Should women sing chanties

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 31 May 19 - 04:44 PM

Can you give us the quote to 'Cheerly Men' please, Phil? Gibb probably has this but if you mention it here you might as well quote it.

That chanties are related to rowing songs, or rowing songs as chanties is quite well documented, but for several reasons already stated we don't think that is what is happening here.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 31 May 19 - 04:35 PM

Shanty, like calypso, is performed extempore:

"...the men sang a verse, or part of a verse, and were then followed by the females, who took up their part very readily; and their fine clear voices, keeping time with the motion of the oars, had a pleasing effect."

A rose is a rose is a rose...

Same volume (and crew) has the earliest example of Cheerly Men in the document record.

If the object of a good rowing, pump or capstan cadence is to "fool the hours" I'd say these folks here have got the general idea just fine.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 31 May 19 - 03:15 PM

Women should certainly sing "Blow the Winds Southerly"

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 28 May 19 - 08:16 PM

Last "GUEST" was me.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 28 May 19 - 08:01 PM

My point about the dates is simply that either or both songs may have been circulating in some form before their formal first publications - or their first publications to the best of our knowledge. I'm probably being pedantic, but, anyway ......

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 28 May 19 - 07:48 PM

Meself, for the 1825, 1828 dates, see above, May 23, 9:24 pm.

Admittedly it isn't clear that any rowers were singing. But the date makes the issue moot.

For the original printing of the 1829 song:
https://tinyurl.com/yxdus8us

C. F. Klinck, ed., Literary History of Canada (1976), vol. I, p. 182:

"It is not a translation of any known Gaelic song....There has been considerable debate about its authorship, but it was probably written by David Macbeth Moir as a result of letters sent to him by John Galt when he visited Canada in 1827."

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 28 May 19 - 02:53 PM

And still this thread remains...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 28 May 19 - 12:54 PM

"(in print in 1828), which leaves this one out."
"its first known appearance was indeed in Blackwood's in 1829"
??

But then, as someone once said: "was [it] in circulation before its apparent 1829 publication?"

"Try singing the super-literary 1829 "Canadian Boat-Song" while rowing" - The quotation from 1828 re: CBS doesn't suggested that anyone was rowing, if that is your implication(?).

Btw, I'm not sure why thecanadianencyclopedia.ca would be so insistent that the 'lone shieling' song would not be Canadian "even in implication", given that it is titled 'Canadian Boat Song' and is clearly set on the western side of the Atlantic.

Another btw: I don't have anything invested in either of these songs and I'm not trying to score any points; just curious as to the (im)possibilities.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 28 May 19 - 11:21 AM

Try singing the super-literary 1829 "Canadian Boat-Song" while rowing:

Listen to me, as when ye heard our father
Sing long ago the song of other shores—
Listen to me, and then in chorus gather
All your deep voices, as ye pull your oars:

CHORUS.
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas—
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides:

Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

We ne'er shall tread the fancy-haunted valley,
Where 'tween the dark hills creeps the small clear stream,
In arms around the patriarch banner rally,
Nor see the moon on royal tombstones gleam:

Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

When the bold kindred, in the time long-vanish'd,
Conquer'd the soil and fortified the keep,—
No seer foretold the children would be banish'd,
That a degenerate Lord might boast his sheep:

Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

Come foreign rage—let Discord burst in slaughter!
O then for clansman true, and stern claymore—
The hearts that would have given their blood like water,
Beat heavily beyond the Atlantic roar:

Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.



Anyway, the reported singing of a "CBS" upthread was in 1825 (in print in 1828), which leaves this one out.

The "Canadian" connection is that it was supposed to have been sung in Canada (in Gaelic) by Canadian-born Scots ("strapping fellows") rowing down the St. Lawrence.

Its authorship has been debated, but its first known appearance was indeed in Blackwood's in 1829.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 25 May 19 - 05:02 PM

"'Canadian Boat Song'. A song composed by the Irish poet Thomas Moore during a visit to Canada in 1804 - not to be confused with the 'Canadian Boat Song' known also as 'The Lone Shieling' (1829), which is not Canadian, even in implication, and is not a boat song, either."

And we don't which, if either, was being referred to (was the second in circulation before its apparent 1829 publication?) .....

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 May 19 - 03:47 PM

Should women sing chanties
Should women wear panties
You don't see coxswain, or bosun
Or yet a marine
Sporting lingerie in the rigging
Its never been seen.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 May 19 - 03:24 PM

The description above is a far cry from the Georgian slaves singing their embryonic chanties whilst rowing cargoes upriver at about the same period. Chalk and cheese.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 24 May 19 - 10:24 AM

"Canadian Boat Song" was a popular art song written and composed by Thomas Moore (1804).

