I just bumped into your old query about Oh Louisiana. The story is simple. I Roger Abrahams, living on Nevis in 1961-62, collected this song and many other shanties. I wrote about it in a little book on West Indian sailors and their songs, with material from Nevis and St. Kitts, Saint Vincent, Tobago....The little book that University of Texas brought out was called "Deep the Water, Shallow the Shore."

In 19 61 or 2, Pete visited us in Austin, Texas. I told him about the collecting I had been carrying out, and he asked if there were songs that the Weavers could use in their reunion concert at Carnegie Hall. I said sure, and sent him a tape of maybe twenty songs. The Weavers could never get together to rehearse, but Pete took a couple of the songs and performed them solo in the Carnegie Hall concert. In fact, he didn't quite get the tune right, but oh well. I tried to get him to sing Women Belly Full of Hair from the same shanty encounter. Too raw, I guess.