'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 15 Nov 23 - 07:40 PM

Here's "Yella Gal" (Hugill/Harding's "Do Let Me Lone") from

Brathwaite, Percy A. and Serena Brathwaite. _Folk Songs of Guyana: Queh-Queh, Chanties and Plantation Themes._ [self-published: Georgetown?], 1967.

“Queh-Queh also sung as Chanty”
YELLA GAL

Refrain:
Do leh me lone, Lulu, do leh me lone,
        Hurray, me yella gal, do leh me lone
Do leh me lone, Lulu, do leh me lone,
        Hurray, me yella gal, do leh me lone

Solo: Put me face pon Lulu face, Lulu faint away, oh
Chorus: Hurray, me yella gal, Lulu faint away

Solo: Ah put me han’ pon Lulu head, Lulu faint away, oh.
Chorus: Hurray me yella gal, Lulu faint away.

Solo: Ah put me han’ roun’ Lulu neck / An’ she faint away, oh
Chorus: “then Refrain, etc.”

Solo: Ah put me han’ roun’ Lulu waist, “etc.”
Chorus: “then Refrain, etc.”

Includes notation, including a harmonized (4-part) refrain. However, there appear to be numerous errors in the transcription where the rhythm doesn't make sense.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 Nov 23 - 07:44 PM

re: Doodle Let Me Go & Do Let Me Lone, Susan (which I take as variants of one song)

This song has a status as a "folk" song of Guyana.

I would expect to find more even with basic internet-based "research." Alas, I presently have only a few documents of the song's Guyanese context.


A 1960 International Teacher Development Program conference included performers from erstwhile British Guiana. The program says they performed “Do Let Me ‘Lone, Lulu.”

We can hear Guyanese renditions of the song (unfortunately, without verse lyrics) in these recordings/videos:

"Yellow Girl"
https://youtu.be/fQDhjquwa6c?si=1EsoAfd5JcGlIOUx
"Yalla Gal"
https://youtu.be/SMtiHm9vGAU?si=QuBQ08zgNlqOhaYF
"Yallah Gal"
https://youtu.be/IE6v_PY8pro?si=cmh62Qg0G_rzvo_9


There's also a songbook called _Folk Songs of Guyana_ (196x) by Brathwaite and Brathwaite that contains a score of the song, but I have not accessed it.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 15 Nov 23 - 07:40 PM

Here's "Yella Gal" (Hugill/Harding's "Do Let Me Lone") from

Brathwaite, Percy A. and Serena Brathwaite. _Folk Songs of Guyana: Queh-Queh, Chanties and Plantation Themes._ [self-published: Georgetown?], 1967.

“Queh-Queh also sung as Chanty”
YELLA GAL

Refrain:
Do leh me lone, Lulu, do leh me lone,
        Hurray, me yella gal, do leh me lone
Do leh me lone, Lulu, do leh me lone,
        Hurray, me yella gal, do leh me lone

Solo: Put me face pon Lulu face, Lulu faint away, oh
Chorus: Hurray, me yella gal, Lulu faint away

Solo: Ah put me han’ pon Lulu head, Lulu faint away, oh.
Chorus: Hurray me yella gal, Lulu faint away.

Solo: Ah put me han’ roun’ Lulu neck / An’ she faint away, oh
Chorus: “then Refrain, etc.”

Solo: Ah put me han’ roun’ Lulu waist, “etc.”
Chorus: “then Refrain, etc.”

Includes notation, including a harmonized (4-part) refrain. However, there appear to be numerous errors in the transcription where the rhythm doesn't make sense.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 Nov 23 - 07:44 PM

re: Doodle Let Me Go & Do Let Me Lone, Susan (which I take as variants of one song)

This song has a status as a "folk" song of Guyana.

I would expect to find more even with basic internet-based "research." Alas, I presently have only a few documents of the song's Guyanese context.


A 1960 International Teacher Development Program conference included performers from erstwhile British Guiana. The program says they performed “Do Let Me ‘Lone, Lulu.”

We can hear Guyanese renditions of the song (unfortunately, without verse lyrics) in these recordings/videos:

"Yellow Girl"
https://youtu.be/fQDhjquwa6c?si=1EsoAfd5JcGlIOUx
"Yalla Gal"
https://youtu.be/SMtiHm9vGAU?si=QuBQ08zgNlqOhaYF
"Yallah Gal"
https://youtu.be/IE6v_PY8pro?si=cmh62Qg0G_rzvo_9


There's also a songbook called _Folk Songs of Guyana_ (196x) by Brathwaite and Brathwaite that contains a score of the song, but I have not accessed it.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Jul 23 - 02:02 AM

Re: "Bulldog," since it is familiar from 20th c commercial recordings and stage performances, here's evidence of its 19th c use as a work-song.

“Running a Turtle in Exuma Sound.” _The Rod and Gun_ 6.26 (Sept. 25, 1875): 385, 396.

A White sportsman (unnamed) is in the Bahamas, living in a cottage on Great Exuma Island for nine months. It's 1867—he's remembering back. He goes out in a whaleboat with a crew of seven Black men, to hunt for turtle. The crew member named Solomon "[sets] the stroke to their favorite rowing song,

(Stroke): What dat bull-dog growlin’ about?
(Crew): Bull-dog, don’t bite me.

Refrain.— Oh, seize him, Tiger, seize him,
Bull-dog, don’t bite me;
Bow, wow, wow, wow."

Later, when they return from the hunt, the rowers sing,
“One dollar a day don't pay my time,
Chor. —Pay me five dollah down”

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Jul 23 - 01:22 AM

Sorry, above should say Coconut Grove (not Lane) [Miami].

