Gale Huntington's 1964 "Songs the Whalemen Sang" has long been a treasure trove for people who like to resurrect old songs. In 2014, Loomis House Press and Camsco Music published Huntington's "The Gam: More Songs the Whalemen Sang." Huntington found these songs in ships' logs in libraries and museums around New England. The lyrics he found had no melodies, so Huntington furnished melodies known to have been sung with these songs.

We've found earlier sources for most of the songs in the "Whalemen" books, but the books are a very valuable snapshot of songs that we loved by whalers and seamen of the 19th and early 20th centuries. They're almost a collection of pop songs from the period.

My favorite Huntington book is "Sam Henry's Songs of the People" (1990), a well-annotated collection of songs found in a newspaper column written 1923-39 by Sam Henry for the "Northern Constitution," a weekly newspaper in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Huntington died in 1993.