A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,BlackAcornUK
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 01:29 PM

[Georgina *BOYES*, accursed auto-correct!]

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 02:35 PM

...But for that, perhaps we'd all be singing Leadbelly songs to this day...

If, and only if, Leadbelly was "Policy." Meanwhile, American folkie Harry Belafonte (RIP) once claimed most American Jews learned Hava Nagila from him.

There is minor argument here about what LLoyd did. The big deal is in the opinions on same. A "Policy" of exclusion is about the only way to manufacture the false consensus nobody needs.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 09:44 AM

The big deal in his case is not really the matter of differing opinions. What we're dissecting here are individual cases, in order to learn just how far his interventions went. For those of us interested in traditional song, this is quite important.

And I'm just not reading all that much disagreement here on that front. This most recent bump is a mutual admiration society v. Dick on ends justifying means and how disclaimers are a good thing.

As for Policy, believing local restrictions improved selection, variety and choice of maritime work song in folk clubs is not math or science based. Political Science... maybe. If any so-called tradition requires a formal, regulated performance environment to continue, it needs more academic disclaimers than a gen-u-wine LLoyd sailor song.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 04:16 PM

For those of us interested in traditional song, this is quite important.
QUOTE
It would be better to say for those of us interested in the scholarship of traditional song
i am primarily intersted in singing songs including traditional songs Because the song appeals to me,likewise there are some traditional songs,eg little sir hugh, or drink old england dry, or fathom the bowl, that do not interest me
I agree that songs that appeal to me, i might subsequently wish to get more correct info so scholarship for me is of secondary importance however i agree that scholarship and comments about songs should be accurate, that is why for many years i have gone to other sources other than Bert lloyd for info on shanties and sea songs, sources such as Chris Roche

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 04:55 PM

Whoever said that the folk song revival is a continuance of tradition?

Dick, to open this most recent bump, and with a nod to TikTok and Wellerman on top.

I know folk clubs, lecture halls, video games, TikTok &c &c each have unique traditions of their very own. Some do more 'production value' than others than others but all of it is arts & entertainment. And I too do not find the mutual admiration bubbles, that so often comes with each, all that helpful neither.

In plain English, fiction is not fact and LLoyd, folk clubs, lecture halls &c &c are neither chanties as work song nor hard naval science. Not that there is anything wrong with either art or science being what they are. It's just the typical, one-label-fits-all, glossary that was never really in keeping with the many "traditions." Until that situation improves, (not holding my breath) asterisks are free, and that's a good thing.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 15 Sep 23 - 03:15 AM

Whoever said that the folk song revival is a continuance of tradition?

Dick, to open this most recent bump, and with a nod to TikTok and Wellerman on top.quote
I never said it, that was somebody else

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 16 Sep 23 - 03:54 AM

'Farewell to Tawathie' did it originate as a poem ?and was it set to music by A. L. Lloyd?

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 16 Sep 23 - 04:29 AM

Attributed to George Scroggie near Aberdeen in or around 1850, this song was popularized by Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd. Lloyd credits the song to Scroggie in the liner notes for his album Leviathan, saying of it:

    The stereotype of the oldtime whalemen is a hairychested ring-tailed roarer, hard worker, hard drinker, hard fighter. No doubt the description fitted many of them; nevertheless they often showed a strong liking for gentle meditative songs. Perhaps alone among all the songs on this record, Farewell to Tarwathie was made not by a whaleman, but by a miller, George Scroggie of Federate, near Aberdeen, around the middle of the 19th century. The tune is an old favourite, best known in connection with the song called "Green Bushes".

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 23 - 10:18 AM

There is a detailed treatment of this song, including Scroggie's full text, here:
https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/farewelltotarwathie.html

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,MichaelKM
Date: 16 Sep 23 - 10:19 AM

Sorry, I did not identify myself when making the last post.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 23 - 02:00 PM

RJM: I never said it, that was somebody else....