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 08:48 PM

Here's another collected by Sharp from Wheelwright that might be cut from the same cloth as "Bulldog." In this case, Sharp indicates that Wheelwright learned the song "at Coconut Lane, Florida."

“St. John Seegar” – “Pulling Chantey”

(In 6/8 meter)
1. Havannah Seegar [Cigar]        S8 / F8 M8 R8 D8_l8
St. John St. John        s8/ D4 s8 D4
Havannah Seegar
St. John St. John
Hurray hurray        L8/ S4 L8 S4
St. John Seegar        s8 / D4 s8 D4
Hurray hurray
St. John Seegar

2. He tastie so nice

3. He smelly so good

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 05:03 AM

One of Cecil Sharp's later-collected chanties was "Bulldog, Don't Bite Me."

Notated from the singing of Robert Wheelwright ("a youngish fellow") in New York on March 18, 1916.

“Bulldog Don’t Bite Me” – “Sailor’s Pulling Chantey”

Every tooth he had was iron M4 S4 F4 L4 / S4 M4 R4 D4
Bulldog, don’t bite me          M4 D2 s4 / D2 D4[-4]
Every tooth he had was iron
Bulldog, don’t bite me
O you hound-dog S^2. M4 / F2 L2
Bulldog, don’t bite me M4 D2 s4 / D2 D4[-4]
O you hound-dog
Bulldog, don’t bite me

It has the feature that I've observed as a pattern in Caribbean chanty singing, where either occasionally or regularly-- it's impossible to tell which in this excerpt -- the chantyman sings a fixed line (as opposed to a variable, one-off verse lyric) and often to a different melody. (That same feature makes up the notable "third line" in a few famous deepwater chanties like "John Kanaka".)

For comparison, here's The Barouallie Whalers performing their rendition of "Bulldog."
There's also a Lomax recording of a rendition from Nevis.
https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/caribbean-1962/newcastle-762/bull-

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: GUEST,Bob Henke
Date: 14 Feb 20 - 07:30 PM

Somewhere, way back in my college days before the crust of the earth had cooled. a coffee house singer did a shanty/drinking tune the refrain of which went, "So give him a lick with a sturdy stick and spin him round and round. For who's to know what a man might say, when he's hanging upside down. When he's hanging upside down." The verses explain how the poor fellow wound up upside down (insulting the other patrons) and goes on to philosophy regarding drinking, the opposite sex, and working. Does this ring any bells for anyone? It was a fun song but I can find lyrics or any mention anywhere.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 05:43 PM

Gibb-

"Rosabella" as you've recorded it certainly sounds more at home on a Caribbean beach than the version most of us revival singers achieve. So after launching the boat do you and your clones pass around the rum jug?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 03:45 PM

Recently having a deeper look at the chanties in Horace Beck's FOLKLORE AND THE SEA, mentioned now and again in this thread. "Deeper" in the sense that in trying to learn some, I've had to try harder to figure out what was going on.

One thing I wonder is if anybody knows if Beck recorded this stuff, and if those recordings have been made available somewhere.

The problem is that Beck's transcriptions (i.e. in lieu of recordings) are really unclear. It is hard to study them and, incidentally, even harder if one wishes to perform them. The latter was not their purpose, but it is perhaps notable that no one (to my knowledge?) has tried "reviving" songs from this book. (Taking a few lyrics doesn't count!)

Lomax's Cultural Equity site, which now permits streaming of full songs, does have examples of at least two of the chanties that Beck encountered. They are a good guide to style, even though Beck's forms seem to differ significantly.

I recently tried my hand singing "Rosabella" as in Beck, but I am sort of shooting in the dark (or at least at dusk). HERE

One of Beck's Caribbean chanties that I haven't seen discussed is "Ring Down Below."

Here's my attempt to make sense of the transcription.

Alan Lomax recorded a variation of this in Carriacou, Grenada in 1962.
http://research.culturalequity.org/get-audio-detailed-recording.do?recordingId=2

I obviously don't have the correct "feel" (perhaps too hard to achieve overdubbing oneself), but FWIW I was trying to follow Beck's melody and rhythm which, as you can hear, were quite different...assuming they are not notational errors.

As far as connections to other songs, "Ring Down Below" reminds me of "Sun Down Below" -- especially if one keeps the chorus rhythm regular, as I've done here.

It also reminds me of "Come Down You Bunch of Roses" in the one recording we have of that from the Bahamas.

I wonder if the "ring" in the title has any connection to the "ring games" -- the game song context to which it seems "bunch of roses" and others may have been connected.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: GUEST,A Gerttan
Date: 20 Jun 11 - 03:53 PM

Just taken a couple of hours reading through this thread.....
Would like to add that Stormalong John (group) recorded - Lowlands Low/Emma Let Me Be/Coal Black Rose back to back as one track on the CD."Through Stormy Seas" and that Lowlands Low, and Emma Let Me Be were recorded as individual tracks by Shanty Jack on his CD "Maiden Voyage".

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: shipcmo
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 07:52 PM

All I have to say is: Got it! Get it!
Cheers,
Geo

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: doc.tom
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 10:34 AM

So long since I managed to get into this thread - my computer keeps refusing to look at threads of this length and just hangs up - but I found a new way in! Nice to catch up.

Just to say that the first of three CDs with recordings of John Short's version of his shanties has now been released - these are, of necessity, all broken contunuity versions (as per the original intent of the thread). The full document of notes, which I've often quoted earlier in this thread, is also now available on the web at www.umbermusic.co.uk/SSSnotes.htm.

