'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters

Subject: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: shipcmo
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 08:46 AM

As I continue to work on the Tunes, and First Lines, Indexes, it occurs to me that there are but "Titles" available for some.

For example:
Miss Rosa Lee
Somebody Told Me So

Baltimore Bell - Briggs, Around Cape Horn

Nancy Bell - Dallas, Once a Week
Sally in the Alley
Land ho, boys, Land ho
Haul away, my Josey

I cannot reccolect where I ran across the first two; perhaps it will come to me.

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 09:41 AM

George-

Now where did I run across "Sally in the Alley"?

Probably Shin-Bone Al or near a-bouts.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: doc.tom
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 09:43 AM

Hi shipcmo
What's your source for Sally in the Alley? Is the origin Sally In Our/The Alley - composition by Henry Carey published in 1726, which became very popular in the U.S. in the nineteenth century (not the Gracie Fields 1931 song). I've got the words from it cropping up more or less in John Short's 'Bully In The Alley' (totally unlike the Hugill version in structure).
TomB

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 10:14 AM

George-

Here's a link to another partially successful attempt here to track down the origin of "Sally in the Alley": click here!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: Dead Horse
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 10:15 AM

Its a minefield.
When the same shanty exists under diferent names, when diferent shanties exist under the same name, when there are so many versions of the same shanty, when the words of one shanty are used for the verses of another.
And dont get me started on adapting, say, a halyard shanty for use at the capstan etc.
You get 'foreigners' misinterpretations and folkies 'cleaning up' to make them sound better.
Its a minefield.

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: shipcmo
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 10:40 AM

All the titles listed as from Dallas, Once a Week, are from an article in that magazine Aug 1, 1868, titled On Shanties.

Dead Horse: "Its a minefield" All the more reason to try.

Cheers,

Geo

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: shipcmo
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 02:26 PM

Rosa Lee & Somebody Told Me are referenced in Stan's Bosun's Locker.
The reference to the Sally/Alley thread probably as reasonable as anything.

Geo

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 03:00 PM

Geo-

The reference in Stan Hugill's Bosun's Locker for missing shanties are on pp. 212-213.

"Sally in Our Alley" is noted there from Haley's N. Cole's The Whale Hunt: 1848-1853
.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 03:57 PM

Nancy Bell, Sally in the Alley:

According to the author of "On Shanties," those were capstan shanties. Lots of potential for them to have been pull from the popular song world.

Land ho, boys, Land ho, Haul away, my Josey:

And those were one-pull shanties, e.g. sheet shanties. One imagines an emphasis on the last "ho!" There weren't necessarily any other lyrics, if it was a sweating-up chant.

I am comfortable in presuming "Josey" was "Haul Away Joe." The minstrel song "Jim Along Josie" may have been the inspiration, and it was even cited as a rowing song earlier. Cf. "Rosie," too.

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Jan 11 - 07:36 AM

Geo,

I'm not sure what criteria you are using here for "lost." Also, do you seek only to connect these you have listed, or wuld you like to discover more "lost" songs (depending on definition)?

-- Some references give only a title, but the lyrics and tune are "lost"
--Some give only a lyrical phrase, which could belong to any number of titled songs
--Have have tune but no text
--Some give lyric, but we have no tune. That is even the case for some items in Hugill's big collection.
Lastly--For some we have text and tune, but the oral trad. of singing it has been lost, so we don't *really* know how it goes. This is especially the case when the musical notation is erroneous or poor. Many items in Hugill, though they have a text in tune, on further examination are really lost to us (despite a recent revival singer working up a rendition based on what has been put down).