From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 23 - 11:24 PM
Wellerman therEfore is helping to keep the tradition alive even though[ according to Phil d'Conch it has nothing to do with naval sciEnce
While not decrieng Naval Science, keeping the tradition alive is very important

Dick, wellll... I sure thought I was replying to you at the time. I tend to do that with a mystery "guest" and you in the same thread. My bad, if the above post was not yours.

Whomever it be's, the authentic/traditional/working "sea chanty/shanty" label still fits English folk club and pop repitoire about as well as it fits Howe! Hissa! or The Complaynt of Scotland (the latter an iomramh, iorram, iram, iurram, joram, juram or jurram or... anything at all but English!) Neither did the sailors on the Gazela call them "shanties." Their 2400+ year histories and traditions are not about African-Americans, cotton screwers or the Gulf of Mexico.

Hard Naval Science is from an entirely different planet Earth than Hugill, Whall, Lloyd, Gibb, Reidler et al.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 16 Sep 23 - 02:02 PM

***Oh the irony. The above was me.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 18 Sep 23 - 06:08 AM

Gibb,
>>Reidler<< [sic] I'm always getting that backwards. All apologies and it will happen again. I promise.

Neither seen nor heard one bad word about the author as a person. Nothing at all to match the tone of your post. An all around sterling individual… or maybe the Antichrist, for all I know… or care.

I've heard parts of two shanty lectures. Standard issue, no opera, nothing special. I knew the Maritime Work Song thread would do Wagner when his time came. Little surprise then Piratical Debauchery, Homesick Sailors, and Nautical Rhythms: The Influence of Sea Shanties on Classical Music should turn up on its own merit. What else is there on that subject?

...people not discussing Catholic Romance language-speaking flautists?… you lost me completely there.

What do "them" and "their" refer to?
Too much thread drift for poor old Lloyd. See here: New Chanties Documentary

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 02:32 PM

Great talk, Brian. (Great photo of the rustbucket Lloyd sailed on too!)

My enjoyment of "Leviathan" ca1970 was spoiled by the realization that some of the songs (like "Wings of a Gull") had obviously been rewritten in British style (without acknowledgment) from tuneless American material in Gale Huntington's "Songs the Whalemen Sang."

Lloyd's intentional fudging and faking, presented under cover of scholarly care and erudition, plus his supposedly rich fieldwork (whose very existence seems dubious) makes it hard for me to listen to him now with anything like my former enjoyment. As I've noted before, all he had to do was say (as Martin Carthy does), "my version of," "inspired by," "I've improved on the tune," or the like, and we wouldn't be having these discussions.

Lloyd's reputation as a popularizer, moreover, would then stand unsullied.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 07:29 AM

Good point, Brian, about Hugill's possible belief in Lloyd as an "authentic source" - at least some of the time.

Hugill objected more than once to Lloyd's double entendres as phony, as well as to his selection of "exotic" modal tunes for recording.

But he also accepted "Blood-Red" Roses and recommended those same recordings as stylistically superior.

There seems to be little doubt that Hugill, Lloyd, and MacColl were in contact before the L&M LPs. MacColl's performance of "Stormalong" could hardly have been influenced by anybody else.

Could it?

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 09:35 AM

For me at least, much of the enjoyment of trad song comes from knowing that what I'm hearing is a true artifact of a lost past.

If it turns out the purportedly "true artifact" has been significantly and *covertly* messed with and phonied up by a supposedly reliable editor, I have a right to be ticked.

As I say, if Steeleye Span and Peter Sellers do a totally untrad rendition of "New York Girls," I can enjoy it fully because, not only is it a fine performance, it isn't falsely advertised.

In a different genre, Lloyd's performances were also splendid. The musicality and accompaniment aren't the issue: musically I'd rather listen to Lloyd than to Hugill or (presumably) John Short.