The recordings on the first CD are:
1. Sing Fare You Well - Keith Kendrick
2. The Blackball Line - Roger Watson
3. Mr. Tapscott (Yellow Meal) - Sam Lee
4. A Hundred Years On The Eastern Shore (Hundred Years Ago) - Jeff Warner
5. Fire! Fire! (Fire Down Below) - Jackie Oates
6. Hanging Johnny - Tom Brown
7. Rio Grande - Roger Watson
8. Cheerly Man - Barbara Brown
9. Poor Old Man (Shake That Girl With the Blue Dress On) - Keith Kendrick
10. The Bully Boat (Hilo, Me Ranzo Ray) - Tom Brown
11. Stormalong John (Stormy Along John) - Jim Mageean
12. Blow, Boys, Blow (Banks of Sacramento) - Tom Brown
13. Carry Him To The Burying Ground (General Taylor) - Sam Lee
14. Bulgine Run (Run, Let the Bulgine Run) - Barbara Brown
15. Shallow Brown - Jim Mageean
16. Won't You Go My Way - Jeff Warner
17. Blow Boys, Come Blow Together (Blow Me Bully Boys, Blow) - Keith Kendrick
18. Tommy's Gone Away - Jackie Oates

Copies of the CD can be had from the record company - www.wildgoose.co.uk, by PMing me, or from the singers themselves.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 01 Feb 11 - 10:10 PM

Thanks, Joe.

Thanks for reminding me of this one. Revisiting, I am fascinated by how the standard Revival version lyrics affect me. Most are certainly chanty style, but they are held together by a sensibility that is "English folk-song-y" IMO. I don't know how to explain it, but they make me feel like the meeting of boy and girl is in a nice English forest between a gentleman and lady...when I am expecting something between a kind of Long Ike and Sweet Betsy affair and a Jack Tar and Maggie May encounter. It is all white gloves -- the only hint of coarseness in it is the name of good ol' "Frisco".

Here are my doggerel lyrics to "Won't Ye Go My Way?"

I met her on the Bowery
I met her on the Bowery

She backed her main tops'l smartly
Yo ho, my Jack, my hearty

Her name was Juliana
She sang and played piana

She spent my money freely
She grabbed the lot or nearly

She made me broke and left me
And she never bereft me

I loved you, Juliana
The belle of Lousiana

Now she's in Indiana
And I'm stuck in Montana

I married Flo Fanana
She can't play the piana

And now that I am married
I'm sad I didn't tarry

Haul for better weather
We''l haul and sing together

Rock and roll me over
We'll soon be in the clover

[Additional Punjabi-English verses!:]

On the train to Ludhiana
She asked, "tu kithe jana?" [where'e you goin'?]

I said, "I'm from Samana."
And gave her a banana.

jadon pahunch gae assin station [When we arrived at the station]
I gave her another ration

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Feb 11 - 08:15 PM

Won't You Go My Way is the song for Feb 2 in Jon Boden's A Folk Song a Day project.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 13 Nov 10 - 03:58 AM

Might this be the progenitor of "Huckleberry Hunting"/"Ranzo Ray"?

From NEGRO SINGER'S OWN BOOK, ca.1843(?), pp148-9:
//
WE AM DE NIGGERS FROM DE WILD GOOSE NATION.

Written and sung by the Luminaries.

We am de niggers from de wild goose nation,
    Come dis night to sing to you;
We're just arrived from de old plantation,
    Down on the banks of de O-hi-o.
To de fields, to de fields must go,
    When de driber calls we must obey
To chop de wood, de corn to hoe,
    And work hard all the day.

[Full Chorus]
Den sing away, sing away,
    Tambourine and de banjo play;
Happy niggers while we sing,
    Today we work no more.

Ebery morning bright and early,
    How dese niggers hates to rise,
Because dey am all-ways attacted,
    By de ting called the Blue-tailed fly.
To de fields...

When the big white moon am shining,
    De niggers de am out fore soon;
And up the cimmon tree are climbing,
    For to catch de possum and coon.
To de fields...

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 03:01 PM

Thanks for clearing that up, Lighter (and Jerry). Your characterization makes sense. My wonder/worry was if this chanty had been included in a section like where "Lindy Lowe" is. While Harlow's other songs are wonderfully unique and authentic, he ones in that section seem to be culled from elsewhere and, in some cases, tweaked without acknowledgement.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 12:58 PM

There's no evidence that the poet John Masefield had any connection to this song.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: JWB
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 11:04 AM

Gibb, I don't have "Making of a Sailor", but in "Chanteying..." Harlow inserts the group of Barbadian cargo chanteys (which include "Sun Down Below", "Mobile Bay", and "Hilo, My Ranzo Way" as well as "Way Sing Sally") in the midst of his story line about the Akbar, describing the crew setting the mizzen upper topsail to "Storm Along John" and "Reuben Ranzo".

I just noticed this interesting tidbit: Harlow gives this note for "Sun Down Below" -- "Words by Masefield". Can it be that Southern black longshoremen sang a chantey the words of which were written by England's one-time poet laureate?

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 10:08 AM

To say that "Way Sing Sally" was "rarely if ever sung by sailors at the halliards" is to say that he himself never heard it sung at the halliards.

Harlow's melody seems absolutely authentic. He would not have invented a shanty, accompanied it with an explanation that it wasn't used at sea, and then created a tune to go with it. He must have learned it from a living person, as he implies. The tune is much like "Hilo John Brown." The second chorus begins on the "Hilo" note and is followed by a straight modal descent.

