Authenticity aside, I feel there is a touch of pedantry about Stan Hugill's criticicism of shanty singing in the revival.
In a way, shanty singing resembles the modern approach to traditional Irish music, which was at one time almost exclusively for dancing, but has become something you now sit and listen to for its beauty and complexity.
The first albums of shanties I heard, the two 8" Topic LPs, were just for that, sitting and listening to. They got me hooked for life;
I'm not sure that, if I heard them screamed at the top of the voice so they could be heard over a howling wind, would have had the same effect.
Jim Carroll