But the issue is the frequent and blithe fakery. It could have been completely mitigated by a few words of explanation. ("I thought the original tune so unappealing that I created I new one which, I think, is still 'in the tradition'"; "In most cases I've tried to smoothe the words out a little, or added and subtracted." Etc.)



it's the blithe and frequent fakery.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 07:23 AM

So Lloyd got the song from some unknown chantey man who'd devised it for working defective windlasses that could only be pumped without a strong steady beat!

What a find!

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 08:45 AM

"Evidence?? We don' need no steenkin' evidence!!" - "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1947).

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 08:49 AM

Steeleye Span:

"Honesty's all out of fashion.
Oh, the hard times of old England...."

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 03:03 PM

Maybe pop and folky renditions of "Shenandoah" at about half the required speed prove what Lloyd was saying about chanteys being slow.

:^}

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Sep 23 - 01:58 PM

I see that "GUEST, Wm." pointed out on the "Wild Goose" thread last year that MacColl was singing Mackenzie's words to Lloyd's odd tune as early as 1953:

https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/61814?l=en

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Sep 23 - 02:08 PM

Double-checking Mackenzie, 1919, his tune is clearly L&M's source, but it's written (surprise!) rhythmically.

Mackenzie suggests the tune might be called "wild and melancholy." Evidently not wild and melancholy enough.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Sep 23 - 09:55 PM

Keith, Mackenzie collected the tune and a single stanza from Ephraim Tattrie of Tatamagouche, N.S.

The stanza is the same as Lloyd's first stanza but with the minor differences of "floating" for "sailing" and "pretty girls" for L&M's "young girls." Nothing about trying to pick up a young woman with quivering topsails.

Mackenzie noted Tattrie's tune in regular 4/4 time. That necessary, regular rhythm is the chief difference between the two melodies.

According to Mackenzie, "This is to be regarded as a halliard shanty, although it apparently served at times for the men who were heaving at the capstan bars. Terry lists it as a windlass and capstan shanty."

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Sep 23 - 09:07 AM

Great commentary from Gibb and BlackAcornUK. Thanks for the posts.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 10:48 AM

Thanks for the link to your essay, Georgina. I found it most interesting.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 08:26 AM

"Bert was most adept at constructing convincing fake traditional songs at the drop of a hat."

Uh-oh....

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Reinhard
Date: 16 Sep 23 - 10:32 AM

There is a detailed treatment of this song, including Scroggie's full text

... which I only added today, together with information about a bunch of recordings from my record collection that weren't listed yet.

And Scroggie's verses are already in the Digital Tradition, as TARWATH2.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 05 Sep 23 - 09:59 AM

I've been very irregular on Mudcat recently (it never seems to be working!) so I'd missed the resurrection of this thread earlier in the year. There are people involved here who I don't meet in my other social media interactions, so I thought it might be of interest if I brought this thread up to date with my own research (aided along the way by one or two participants in this thread).

Over the last four years I've carried out a lot of research into the songs Bert Lloyd brought to the folk revival, both through his own singing and by passing on songs he'd reconstructed to young singers of the day, most notably Anne Briggs. I had been apparent for a while that he did a lot of 'tinkering', but that word doesn't begin to describe the scale or depth of his modifications. On some of the landmark LPs the majority of the songs have been modified, often quite drastically. North American texts were plundered on many occasions, with no hint that the results weren't authentic 'English folk songs'.

As has been suggested above, modal melodies were not only composed for texts lacking a tune (e.g. 'Weary Whaling Grounds'), but substituted into many songs known to tradition with exclusively major tunes. This was particularly true of the erotic songs LP 'The Bird in the Bush' (where they served to make the songs more sensual and mysterious), but also in the case of many sea songs, especially those on 'Leviathan', where they made the mood more exciting and edgy. I think Lighter's point above about the exoticism and apparent antiquity of these melodies was a part of the appeal too. However, the Wyndham-Read version of 'Black Ball Line' with which Gibb reopened this thread is so weird that I'm inclined to agree it might have been mis-transcribed.