It's altogether likely that Harlow heard his Caribbean shanties when he sailed to Georgetown shortly after his 1875-76 voyage on the Akbar.

We don't know if he jotted his shanties down in the '70s or merely recollected them later. (Hugill's technique.) If he recollected them, the words may not be entirely accurate, but at least they're largely informed by a genuine 1870's sensibility. In other words, the older Harlow must have been satisfied that his lyrics were correct in spirit and that his nineteenth-century shipmates would have approved of them. That's not the same as having had a cassette recorder on board, but it's of some historical significance.

Had he messed consciously and seriously with the lyrics, he'd have said so. Why not? He could then have claimed credit for "improving" the songs and making them "fit to print."

Harlow's texts, by the way, seem to me to be slightly less bowdlerized than others. And, like Hugill, he identifies the songs he's bowdlerized. He didn't claim to possess a twenty-first century critical sensibility, but I see no reason at all to doubt Harlow's basic honesty in presenting what he knew and what he'd read or been told.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: John Minear
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 08:44 AM

I am intrigued by one of the verses in Harlow's "Way Sing Sally" that Jerry has given us above. It is:

   Nigga' in the corn fiel' actin' up bold,
   Oh, Sally hit de nigga' an' knocks him out cold.

This sounds like it came right out of a "corn song" from the corn shucking frolics. I've just about finished reading Roger Abrahams' very fine book SINGING THE MASTER, THE EMERGENCE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE IN THE PLANTATION SOUTH, which is a thorough documentation of the corn shucking tradition. He discusses the role of these events in the Black/White relationships in the South before and after the Civil War. And in an extended set of appendices, he prints out almost all of the known (as of 1992) accounts of specific corn shucking events. Many of these contain song fragments and many of them have been mentioned either in the "Advent & Development of Chanties" thread or the "SF to Sidney" thread. Harlow's verse doesn't show up in any of them that I recall, but it sure sounds like it could come from that context. Given a number of our discussions on origins and development of these songs, I highly recommend this book. I could only wish that Abrahams himself had made a more direct link between this book and his book on DEEP THE WATER, SHALLOW THE SHORE.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 02:28 AM

In what context, may I ask, does Harlow present "Way Sing Sally"? (Sorry, again; I no longer have access to my book.) I gather from Kathy that it was not on the voyage on the Akbar. Is there any descriptive context, or is it just "Here are some Bajan stevedore songs:" ?

I remember that "Lindy Lowe" was one of the other alleged Bajan stevedore songs. In a Mudcat thread on that, I gave my argument as to why I think Harlow B.S.'d that one -- I think he took it from a written source and added fanciful details about how it was used. For me, that cast doubt on many of his chanteys from a certain part of the book. I'm wondering if there might be something shady about "Way Sing Sally," too. Lighter says Harlow seems to have gotten it from a person, but I'm not clear on that.

What's the tune like? I can't imagine singing "Sally am de gal fo' me" to the same melody as "Hi lo John Brown, Stand to your groun'".

There is at least one minstrel song with a "Sally is de gal for me". If Harlow did cook this up a little (I'm not saying that he necessarily did) from earlier references, he may have decided that the way to go was to use such cliched "coon song" lyrics.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: JWB
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 10:09 PM

It is so interesting to sift through the collections and really look at one song in depth. I pulled out my copy of Harlow, and find that on page 85 he describes the group of chanteys which include "Way Sing Sally" thusly: "...purely West Indian negro chanteys sung while hoisting cargo from the hold of ships and seldom if ever sung by sailors at the halliards." That would imply that Whall, Hugill, Lubbock, et al, heard the song in port and not out to sea. But did Harlow have any evidence but his own experience upon which to base such a proclamation?

Speaking of bowdlerization, I imagine that no revival performer would present Harlow's version as is:

Sally am de gal just like a daisy.
Way, sing Sally.
She turns me around till I'm half crazy.
Sally am de gal fo' me.

Sally she's a 'Badian bright mulatto;
She nebba' uses snuff or chews tobacco.

Sally am de gal dat lubs dis nigga';
Now stay away black man, yo' cuts no figga'.

Sally dressed up in her new suit ob clo's;
See all de nigga's look around where ebba she goes.

Nigga' in the corn fiel' actin' up bold,
Oh, Sally hit de nigga' an' knocks him out cold.

It is h'ist an' sing while de mate is naggin;'
He growls all de day wid his dingin' an' a-dangin'.

Nebba min de weather, but keep yo' legs togedda;
De fair land ob Canaan will soon be a-showin'.


And to top all, Harlow describes the song as a "'Badian coon chantey". It would be far more acceptable today to sing bawdy lyrics than these, eh?

Jerry

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: KathyW
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 01:48 AM

Speaking of Harlow, I just finished reading "The Making of a Sailor," published in 1928, the story of his first few voyages when he was a young boy, on a coaster and on a longer voyage to Australia. It gives one a sense of deja vu if one has already read "Chanteying Aboard American Ships" because it covers two of the same voyages decribed more briefly in that book, in some cases using nearly the same descriptions for events that occured.

However, lest I get too off topic: "Making of a Sailor" doesn't include "Way Sing Sally," which is as Lighter notes in "Chanteying Aboart American Ships." That also implies that Harlow must have heard the song on his later voyage to the Caribbean.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Oct 10 - 10:35 AM

Maybe the words of the shanties didn't vary quite so widely. After all, it's harder to invent than to memorize and vary a little.