So far the survey of 19th century chanties (it is restricted to chanties) has yielded approximately 101 distinct items made reference to for the period up to 1890. See here"
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=128220&messages=492#3080538

If I remove the reasonably securely known items from that list, here is what we get:

And England's blue for ever"
Baltimore Bell"
Black although she be"
Captain gone ashore!"
Cheerily she goes"
Hah, hah, rolling John"
Hand ober hand, O"
Heave and she goes, stamp and she goes"
Heave her away"
Heave him up! O he yo!"
Heave round hearty!"
Heave, to the girls!"
Highland day and off she goes"
Ho, O, heave O"
Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!"
Jack Cross-tree,"
John, John Crow is a dandy, O"
Johnny's gone"
Land ho"
Largy Kargy"
Miranda Lee"
Nancy Bell"
Nancy oh!"
O ee roll & go"
O! hurrah my hearties O!"
Oceanida"
Oh fare you well, my own Mary Anne"
Oh Sally Brown, Sally Brown, oh!" [early hauling chant]
Pull away now, my Nancy, O!"
Sally in the Alley"
Sing, Sally, ho!"
Time for us to go!"
Up a hill"
Walk away"
When first we went a-waggoning"
Whisky for Johnny!" [sheet shanty]

This is not to say that there haven't been good guesses/arguments made for what several of these are (cf. the "Lost Chanties of Dana" thread, for example). They are just items that, according to my own subjective scale, are not certain enough to be filed under one particular known title. Many are probably phrases for sing-outs that were quite incidental and, perhaps, never repeated again.

For the context of the phrases, one will have to search on the "Advent" thread; I don't have time to give details.

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: mikesamwild
Date: 23 Jan 11 - 07:48 AM

The James Kaddison Carpenter wax cylinders have some old boys from Sunderland Hospice singing in the early part of 1900s and they were old then.

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Jan 11 - 06:17 PM

Gibb,
Some of those on your list are quite obvious.

Of those mentioned earlier, I have sheet music for 'Nancy Bell'
'Rosa Lee' has several possibilities. With a common name like this choosing an intended one is impossible. Work's 'Rosalie the Prairie Flower' is even a contender. 'Heart Songs' has p446 'Rosalie' and p450 'Rosa Lee'

Baltimore Bell could be a localisation of 'Barbary Bell'

Surely 'Johnny's Gone' 'oh Fare ye well, my own Mary Anne', 'When first we (I) went a waggoning' are quite obvious. The last one would make a good heaving chanty.

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Jan 11 - 06:54 PM

Steve,

I am sure you are right about some of the items. The list is flexible so that, if I become convinced of the definite identity of one of the items, I'll honour it with capital letters :) and start lumping things with it.

My own goal is not to speculate on what these songs were; I'm just presenting culled info. Keep in mind that it is an abstraction of an abstraction. In the discussion with more context, there has been some speculating on what most of these were, but for whatever reason (case by case basis) I did not feel comfortable in assigning them a definite identity -- I did not want to lump them, for statistical purposes, with other songs. For instance, "Whisky for Johnny!" would seem from this list to be the familiar halyard chantey, however, its context described it as a sheet shanty and in such a way that there is reason to think the similarity of phrase is just a coincidence. Therefore, I did not want to chalk it up as one more instance of WHISKEY JOHNNY and close the book on t just yet. Mainly, these were items that did not *re-appear* during the period surveyed (up to 1890) or whose titles were ambiguous *enough* so as not to want to lump them definitely. I've not searched through all history to track these, rather they are a by-product of a particular exercise. It's two different exercises, warp and weft: investigating/making educated guesses about individual songs versus (what I am doing) documenting the big picture and trying not to presume too much. Both processes require a certain amount of speculation, but at different levels. I have been less speculative on what individual songs are -- so the list is there is anyone wants to refer to the original context. In other words, rather than telling people that "Johnny's Gone" is "Tom's Gone to Hilo" or "Jenny's Gone" or "Tommy's Gone Away" or whatever, and thus close the book on it, I leave it open for them to go to the original and interpret for themselves.

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: Dead Horse
Date: 23 Jan 11 - 07:41 PM

I cant help but think that life would be so much easier if the old shantymen had introduced each number they sang - "And now, ladies and gentlemen, we shall sing hymn No382 in your Hugill Standard Bible, Haul Away for Sally's Boker Cos Jimmy Is On The Maintop Spinnaker Gasket.
Ha one, two, three................ :-)

Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Jan 11 - 05:52 PM

Couldn' hhave happened. Rise Up Singing wasn't available then.