I gave a couple of talks about all of this, which are online - I'm linking the maritime one below. There is actually one song I'd like to consult the hive mind about: in the talk I mention 'Off to Sea Once More' and contrast the major tune generally collected orally with the modal one Lloyd (and most who followed after him) used. My belief is that Lloyd made up that tune, and that its appearance in Hugill's book suggests that he got it from Lloyd (who had recorded it five years earlier). However, a friend who knew Stan H. has pushed back against this, saying that, if Stan had used a song from Lloyd, he'd have given it proper attribution.

So my question is, are there any example where you know that Hugill published a song he'd obtained from Lloyd? I know we've speculated about it in the past.

Anyway, here's the talk - it starts at 43 minutes, but you might be interested in the other contributions too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEccGdRD8Fk

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 05 Sep 23 - 10:00 AM

Clicky:

Bert's Nautical Numbers

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 08:35 AM

Sharp and Marson tampered with texts chiefly when their publishers thought them too 'coarse' to print and, unlike Lloyd, they never altered tunes. His rewrites were of a different order of magnitude.

I don't see why it's 'negative' to understand better the revival folk song canon, and Lloyd's reputation as a scholar had already been seriously compromised without any help from me. Picking it all apart is also fascinating as an exercise in detective work.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 02:18 PM

Brian, I have at no point mentioned Marson.

No, but I mentioned him because it was his responsibility to rewrite the 'coarse' lyrics for songs that they published jointly, and I think that needs to be understood. I haven't looked into the songs Sharp published after the break with Marson (I probably should), so I'm not sure a this point whether Sharp changed any texts himself. I'm not aware of any amendments to his Appalachian material between field notes and publication.

I would agree that Lloyd was a more significant figure in the folk revival than Kennedy, though PK (for all his well-documented faults) did collect some wonderful material.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 02:21 PM

I hope to learn more about what "getting a song from Howard" really meant to Lloyd.

Tha could be a really useful exercise, Gibb. As I said in the talk, we have Carpenter's recordings and notations from the Barry sailors for comparison.

Any thoughts on he Hugill / Lloyd question, though?

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 06:54 AM

Thanks Gibb and Lighter for those comments. I'm particularly glad that the Zappa clip rang a bell - the audience reaction to the reveal, when I've given the talk live, is one I cherish. I do remember the name Ray Collins - he was credited with 'Swell vocals' as against FZ's 'Low-grade vocals' on one of the Mothers' LPs, as I recall.

Off the cuff: Your discussion of "Go to Sea Once More," and Lloyd's tune, reminded me: Doesn't Hugill (SfSS) use that tune? Which brings us back to whether Hugill corroborates Lloyd (whereas Carpenter's Barry singers do not) or whether Hugill pinched it from Lloyd.

SfSS does indeed use that tune for Hugill's second version - the first uses what I consider the standard tune in oral tradition. The chicken-and-egg question is the crux of this, and I'm not sure anyone has an answer yet. I think it's possible that SH would have regarded Lloyd as an authentic source, given the whaling experience.

Without Lloyd and his contemporaries ther probably would not have been a UKfolk revival as we knew it.

I think that's what I just said on Facebook...

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Sep 23 - 02:58 PM

Do Dave Harker or Georgina Boyes interrogate Lloyd in Fakesong or the Imagined Village, respectively?

Harker's chapter on Lloyd, 'the one that got away' takes him to task mostly for adopting the main tenets of the Sharpian folk song consensus (a fair comment), for inaccurate analysis of North-Eastern working class culture, for flaws in his 'industrial song' concept, and for being the wrong kind of Marxist (Harker was SWP, Lloyd CPGB). Ironically, considering the book's title, Harker doesn't level the accusation of fakery at Lloyd at all, except in the case of 'The Coal Owner and the Pitman's Wife', the broadside text of which Lloyd apparently tampered with. And, like everyone else who's looked at it, he finds implausible Lloyd's linking of 'The Cutty Wren' with the Peasants' Revolt.