The texts Walton collected from Great Lakes sailors in 1932 are disappointingly similar to but never identical with the more familiar ones.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 04:37 PM

the Indigo Girls...

Good one! heh heh

Though all the known versions have certain similarities, I think they're different enough to be independent, though clearly based on certain "regulation" verses.

In many other situations I would agree, but the correspondence between Whall and Lubbock bugs me. I can certainly accept that they are independent (especially with no evidence to the contrary), but for my personal feeling that is just too many "regulation" verses, and a weird coincidence that they use *only* those verses. The differences between Whall and *Hugill* are more what I would expect to find. It may just mean that I have to accept that what I presumed would be much more varied really was not.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 11:53 AM

Harlow's version, complete with tune, is on p. 87, suggesting that he heard it in 1876, though he doesn't say so specifically. At least he seems to have collected it from a person, not from print. He says it's from Barbados. Importantly, Harlow's second chorus is not "Hilo John Brown, stand to your ground!" but simply "Sally am de gal fo' me."

Though all the known versions have certain similarities, I think they're different enough to be independent, though clearly based on certain "regulation" verses.

Unsurprisingly, MacColl-Lloyd differs the most. The double-entendre verses "sound" so authentic that I'm tempted to suggest they got them at first hand from Hugill himself. But they could have just made 'em up. He once told me that Lloyd's semi-bawdifications were too coy for the sailors he'd known. He instanced, as particularly ridiculous, "Your little behind, love, /Would freeze in the wind, love."

But FWIW, Hugill recommended "A Sailor's Garland," on which those lines appear, as one of the best sea-song albums.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 11:28 AM

I feel as John does (though Lubbock's editors must have thought more like Gibb!). Especially since "The Happy Land of Canaan" was a minstrel song used for a number of soldiers' parodies during the Civil War.

Thus the phrase was "in the air" in completely secular contexts.

Hugill's treatment of the line shows that what he "camouflaged" can be far from "obvious" and didn't necessarily replace words that were crude in themselves.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: John Minear
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 09:52 AM

Gibb, I don't think anybody would call you naive about any of this :). Perhaps I am reading back into history something that was not there at the time, but it makes sense to me that "land of Canaan" stands for something like "God's gift", "the promised land", "the place of abundance", "flowing with milk and honey", etc. All of which might "soon be a-showin" if Sally doesn't "keep her legs togedder"...   "Hi-lo, John Brown, stan' to yo' ground!"   I suspect that the "sacred and profane" were not so very far separated if we look at this from either a religious perspective and/or an "African-American" perspective. I don't find it unusual or out of place for a so-called religious/theological concept to show up in a bawdy song as a potent metaphor.

For an interesting update on this check out the Indigo Girls (their use of the metaphor is a bit different but perhaps related):

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-14210989/indigo_girls_land_of_canaan_official_music_video/

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 08:09 PM

Oh, and tangentially -- I didnt think "fair land o' Canaan" was something that would require bowdlerization. Perhaps I am being naive :) But I just read it as a religion-based sentiment/expression, and particularly one that African-Americans might use. I thought that Angel would change it because, even if it wasn't "too Black," then it at least might be an unfamiliar reference to his presumably largely Anglo-European audience. Just speculating here.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 07:36 PM

You're so right, Lighter. Gah! I confused myself with my own notes -- Of course 'SHEILA' is 1921 (1877 is the voyage described)! Things make a bit more sense now.

So if "Stand To Your Ground" was in Whall's first (1910) edition, then we can presume his version is likely authentic or independent. He does say also that he had previously published some (?) of the chanties in journal articles. I haven't looked for those yet.

And so it seems that it was Angel who (probably) copied from Whall or some yet unidentified derivation of that. The "Canaan" bit also bothered me. It makes total sense that it would have been Canaan originally but that Angel would change it to "England." The other way around makes little sense. I wonder why Angel (if he was the first) decided to turn one of the verses into a grand chorus. It makes one wonder if he really understood that it was a halyard chanty. (A halyard chanty could conceivably have a grand chorus, but it is weird.)

What is actually great about this --with bearing on my interest in establishing a timeline of chanty development-- is that it exposes Angel's work as an unreliable gauge of what chanties were around c.1877. Closer analysis may suggest that Angel culled many of Whall's chanties, which he popped willy nilly into his text.

I didnt realize/remember this was in Harlow, too. (I moved to California a few months back, with only a duffle bag of minimal possessions, and I don't have easy access to my books!) Is it in his original/first part, about the 1875 voyage, or is it in that end, kitchen-sink section? In any case, I believe the earliest part of Harlow first appeared in 1928...then in the 40s...then more widely in 1962. Though I tend to doubt that Harlow had much or any influence on Revival performances, it can help assess the historical form of the song.

Lighter brings up another intriguing/confusing (!) issue with Lubbock's version. 1909/10 is so close to Whall's date of publication, and it is not clear if the authors would have had access to each other's work. The verses have the same content, though completely different wording. What are the chances that this chanty was consistently sung to such verses? I'd like to imagine that independent versions would vary *more*. Perhaps not.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 12:01 PM

I se there was a slightly earlier edition of Angel's book in 1921.

Here's the version in Basil Lubbock's "Deep Sea Warriors" (1909):

        "'My Sal, she's a 'Badian bright mulatto,
                Wa-ay, sing Sally!
        Sally am de gal dat I lub dearly,
                Hi-lo, John Brown, stan' to yo' ground.

        "'Stan' to yo' ground an' walk him up likely,
                Wa-ay, sing Sally!
        Or de mate come around a-dingin' an' a-dancin',
                Hi-lo, John Brown, stan' to yo' ground.