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canadian-boat-song-emc

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 May 19 - 11:14 PM

Picky picky! (Good to see you participating, Greg!)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 23 May 19 - 10:04 PM

I wouldn't think that a "Canadian boat song" would be a chanty - more likely a French-Canadian 'voyageur' song (i.e., French-laguage songs associated with the paddling of trade canoes, in this case transferred to a sailing boat/ship) ... ?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 23 May 19 - 09:24 PM

Uh....oh:

"Saturday, 8th July—Mr. G—— who had lately come down from Leeds, having consented to return there with me, he and I embarked on board a batteau, for St. Nicholas's Mills. While sailing up the river, we were entertained with the simple melody of the Canadian boat song : the men sang a verse, or part of a verse, and were then followed by the females, who took up their part very readily; and their fine clear voices, keeping time with the motion of the oars, had a pleasing effect..."
[A Journal of a Voyage to Quebec in 1825, Finan, 1828, pp.138]

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 08 May 19 - 05:05 AM

Here's a good one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldm70tuiP_Q

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 May 19 - 07:57 PM

It's putting one's desire to have a thing ahead of the desire of the previous owner's. I see no reason not to *consider* the "rights" of both parties.

Don't be intrigued - be respectful. The observer who has no rights to the songs should leave them alone. For example, if an outsider decides to offer their own version of the Nightway, without the Navajo permission and without the background, venue, time of year, blessing, etc., they are doing harm. Whether YOU believe it or not, the practitioners of those beliefs believe it. This is cultural appropriation and it is really offensive to native people and their supporters. The most offensive of those borrowing these songs and rituals and artifacts are the faux-shaman crowd who give themselves Indian-sounding names and set up teepees in their Palm Springs yards to chant with their crystals and feathers, or do sweat lodge ceremonies, etc. All of this is bunco, Euramericans getting rich promoting pan-Indian "culture" and "religion."

Case in point, there is a YouTube link (that I won't post) that has a recording of part of the Navajo Nightway (probably made unofficially or in a clandestine way) playing behind a slideshow of Indian-themed paintings and objects. At the end it thanks "Navajo" (?), a doctor (professor?), and who knows what the last bit is. And in the remarks below, from a woman with a traditional Navajo last name of "Tsosie," is this plea:

I like to say something about our traditional way about all these Navaho's song's that are in U tube and every thing like sand painting and what we use for our ceremony. We are not allowed to do that. Our old, old medicine man's told us not to ever do that. This is no, no. I do not like this. Even our prayer songs are in U tube. My goodness!! People. No wonder the ceremony are not working for us anymore. Alot of our people are sick now day's. They just go to the hospital all the time. Enough is enough. No more of this. Respect your ceremony. please!!?

Chanteys are wide-ranging and secular. It's an entirely different discussion. When you're a scholar interested in Other cultures, you have to be very careful in how you address it and what you say about it. Chanteys are out there and women singing are fine - men who are offended by it today are posers.

---

For further reading look to a specialist in American Indian works, librarian Lisa Mitten and her excellent essay "I" is not for Indian is a good starting point.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Some other bloke whatever
Date: 07 May 19 - 11:08 AM

I am intrigued by the "Don't misrepresent our indigenous stuff" vs "free speech" analogy.

However, shanties as an important work tool on board ships possibly died out soon after Brunel worked out you could put large engines in ships. Fishing net hauling may have had a niche market for a while but the shanties of present knowledge do not represent a set of people living today.

So you see, misogyny isn't even an excuse for this poorly named thread nor some of the comments contained within.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 May 19 - 04:44 PM

Almost everyone who has sung chanties since WWII has sung them for entertainment, very occasionally for re-enactment. In the case of the former they are completely taken out of their original context and have become something else, no matter how they are 'dressed up'. They make damn good chorus songs especially when sung lustily although a few have been sung successfully in a much gentler style. To suggest that women can't sing in a lusty manner is patently wrong. Some certainly CAN.

What we perceive as choirs, those we see competing on TV, and in schools following very strict timing and in sweet voices certainly would not be suited to chanties, but those large untrained chanty crews we see occasionally at festivals, sometimes Dutch seamen, and fishermen's choirs, can and do make a good fist of it.

The opinion that SS and the BBC choir wouldn't get etc....is pretty irrelevant. SS was doing something he'd done naturally decades earlier and the rest was intended as entertainment.

