Yes, these groups are primary and secondary resources. Interesting you should mention that, because now who are the White resources like that? Interesting how Hugill gets called the "Last Shantyman," but these folks outlived him. The nature of their chanties is/was different, but that speaks to the fact that they were actually singing for their work in a current profession.

Black deepwater sailors died before Hugill reached middle age? So did most of the White ones! Were all these Black sailors really gone, or was it that not many folklorists were going to interview them?   

Hugill named 3 primary Afro-Caribbean informants, and others he did not specify. These contributed at least 57 songs to his volume.

Yet why is it that only the songs contributed by the recently living Black resources get the association as "Black" songs? Why do earlier familiar songs (to revival singers) get treated as a White default or only have Black "influence"?

But in noting the desire to see a Black group singing classic deepwater chanties -- which, I admitted, is a rather awkward desire, like wanting to see a Black president -- I am not interested so much in the reasons why we don't have this. Because I understand the reason why we don't, and it's not because Blacks were not a significant presence as chanty singers and creators of the genre. It's that, 1) being that they *were* an important part of the history and 2) being that the vast majority of revival singers are not part of any continuous oral tradition that makes their ethnicity relevant, then: 1) There is no reason there should not be Black *revival* singers and 2) if there were, it might the change the conversation which tends to present a main "trunk" of chanties as "basically a White genre" with marginal branches of Black traditions. That is, if "anyone" truly could and did sing chanties, "side by side" and regardless of their color. let us see that represented in "our" Revival.

Again, I am not calling for any kind of contrived or deliberate creation of an African-American revival group, just saying that things may get very interesting indeed if and when we start to see such groups. We may start to see some of the ethnic and national baggage that has accrued to chanties, since Cecil Sharp and company started presenting them, shedding off...and allowing us to envision the historical chanty singing without it.