Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties

Subject: Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties
From: ManOfKent
Date: 28 Oct 24 - 07:18 PM

I've always wondered whether Stan Hugill kept copies of the original, unbowdlerised shanties that he collected. Obviously there's been stuff like the Maid of Amsterdam known on the scene for ever and a day, but I've recently discovered the 'Salty Dick' collection from Jerry Bryant and I'm assuming that all the versions he has come up with are genuine from back in the day. Not a lot of these can be sung in a folk club, but I'm wondering whether he's managed to find a supply of the uncensored versions that the rest of us can tap into?
I'd love to sing less sanitised - but fairly socially acceptable - versions of the shanties; does anyone have any idea of the best places to look?
Cheers!

Subject: RE: Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Oct 24 - 09:04 PM

Uncensored versions?

Start right here at Mudcat.

Dig deep the booty is near.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

You ain't been round much ... Mr. Man of Kent

Subject: RE: Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Oct 24 - 11:41 PM

Here's a part of Hugill's manuscript, which was uploaded to Archive.org in 2020:

https://archive.org/details/1956sailingshipshantieslongjohnsilver

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There's a new book that makes use of Hugill's manuscript texts:

Jessica Floyd, _Cabin Boys, Milkmaids, and Rough Seas: Identity in the Unexpurgated Repertoire of Stan Hugill_, published August 30, 2024.

If you don't want to buy the book, an alternative route would be to get Floyd's PhD dissertation, which might be accessible to you through an academic database.
***
I recall Jerry saying that several of the texts on his recording were the outcome of a workshop that included Stan Hugill at the Mystic Sea Music Festival around 1988/89.
***

I find the texts fairly uninteresting. Mostly a preoccupation with ARSEHOLE! As far as chanties go, for performance purposes, it takes little work to unexpurgated them on the fly. Just stick in some swear words, ha.

There's a difference, in my opinion, between the rudeness in chanties proper and the sexual innuendo of "naughty" sailors' (non-chanty) songs. Not that there is no overlap. But the former sometimes comes from techniques of African/American music where you barrelhouse with your baby all night long while the latter are more that sort of wink-and-nudge style of English/European songs. One is more matter-of-fact, the other is like tickling an itch, ho ho ho, hee hee hee.

Elijah Wald's recent book, _Jelly Roll Blues_ could almost be a user guide to making your chanties authentically rude. At the risk of being reductive: it basically explains how the connotation of the Blues was arguably more about sex and rudeness and "funky, stinky butts" than about "Oh I'm so sad." In pursuit of that, it covers main tropes in Blues which, I think, overlap quite well with the language of chanties.
***
For something surprisingly similar, the work of singer Judge Dread, a (white) English (Cockney) reggae singer really hits the nail. Judge Dread was an authentic member of the reggae scene in the UK, backed by Jamaican band the Cimarrons. But his lyrics focused on bawdy rhymes. Although unmistakably English (to my mind), these rhymes were also right at home in Jamaican music which has its own stream of English-language heritage and a bawdy song tradition. Judge Dread is named after a character created by Jamaican singer Prince Buster, whose songs like "Big Five" and "Wreck a Pum Pum" were the inspiration.
Prince Buster - "Big Five" (parody of "Rainy Night in Georgia"
https://youtu.be/n6s2pVugi2c?si=GzbX5WfpWHQ_Dgv4
Judge Dread -"Big Seven" (on the My Conversation riddim)
https://youtu.be/TwzcXuIw1ws?si=GHIPWzbvoxUs_ela

Subject: RE: Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties
From: ManOfKent
Date: 30 Oct 24 - 08:50 AM

Very interesting, thank you! I've certainly got a few avenues to search down; unfortunately, as Hugill himself always said, the sailors didn't really do innuendo.
I would love to be able to get the smutty stuff into my repertoire without it being overtly rude; while things like The Fireship can be sung with a lot of smut and innuendo (but a child wouldn't know it was rude), most of the other stuff would seem to be pure filth or bowdlerized terribly. It's a shame there seems no happy medium, but if that's what they sang, we can't change history!

Subject: RE: Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Oct 24 - 11:00 AM

While it's easy to re-dirtify Hugill's "camouflaged" lines, it's usually impossible to hit on the real words. Just because something "seems to fit" doesn't make it real. And sometimes he suppressed entire stanzas.

What's more, chanteys of more than a century ago lacked certain modern idioms and sometimes employed now-obsolete or unfamiliar ones.

And finally, as Gibb suggests, working sailors' tastes in bawdry (and beyond) did not always match those of today's middle-class folk audiences.

Subject: RE: Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Nov 24 - 10:50 AM

Yes, I've often thought 'I reckon the original version would have said 'XYZ' rather than 'ABC', but as you say - if the verse isn't there at all, you don't even know what you're dealing with. And I want to sing what we think the original singers sang, as a custodian of the past. I've no problem changing things to fit my voice or style, but sticking to an original lyric appeals greatly to me! What a shame they aren't really written and accessible in the same way as the bowdlerised versions are...

Subject: RE: Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties
From: meself
Date: 04 Nov 24 - 11:35 AM

"what we think the original singers sang" - Well, from what I've read, probably on here, it was common for sailors to have their own "bowdlerized" versions of chanteys and songs, for those occasions when polite or otherwise fastidious company was within earshot. If that was okay for them, it should be okay for us, I should think.

Subject: RE: Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 04 Nov 24 - 12:49 PM

.... When the ladies, God bless 'em, are milling about ....

Subject: RE: Origins: Salty Dick renditions of shanties
From: meself
Date: 04 Nov 24 - 03:10 PM

Or perhaps the captain, who "an old Methodist preacher had been", according to the song ("Captain Conrod", that is).