A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 08:54 PM

Hugill wasn't a pedant, but he didn't like it when shanty singing was badly misrepresented by people who hadn't a clue.

He seemed to have been perfectly at home with anything that sounded   authentic "to my way of thinking," as he frankly put it. He was also fond of saying, "Different ships, different long splices."

In other words, "different strokes for different folks." Any variation was acceptable to him, I believe, as long as it resembled the verbal, melodic, and presentational style, and the cultural substance, of what he knew (or had every reason to believe) was real. His books show how strongly he wished to preserve the real in the face of the artificial and distorted.

To give a partly fanciful example, he may have included "blood-red" roses, whatever its actual origin, because it sounded perfectly plausible and was not clearly in conflict with shanty idiom. But something modern, like "long-stemmed roses," would have just sounded wrong, and I believe he'd have shaken his head in disbelief.

Of course, that's merely my impression of his views, which are, fortunately, mostly set out in his books.

I can only imagine what he'd think about current "pyrate music."

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 07:54 PM

I am not interested in authenticity, just in what Hugill thought, etc!

We have on one hand Hugill's "official" and probably most guarded statement of opinion in SfSS, where he recommends Lloyd's albums.

Then we have Lighter's data, which is a bit more balanced. The recommendation would still seem to hold, though he has specific criticisms.

I am curious as to what it says in Arthur's book -- especially whether it presents Hugill as significantly more negative. I also am curious what the source of that data would be.

Then we have my suggestion, which is that while Hugill may have criticized some things in Lloyd, there are other things that, if a true pedant, he would also have criticized. Hugill was able to criticize the delivery of Lloyd in some respects while still accepting some of Lloyd's material as authentic -- that is, of evidence of something that was "out there" in tradition.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 06:49 PM

I may have said this some years ago, but I can't find the post quickly, so I'll repeat it.

I met Stan Hugill at Mystic Seaport in 1988 and 1989. In '88 I asked him straight out what he thought of MacColl and Lloyd's performances. He believed that they had caught the "spirit" of the shanties better than any revivalists who had yet recorded (he was especially scornful of "radio singers.")

He objected mildly to the occasional harmony singing, because sailors (except Welsh crews, many of whom came from a strong tradition of choir singing) didn't often sing in harmony.

What he objected to most was Lloyd & MacColl's combination of bowdlerizing on the one hand (which he realized was unavoidable) and then, on the other, fashioning mildly bawdy or double-entendre lines of their own.

The example he gave instantly and with unmistakable disdain was the line from Lloyd's "Farewell Nancy": "Your little behind, love, would freeze in the wind, love." Hugill said that sailors didn't use words like "behind": "They called a spade a spade." Furthermore, they wouldn't have sung about their girlfriends' derrieres in a sentimental song like that anyway. The shanties, of course, were different, and they wouldn't have said "derriere" either.

He told me the only sea songs he knew that relied partially on double entendres were "Ratcliffe Highway"/"Cruising 'Round Yarmouth," and "The Fireship," which has a similar theme.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 05:52 PM

Before we get carried away on the authentic thing, let's just remember the film was based on a piece of fiction and is nowhere presented as a documentary. You need to be comparing it with the likes of 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 04:45 PM

BTW, the Moby-Dick clip linked in the OP is something I posted as part of a YouTube series (on-going) of clips, "Chanties in Film."

See it here.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 04:41 PM

Brian--

Would you care to quote or summarize what Arthur says about this (for those of us without _Bert_)?

Hugill wasn't rigorous enough, in my opinion, to be considered a true 'pedant' -- though I suppose he may have believed he was or said so with self-deprecating humor.

In his _Shanties from the Seven Seas_, Hugill was full of praise, if I remember, for Lloyd's recordings. His assessment was similar to Lighter's in that the recordings, while perhaps not totally authentic, were quite good, especially when compared to others.

As to whether or not Hugil cared/noticed that they "improved" the chanties, this has been in a way a recurring issue in discussions. Because it seems, at least to me, that Hugill accepted a portion of what Lloyd sang as authentic, rather than questioning it, and may have even gone on to spread it further.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Brian Peters
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 04:16 PM

"only pedants will care or notice"

...as indeed did that old pedant Stan Hugill (see Dave Arthur's biography, 'Bert', pp 279 - 80).

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 12:11 PM

Don't forget that the Highpoint CD "Sailor's Songs and Sea Shanties" contains the entire contents of Lloyd & MacColl's mid-50's Stinson LPs, "Haul on the Bowline" and "Off to Sea Once More."

These are two of the finest shanty records ever release by folk-revival singers. They were ahead of their time in many ways.

There's also a CD of Lloyd & MacColl's "Blow Boys Blow," which is nearly as good as the first two.

Unfortunately the excellent "Thar She Blows!" and "A Sailor's Garland" have never been reissued.

Pedants will remember that Lloyd & MacColl have "improved" their material. They've done it so tastefully, though, that only pedants will care or notice.

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 11:28 AM

A note:

Paul Clayton released Whaling Songs & Ballads, Stinson Records around 1954. There was also the Whaling and Sailing Songs from the Days of Moby Dick in 1956.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXxLg7a9_qk

Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Jun 12 - 09:11 PM

Jerry-

One of the very few mainstream films that featured sea shanties. The only other ones I'm aware of that were recorded were from retired sailors.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 30 Jun 12 - 07:19 PM

Sea Shanties in Moby Dick (1956) - A.L.Lloyd

From:

http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2011/07/a-l-lloyd-bramble-briars-and-beams-of-the-sun/

Probably one of the best depictions of sea chanties / shanties as working songs on a windjammer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hdiFYCUP9oU