Georgina's online commentary on 'The Singing Englishman' is very useful.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Sep 23 - 03:02 PM

Can I also thank Gibb for that tour de force regarding 'Wild Goose', which married an impressive depth of detail with some telling application of logic.

There have been several other interesting comments lately in this thread. It's reminded me why Mudcat is always worth returning to - at its best you can find a level of informed discussion hard to find elsewhere.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 09:46 AM

I'm happy to accept a correction that that approach was more to do with the Singers Club, but I've heard direct testimony from a few who took part about this requirement, and how onerous it was.

According to Peggy (who I definitely believe), it was indeed a Singers' Club policy. However, many other clubs followed and became 'Policy Clubs'. It might have seemed onerous to some, but it was the Policy that persuaded people like Sandra Kerr and Lou Killen to look for songs from their own localities, and fuelled an interest in English folk song more generally. But for that, perhaps we'd all be singing Leadbelly songs to this day...

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 04:50 AM

If, and only if, Leadbelly was "Policy."

... A "Policy" of exclusion is about the only way to manufacture the false consensus nobody needs.

The point is that the Policy was adopted at the Singers' Club in order to persuade recent recruits from the skiffle movement to look closer to home than America for material. This was successful, in that it spawned a second revival of English folk song and music in the 1950s and 60s, but for which a lot of us wouldn't be where we are now. It broadened, rather than narrowed, the available repertoire, so although superficially exclusionary it led to an expansion in people's horizons. I don't recognise a 'false consensus'.

Anyway, we were as you say discussing Lloyd in this thread. The big deal in his case is not really the matter of differing opinions. What we're dissecting here are individual cases, in order to learn just how far his interventions went. For those of us interested in traditional song, this is quite important.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 05:14 AM

This reminds me a touch of MacColl's Critics Group insistence that singers should restrict their repertoires to their authentic geographies of origin - whilst himself being a Salfordian wrapped in ancestral Scottish heritage, singing songs from right across the realm, and a prolific writer of new material to boot.

As in so many fields, the high priests are above the covenants required of the flock...!

There's much truth in this, but I also suspect that there was plenty of creative thinking going on in order to justify given song selections, in the same way that singers in 'theme nights' will dream up ingenious arguments to excuse a song of dubious relevance to the theme. MacColl could at least claim authenticity in respect of his Scots and Lancashire songs, and also anything he'd written himself that emanated from his own cultural experience. Lloyd could arguably have done the same for his maritime songs, although there is a very interesting comment in Peggy Seeger's memoir to the effect that Bert was most adept at constructing convincing fake traditional songs at the drop of a hat, to subvert the dictates of the Policy.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 01:33 PM

And I'm just not reading all that much disagreement here on that front.

Obviously not, because the main posters here are people who have independently researched different areas of Lloyd's repertoire and drawn similar conclusions. Calling it a 'mutual appreciation society' isn't very helpful.

If any so-called tradition requires a formal, regulated performance environment to continue...

Whoever said that the folk song revival is a continuance of tradition? Or that all performance environments were as regulated as the Singers' Club? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 08:43 AM

Consider what you like, Dick. There are plenty of people who would rather have the truth, and Bert's tamperings/creativity are already well-known. All we are doing is trying to find out which items are genuine and which items have been recreated without proper attribution.

We are all in awe of Bert's contributions in a very positive way, but that does not detract from a desire to know the truth, in every case.

Bert's reputation as a scholar was largely destroyed by Bert himself. Those realists who want to know the truth can join with us. Those who don't want to know are welcome to ignore us. That is absolutely irrelevant and separate to our admiration for his creativity. All of the people involved here are performers as well as scholars.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 03:13 PM

Dick, your last post is another example of the confusion created by Bert's creativity. Huntington was obviously convinced in this case by Bert's assertions.