        "'Seven long year I courted Sally,
                Wa-ay, sing Sally !
        Mebbe mor', but I didn't keep no tally,
                Hi-lo, John Brown, stan' to yo' ground.

        "'Her cheeks so red an' her hair so curly,
                Wa-ay, sing Sally!'"

"Here the chanty became unprintable until the last verse, which was quite irrelevant to the rest of it:

        "' Nebber min' de wedder, but keep yo' legs togedder,
                Wa-ay, sing Sally!
        Fair land o' Canaan soon be a-showin',
                Hi-lo, John Brown, stan' to yo' ground.'"

The final stanza should have been "unprintable" by 1909 standards also, but evidently nobody noticed. Harlow gives a somewhat different text with essentially the same final stanza. Angel's "England" seems euphemistic to me.

MacColl's version (on A Sailor's Garland) goes like this:

Sally is a gal that I love dearly
Way, hay, Sally O!
Sally is a gal that I love dearly
Hilo, John Brown, stand to your ground!

Bbarbadian beauty....
Always in a hurry to do her duty....

My Sally girl she's hard to beat, boys....
Always pulling at the old main sheet, boys ....

Sally, how shall I stow the cargo? ...
Stow some for'ard and stow some after....

Sally is a gal with long black hair, O! ...
She'll rob you blind and skin you bare O!...

Round her out and stretch her luff now....
I think, by God, we've hauled enough now....

Lloyd's liner note is typically chatty but gives no source for the text, which I suspect he or MacColl elaborated creatively.   

"'Hilo John Brown.' Many shanties sing of Hilo. Some say it means the sailor-town on the eastern side of Hawaii Island; some say that it refers to the dusty nitrate port of Peru; others say that, as often as not, it just means 'Hullo' or even 'Haul-o.' R. R. Terry heard this halyard shanty sung by Tyneside seamen, but it surely owes its origin to sunnier, southerly climates."

Terry says he'd only met two sailors who knew the song.

Hugill alone gives "Johnny Brown" in the chorus, which suggests to me that his version is authentic and at least partly independent. He silently "camouflages" the "fair land of Canaan."

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 07:12 AM

Gibb, years ago I compared the contents of Whall's various editions. The note is a little hard to read, but it seems clear that "Stand to Your Ground" was in the first edition, 1910.

Apparently indisputable is the fact that _The Clipper Ship Sheila_ didn't appear till 1922.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 03:38 AM

*Killen 1964

Thinking about this one some more and utterly frustrated by how it seems Whall, Terry, and Hugill may have each done something to mess with reality!

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Oct 10 - 11:09 PM

Here's a follow up to the discussion on "Hilo John Brown" that begins up-thread, here:

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=119776#2607791

I recently had a look at Whall's text version of this, and gave a shot at singing it.

Stand To Your Ground

And I had some thoughts about it.

In critiquing Whall's printed version, I find that the text must surely have been lifted from the earlier (and earliest known) mention of this chanty, in THE CLIPPER SHIP 'SHEILA' (by Angel, 1877). Whall's text is practically verbatim from that, which means he most likely took it from that or some other common source unknown to me. However, Angel did not give a tune. So where did Whall's tune come from? If he had learned the chanty orally (and got the tune that way), why did he need to lift the precise text of what was surely a highly-varible and largely ad-libbed song?

In the Preface to his original edition, Whall rather proudly states that his chanties derive from what he heard as a captain at sea. However, in the Preface to the 2nd edition, he notes that he expanded the text, and he does not explicitely state where the new songs came from. I am not sure at present if this was a later edition (i.e. thus relieving Whall from suspicion of lying!), but it does seem to owe an influence to Angel regardless of what sort of hanky panky went on with Whall and his ilk.

Speaking of hanky panky, shanty-collector Terry went on to publish this song, but he removed the leading tones/raised fourth degrees (G# in the key of D minor) and made them natural fourths. Because he thought it was probably more right. Hmmm...

Then we have Stan Hugill's version. For his tune, he also notes that he used G naturals, but his text says he did that in bars 2 and 3, which makes no sense. And, his first measure of melody is significantly diff. from this one. It is as if the first notes have been misplaced, one line lower on the staff than they should be. Now, that could be the way it was actually sung, but judging by Hugill's notation track record, it could very easily have been transcribed wrong, too. We are worse off in that, to my knowledge, Hugill never recorded his version (?). More frustrating still, he does not say whom he learned it from (something he usually does with most of his chanties), only that it is his version. And he says "Terry and Whall give a tune similar to mine..."

Now, people can talk all they want about "the folk process," but I think it likely that one or the other of these tunes is "more correct." I don't mean to prescribe a tune, I only mean that I suspect an unintentional error happened in one or the other that has to do with transcription, not with natural variation during oral transmission. And if I had to bet, I'd lay down my money on Whall's tune -- based on the fact that I think it makes more musical sense. But where is Whall's tune from? His stealing text from Angel raises suspicion on its authenticity.

Ewan MacColl was first to record this on an album in 1962. I've not heard that version. Note however, that it comes after the publication of Hugill (1961), so all the collectors' texts (Angel, Whall, Terry, Hugill) would have been available to him. In any case, his was followed by a recording of his protoge, Louis KIllen in 1974. Killen has clearly referenced Hugill. His lyrics derive from it *and* he uses the idiosyncratic opening melodic phrase of Hugill. However, the last phrase is incorrect when compared to Hugill.

The other "error" in these revival recordings is that they have misread the text to include an "Oh" in the chorus as in "Way hey Sally-Oh." In reality, the "oh" was a completely incidental pick-up phrase to the soloist's line in one of the verses; it does not belong in the chorus.

