Thanks, Barry - I have a few that A. L Lloyd gave as Bahamian; I don't sing a lot of shanties (I'm usually a soprano, but can manage singing pseudo-baritone if it's REALLY early in the morning...), but I tend to like the Caribbean ones a lot. I was mostly using them as an example of the kind of music that's hard to find unless you have a REALLY good library available to you. Since I live in the DC area, I could theoretically look things up at the Folk Archive of the Library of Congress, but said Congress, in its infinite(?) wisdom cut back funding for the LC so the Archive is only open during hours when I'm at work...
Anyway, I'd be interested in some shanties from the Abrahams book, if you have tunes, too. What's the publication info on the book (copyright date, publisher, etc)? I haunt used bookshops a lot looking for old, out-of-print song collections for our home library, and may stumble across it at some point. Thanks! Mary L.