I'm part of a 6-man group specialising in sea songs, waterways songs and chanties. We all have some experience of ships and sailing but we are under no delusions; we are singing for entertainment and education in heritage matters. Some of our chanties are accompanied, some unaccompanied, mostly sung with harmonies. At our chanty workshops we emphasize they wouldn't have been sung with harmonies or accompanied. We are not re-enactment.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 May 19 - 04:03 AM

"there is no reason at all why women should not sing them"
That's why the question is misleadingly worded - it should have beed CAN women sing them and do justice to them
Personally, I believe shanties sung by choirs sound daft
For vivid proof of this, seek out the BBC recording (made in the 1950s) of genuine shantyman, Stanly Slade singing 'Blow the Man Down' accompanied by the BBC Choir - wouldn't get a rowing boat across Sefton Park Lake !!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 05 May 19 - 03:19 AM

Very few people actually sing shanties now in any form that were it possible those who used to work to them would recognise them. So they have lost their "soul" as it were, they are no longer what they were made for. They have become a sort of poor relation and just dumped into some sort of sub-genre "songs of the sea". That being so they are simply songs and there is no reason at all why women should not sing them. But as Jim Carroll has often said about folk music and folk clubs. Anyone putting that label to their product should bear the responsibility and duty to ensure that the punters coming through the door get what is stated on the tin. Therefore anyone specifically calling themselves a Shanty Group/Choir should sing those shanties as they were originally sung, i.e. don't label yourself as one thing and deliver another.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 May 19 - 02:58 AM

Gibb Sahib - here I mostly agree with you.

For some reason Hugh Laurie singing the Blues immediately comes to mind..
Folks can guess my opinion on that...

I'm a product of late 1970s punk Rock against Racism, 2 Tone Ska,
and early 80s WOMAD..
I've developed my musical sensibilities over more than 40 years
of assimilating cultural cross fertilisation,
genre-bending, and more recent internet age enthusiastic loving mashup remixes.

Yes, by now music has become a free-for-all...
But the results can either enrich shared & willingly traded cultural activities,
or just be shit music made by untalented oafs...

For me the key words are 'sensitivity and respect' for the traditions of others.
But they are not absolutely sacrosact.. nor should they ever be...

There are 'world music' & 'Trad Folk' genres I adore,
but know I am not capable of performing well enough to do them justice
with any degree of authenticity,
or add any value from my own self indulgence...
However, I will appropriate stylistic elements from other cultures that engage me,
if I sincerely believe it will make my work more musically interesting...

For instance, I will raid East European & Klezmer styles,
I will be inspired by the instrumental studio FX sonics of Dub Reggae ...
My heart is in that, and for me those are fair game...

But I would not repeat the mistakes of those patronising white middle class diletante 'Tribal' & 'Celtic' dabblers
we know of and are embarrassed by...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,harpy
Date: 05 May 19 - 02:15 AM

Sea shanties are identified with male sailors in my mind but as a sailor from a wee babe on, I love to sing them. They do go with the movements of winching sails, that’s for sure.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 04 May 19 - 09:20 PM

McGrath,

"Though no sillier than any suggestion that anyone should be denied the right to sing any song."

Have you encountered instances where someone was being denied the *right* to sing a song? Or is that some kind of strawman or exaggeration?

A First Nations group (say) has a song that only they (in that group) have sung, and they say to outsiders "Please don't sing our song. (In fact, don't even record our song when we sing.)" An outsider says, "free speech! free country! I'm going to sing it anyway!" That person does have a legal right (unless the song is under copyright). They *may* have some kind of God-given (?) right, if that's your philosophy. But really, *should* they do it? Perhaps they should, perhaps they shouldn't. I don't think *that* question is silly. If the outsider does it with no consideration whatsoever, merely asserting his/her "right," it sounds to me rather entitled at best, an asshole at worst. It's putting one's desire to have a thing ahead of the desire of the previous owner's. I see no reason not to *consider* the "rights" of both parties. If it's found that the previous owner's claim to exclusivity is unreasonable, then so be it.

I'm reminded of the Anglo opium traders in China: "Free trade!" The dudes wanted their profits from illegal opium. So they assert this seemingly inarguable value of "free trade" as a bludgeon. Lucky for them they had a more powerful navy.

Are musical practices such generic objects... just a bunch of meaningless pitches and rhythms floating around... that everyone is equally entitled to everyone else's like oxygen molecules? Maybe, but I think that devalues them. If the pitches, rhythms, texts etc. are not bound in a relationship to those people which gave them a particular value, then what's the point of having them? Why not get one's own pitches and rhythms? I think the answer is that the creators created something powerful, and we want a piece of that power, the product of their work. If we want that, it seems only decent to consider their (the creators') terms before proceeding. Keywords: Consider and Should (not Can).