When this is usually performed nowadays, what we seem to have then is a version based in Hugill's unsubstantiated version. It includes what I believe may have been Hugill's transcription error in the first measure, and adds to that errors in reading the notation, so that the last measure's melody is off and the chorus includes an off-time, superfluous "Oh."

*Outstanding questions/issues:

-Rhythm error in Whalls notation of the chorus
-Angel's version mentions a grand chorus
-Haven't heard MacColl's recording
-Don't know what edition of Whall this first appeared in

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: shipcmo
Date: 07 May 10 - 12:49 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 02:34 PM

Thanks, guys, for the encouragement.

I look forward to hearing other interpretations, or, as a stop gap, descriptions of those interpretations from folks who might stumble on this thread.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 08:31 PM

Gibb-

"Sally Brown" is nicely rendered and I love the graphic!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 10:25 AM

Gibb, this is one of your best yet. Nice all around.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 09:09 AM

Gibb-

I did do a search first but missed your reference to this song and also the thread where KathyW provided more discussion and a link to Bullen's wonderful book of chanties.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 10:57 PM

Been a while since I logged anything here. Are the chanteys drying up? ;-0

Title: Walkalong, You Sally Brown

Print: Hugill SfSS
Performers: Craig Edwards; Johnson Girls; Pat Sheridan and Brasy

A variant on the "Sally Brown" theme but as a halyard chantey, this has probably West Indian origins. Hugill learned it from "Tobago" Smith. He is the only author I know to have published it.

By any account it is now a "rare" chantey; the actual performance style of it is surely lost. And it does not help that the notation is Hugill's text has clear irregularities. As I've noted before, I think these regularities suggest either that the chantey was sung non-metrically or in an unexpected meter...or was highly syncopated...or the lead and chorus voices overlapped a lot...or a combination of those things -- thus foiling Hugill's efforts to sing it solo and his brother's efforts to try to transcribe it.

Has anyone noted the similarity between this and "Shenandoah"? In fact, versions of "Shenandoah" have used verses of "Sally Brown." The 2 songs, even the names, are closely connected in my mind (mind you, I'm biased towards thinking paradigmatically, I guess).

Past performers are Craig Edwards (since when?), The Johnson Girls (2000), and Pat Sheridan & Brasy (2008). My hunch is that they share a similar rendition, though I've not had the fortune of hearing any of these. It would be good to know who is mainly responsible for reviving it in that vein, and insightful to hear what their process was.

I have imagined what is likely a very different rendition of what it might have sounded like.   Dunno if it makes sense.

My attempt

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 10:33 PM

Thanks, Charley!

Actually, I mentioned it on the first post of this thread :) :) ...and it's discussed a little further down, also under the titles "Sister Susan" and "Shinbone Al."

But there is not a lot of detail, so thanks for contributing this information.

Gibb

P.S. I always just thought it was phonetic spelling of "by and by", "by 'n' by," which I have gotten the sense was, for some 19th century speakers, almost just a superfluous phrase...akin to today's "noamsayin" (know what I'm saying)!

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 04:15 PM

Gibb-

Have you run across this stevedore song from Guyana?

Traditional stevedore song from Demerara, British Guiana, 1969.
Collected and transcribed by Frank T. Bullen (1857-1915) as published in THE LOG OF A SEA-WAIF, published by D. Appleton & Company, New York, US, © 1899, pp. 33-34.

Gwineter Git a Home Bimeby


Sis-ter Susan, my Aunt Sal,
Gwineter git a home bime-by – High!
All gwineter lib down Shin Bone Al,
Gwineter git a home bime-by.

Chorus:

Gwineter git a home bime-by – High!
Gwineter git a home bime-by;
Gwineter git a home bime-by – High!
Gwineter git a home bime-by.

Notes:

Bullen provides a vivid description of the stevedores at work aboard the Arabella.:

"Streaming with sweat, throwing their bodies about in sheer wantonness of exuberant strength as they hoisted the stuff out of the hold, they sometimes grew so excited by the improvisations of the 'chantey man,' who sat on the corner of the hatch, solely employed in leading the singing, that often, while for a minute awaiting the next hoist, they would fling themselves into fantastic contortions, keeping time to the music."

"Bimeby" is a common name, as evidenced by its appearance in many African-American folk tales but can also mean "quickly" as it does here.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Stewie
Date: 02 Oct 09 - 01:36 AM

Gonzo's blogspot has an old LP on the defunct Greenwich Village label available for download: 'Stan Hugill Reminisces: Shanties and Stories of Life Under Sail'. It has been nicely restored.

Click.

Scroll down a bit. I know some 'catters are a bit precious about blogs but my view is that, if the stuff is out of print, the bloggers are doing the music a service by keeping it alive and making it available again.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 05:51 PM

Been a while. Here's another entry for consideration.

TITLE: High O Come Roll Me Over

Print: Hugill; Masefield 1906 ("Roll Him Over"); Shay
Performers: Jim Mageean (1978); The Keelers *1991); The Portsmouth Shantymen; Shanty Crew (1996)

Hugill's notes about it are very brief. He got it from Harding, and most interestingly that Barbadian claimed at the time (1932) that it was still being used in the West Indies for "rolling logs." There is only one "pull" per chorus, and I suspect this is why Hugill also states he thought it would have been good for tacks/sheets -- though Harding and Masefield both ascribed it to halyards. Shay also had a version in one of his collections, but I don't have that to verify (oddly, Hugill mentions that "I have seen another version in print" but does not mention Shay by name). As usual, it would be very nice if any interested person having that text could comment as to how it compares to Hugill's version. Masefield's, by the way, is text-only, and differs very little from Hugill's (the chorus "Aha, come roll him over" as opposed to "high-o, come roll me over"). Masefield also incorporated the song, in an incidental fashion, in one of his short stories from around the same time (in A TARPAULIN MUSTER, 1907).