You are arguing here with people who have done much research and are the leading exponents in these matters. Your posts are becoming embarrassing.

You have given your opinion IN CAPITALS; now, unless you have something fresh and illuminating to say I suggest you keep out of it.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 02:43 PM

We are now discussing personal preferences, in performance, which are not really part of the main thrust here. We are talking about material in the public domain, and anyone can legally and morally take a chanty and do what they like with it. We are talking about presenting recreated material within the revival and passing it off as wholly from oral tradition. Scholars/researchers/truth-seekers are also perfectly entitled to call this out when they come across it.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 10:05 AM

Dick, you are arguing with someone who has done years of dedicated research into the subject AND has first-hand experience of delivering chanties at tasks on board sailing ships. What research have you done? Enlighten us, do!

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Sep 23 - 01:22 PM

Many thanks for that detailed account, Gibb!

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 Sep 23 - 08:54 AM

BAUK
This has recently been covered on a similar thread on Facebook on the Traditional Ballads blog. Those in the know stated there that there was nothing at Goldsmiths that would enlighten us further. No field notes etc.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 Sep 23 - 08:57 AM

There seems to be several scholars working on Lloyd's creativity at the moment. Most of them know about each other but someone perhaps needs to co-ordinate matters to avoid unnecessary duplication and time.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Sep 23 - 03:32 PM

No worries, Phil, we all do it!

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 05 Sep 23 - 08:25 PM

Brian --
Thanks for coming back! I recently stumbled on your published essay on this subject and it looks so good. Awaiting the opportunity to read it in full, but in the meantime, folks with some spare time (retired people??!?) should definitely check it out.

I feel inspired to look more closely and comparatively at all of the sailor songs that Lloyd said to have learned from Tom Howard of Barry, born circa 1888.

Howard, I recently discovered, played the role of the blacksmith in the 1950s film version of Moby Dick. He was the mate on the vessel used in the movie (captained by Alan Villiers) in the Irish Sea, in the summer of 1954 -- I think that's the same year Lloyd met Howard, and I wonder if the occasion for meeting was also the making of the film. I imagine Lloyd may have been employed to be the shantyman and, perhaps, Howard, also present, piped up to tell him a thing or two!

My curiosity was piqued when I noticed that the liner notes for "Bold Riley" on _A Sailor's Garland_ (1962) contain obvious bollocks and no mention of Howard. But in a 1970 magazine issue, Lloyd is pressed as to where he got the song from and he says it was from Howard. Suffice it to say, I hope to learn more about what "getting a song from Howard" really meant to Lloyd. On one hand, Howard's songs mediated by Lloyd could be really important sources to log. On the other hand, I fear it's possible that Lloyd might have invoked Howard tokenistically in some cases to give his arrangements/creations a pedigree.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 03:27 AM

Just caught the video, and happy to find (as I supposed you do) so answers to may recent questions about Ted Howard. Great!

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 05:39 PM

>Any thoughts on he Hugill / Lloyd question, though?

Brian,
I certainly do have thoughts, but not much coherent or well-baked enough to put down at the moment!

Off the cuff: Your discussion of "Go to Sea Once More," and Lloyd's tune, reminded me: Doesn't Hugill (SfSS) use that tune? Which brings us back to whether Hugill corroborates Lloyd (whereas Carpenter's Barry singers do not) or whether Hugill pinched it from Lloyd.

The question of Howard bears on my theory about Lloyd developing "South Australia" from the transcription in Doerflinger. Basically, my idea is that he saw the very "descriptive" transcription (which is not performance-ready, having irregular measures and all) and created a "normalized" version by making choices about how to synch up the melody rhythm with barlines. However, arguing that must contend with the possibility of receiving that form of song from Howard. Again we have a case where the tune doesn't match any of the others that are documented.