Proctor.
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Raggy Levy

In this black stevedore's song (part of the family that inspired so many better-known chanties) made for lifting or pulling heavy weights, the pulls come at the end of every pair of lines. The meaning is obscure. The song peers back into a long-dead time of rising soon (early) in the morning to sit by the fireplace and breakfast off sweet potatoes roasting in the ashes, and of fences built by hand of piled-up stones. Who Mr. Sippelin was or what ill fate overtook poor Raggy Levy to reduce him to a
jaybird's condition I could not determine. However, it's a great song for singing.

Leader: Oh, Raggy Levy,
Group: Oho! Raggy Levy,
L: Oh, Raggy Levy,
G: Poor boy, he's ragged as a jaybird.

L: In the mornin',
G: Oho! soon in the mornin',
L: In the mornin'
G: When I rise, I'm goin' ta sit by the fiah.

L: Mr. Sippelin,
G: Hi gonna build me a stone fence,
(Repeat)

L: Sweet potato,
G: Oho! Sweet potato,
L: Sweet potato,
G: Poor boy, got two in the fiah,

L: Mr. Sippelin,
G: Hi gonna build me a stone fence.

L: Sweet potato,
G: Oho! Sweet potato,
L: Oh, sweet potato,
G: Poor boy, got two in the fiah.

L: Old Mr. Sippelin,
G: Hi build another stone fence.

L: Raggy Levy,
G: Oho! Raggy Levy.
L: Raggy Levy,
G: Poor boy, just raggy as a jaybird.
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When Lomax said that this kind of song inspired chanties, I think perhaps he is just vamping off the idea, so far as that formally the genres are a bot different. However, Lomax's choice of wording, "the pulls come at the end of every pair of lines," reminds me of Nordhoff's description of cotton screwing. Perhaps it was that the cotton screwers did not exert themselves at timed points within the text, but rather after the lines, with a grunt. If so, that would alow for songs to be sung slow, ametrically, and with rubato/melisma. Nordhoff didn't mention grunts ("hunh!"), but then again, neither does Lomax, here.

One can hear a sample of the track and the following one here:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/georgia-sea-island-songs-r88371

The other chantey is [MONEY DOWN]. This rendition, I believe, is a sort of reproduction of the version collected by Parrish. Recorded in 1960, with Joe Armstrong, leader; Jerome Davis, John Davis, Peter Davis, Bessie Jones, Henry Morris, Willis Proctor, and Ben Ramsay.
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Pay Me
(arr. Lydia Parrish)

A stevedore song long ago preempted and made famous by the Weavers…

Chorus
Pay me, oh, pay me,
Pay me my money down.
Pay me or go to jail,
Pay me my money down.

Think I heard my captain say,
Pay me my money down,
Tomorrow is my sailin' day,
Pay me my money down.
(Chorus)

Wish I was Mrs. Alfred Jones's son,
Pay me my money down.
I'd stay in the house and drink good rum,
Pay me my money down.
(Chorus)
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I am surprised they are also singing this with "hunh!" Parrish did not indicate that. And yet (unlike Raggy Levy), this does have a halyard chanty form and would not seem to call for the grunts.