I'd hazard a guess that Jim Mageean was first to record a version of this, on the 1978 album "The Capstan Bar" . His is at a quick tempo, and formed into a 2/4 (or otherwise duple) meter....whereas the notation in Hugill sets it in 3/4. Melodically, too, it differs quite a bit from what Hugill put down, though I can't imagine Mageean had another source (?). An oral source?...or just a free interpretation of the general contour of Hugill's print version? As usual, any ideas on that would be great to hear. Mageean's interpretation can be heard on this page, HERE, towards the end of the program.

I've not yet heard Portsmouth Shantymen's version, but the Shanty Crew's version is clearly cut from the same cloth as Mageean's/The Keelers'. Interesting thing about theirs: it is not in meter.

The notation of Hugill, if we are to consider that it is one of the very few sources for learning this chantey, is notably irregular in its own rhythm. This is one of those cases where I'd suspect there is something funky that goes on that his basic notation is not able to capture well. Either the song was indeed not in strict meter (think of the breath-like rhythm of slow chanteys like the menhaden ones) or there was some overlapping of soloist and chorus that, when rendered by a singer without chorus, or notated on a single staff, does not come out quite right.

Gibb

Subject: Lyr Add: MOBILE BAY
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Aug 09 - 11:34 PM

One of the most interesting ambiguous chantey texts in Eckstorm & Smith. The given title is "Mobile Bay," but it's certainly not just the "Mobile Bay" discussed earlier in this thread. It starts like "John Come Tell Us," having the question-answer theme ("Was you ever?"/"Oh Yes"). It then starts to look like "Clear the Track/Eliza Lee"...but then it morphs into the ending of "Roller Bowler." I wonder what it sounded like.

Title: MOBILE BAY

Was you ever in Mobile Bay?
    A-hay! a-hue! ain't you most done?
A-screwin' cotton by the day?
    A-hay! a-hue! ain't you most done?
    Oh, yes, I've been in Mobile Bay
    A-screwing cotton by the day;
    So clear the track, let the bullgine run,
       With a rig-a-jig-jig and a ha-ha-ha,
            Good morning, ladies all!

p. 237. Indents are as in text. Mrs. Seth S. Thornton of Southwest Harbor, Maine said it was sung in her father's day. Topsail halliard chantey.

I challenge anyone to pin this down as one or another specific chantey found elsewhere!

Subject: Lyr Add: A LONG TIME AGO (Hilo version)
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Aug 09 - 11:03 PM

Here's another interesting one from Eckstorm & Smyth. It is so perfectly mixed (from our present, reified impressions) that it is hard to tell if it might have been sung like the familiar "A Long Time Ago," or if --this is what I think-- it was a variant of "Tom's Gone to Hilo."

Title: A LONG TIME AGO

I wish I was in Baltimore,
    I-i-i-o!
A-skating on the sanded floor,
    A long time ago;
Forever and forever.
   I-i-i-o!
Forever and forever, boys,
    A long time ago!

p. 237. Mrs. Laura E. Richards from Gardiner, Maine said the verses were learned in 1852 by her mother...on a sailing vessel bound from Italy to America.

Subject: Lyr Add: HILO
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Aug 09 - 10:54 PM

Eckstorm & Smyth's book MINSTRELSY OF MAINE (1927) has a number of unique chantey texts (words only) that they collected. They're nice for the way they blur the lines between the chantey categories that have maybe become established through other published sources. E & S seem relatively uninfluenced by other published sources (they do mention Colcord), so there is no urge to squeeze them into others' labels. Well, that is just my impression.

Anyway, here's one of those texts.

Title: HILO

Arise, old woman, and let me in
    Way! hi-lo!
Arise, old woman, I want some gin!
    Hi-lo, somebody! hi-lo!

p. 236. Mrs. Laura E. Richards from Gardiner, Maine said the verses were learned in 1852 by her mother...on a sailing vessel bound from Italy to America.

Posting this in this thread to support the sources for the chantey best known as "Hello Somebody," which it seems closest to...

Subject: Lyr Add: WON'T YOU GO MY WAY?
From: Snuffy
Date: 09 Aug 09 - 05:45 AM

"Won't You Go My Way?" is also on the CD Hzard, Hardship and Damned Little Pay released in 2000 by Australian shantymen The Roaring Forties.

WON'T YOU GO MY WAY?

It was on one summer's morning, WYGMW
In the morning bright and early, WYGMW

I met a pretty fair maid
Yes, I met a pretty fair maid

Her figure was trim and cosy
And her cheeks was red and rosy

Well I asked her for to tarry
But she said she'd rather marry [the Foc'sle Singers have this the other way round

Well I left her in the morning
In the morning bright and early

And now I'm bound for Frisco
Yes, I'm outward bound for Frisco

It was on one summer's morning
In the morning bright and early

The tune is that used by the Foc'sle Singers but the notes are singularly unhelpful on provenance. Only 3 out of 23 songs are actually referred to in the sleeve notes, but this is one: "The long heaving tasks were more likely to be accompanied by a song with a narrative to divert the crew (e.g. "We're All Bound To Go" or "Won't You Go My Way")."