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 04 May 19 - 06:56 PM

I think my next cd might be all women, especially those of us who have sung maritime music for decades together..some shanties, some not. I think again it depends on who you are singing with..whom. if you have a squeaky little voice like me it won't work in a big and loud crowd so if i wanted to sing shanties i would either do it with a mike or i would enlist likeminded squeaks to sing with. not everyone has to do everything every time.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 03 May 19 - 10:31 PM

Yes, I have a strong opinion on this. Of course any woman who wants to should sing chanteys!

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 May 19 - 09:52 PM

What a silly question.

(Though no sillier than any suggestion that anyone should be denied the right to sing any song.)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 03 May 19 - 05:35 PM

The emphasis here should be on inclusive discussion - for fun, for the stimulation of thought, and for the sharing of knowledge. I, for one, welcome academic contribution.

Now, here's a little secret: if I start reading a long post and find I don't want to read it, why by golly, I just stop reading it and move on.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 May 19 - 03:35 PM

Do most of us agree the emphasis here should be on inclusive singing for fun...???

No-one should begrudge academics seriously analysing and debating the history
and traditions of the subject..

As long as they refrain from inapropriate elitist mystification and snobbery,
in such an informal music enthusiast's forum ....

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 May 19 - 12:31 PM

I guess I still just don't get it. We're talking singing for fun, no, not at work? Who actually cares about the shape of the folds of skin at the other end of the singer's torso?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Andy7
Date: 02 May 19 - 07:58 PM

:-) Whatever fortune brings ...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 02 May 19 - 07:54 PM

Gentlemen: I think we've found the next Melville.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Andy7
Date: 02 May 19 - 06:48 PM

"I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or universality."

This is a paradigm of a sentence so complex, and so crammed full of at times almost unintelligible words and phrases, each of which appears intended to convey some deep and meaningful relationship with each of the other almost unintelligible words and phrases contained within the sentence, that one might almost imagine, were one to be in the mood for such imaginings, that the philosophy at the core of such a sentence could possibly be quite as complex as the philosophy at the core of the deceptively simple question 'What is folk music', were anyone to ask such a question; unlikely though it incontestably is, that the asking of the aforementioned question would ever occur to those who contribute to a folk music website such as that within which we currently find ourselves.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 May 19 - 06:23 PM

"It's a whale, it's white; that may or may not make it more scary..
Some folks might not be too bothered how white it is,
but that 'orrible whiteness nearly made me brown myself...!!!"...

Shanties about big scary whales...???
might be some good un's anyone could sing if they want to...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 May 19 - 06:20 PM

The should never have been "should women sing shanties" but can they sing shanties and make them believable
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 May 19 - 05:06 PM

It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me...

I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or universality.

~Melville

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 May 19 - 02:19 PM

Sol - thank you.. life really is that simple...

no matter how over-complex some need to make it for their own advantage...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 02 May 19 - 02:03 PM

To me, a song is a song is a song.
It's for singing by all - full stop.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 01 May 19 - 04:18 PM

Product-Package-Consumer.

Here we go again. Change any one and you get a different answer. Which one are you?

If the producer & consumer are in a liberal arts program it's an audit for points. Do you what you need for lots of points from the producer.

If the pairing is a monthly folk club the entire dynamic changes. Classwork, homework, labwork & lectures are not fun.

There is no "one size fits all" in the free market.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 May 19 - 12:28 PM

"In the briefest way:"

.. hardly...

I think there may be 2 or 3 interesting points in there submerged under the academicese waffle..

At this point, yes it might be useful to reflect on the extent of Black sailors
in European military and merchant navies in the 18th cent...???

..and their influence on the form of shanties...?????

why not... it helps broaden and inform an educated perspective...

So, anyway, now in 2019 any women of any colour can sing shanties if they want to,
or not if they don't want to..
Whatever their reasons.
But it aint exactly going to make the real world of gender/race relations significantly better either way... is it...???

Just for the fun of it, here's Kathy Acker reimagining the shanty for her own reasons...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6E8HKuLLfI

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Someone else
Date: 01 May 19 - 02:56 AM

Should you be allowed to spell shanty Chanty?

Ignoring the outrageous proposition of the thread and how uncomfortable it is staring out of your screen whether you click on it or not, it is artistically limiting to the same degree as the inferred misogyny.

For the record, I reckon over the years I’ve sung about herring fishing, working in factories, mills, steelworks, farms and the office of a calico printer. Yet I don’t normally sing about mining. I leave that to those who unlike me aren’t ex miners. I’m sure ex soldiers would be bemused by my attempted empathy in war songs too.

Still, I’ve yet to start a shanty claiming I can sing it because I’m a bloke and I don’t black up to sing blues either.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Apr 19 - 08:29 PM

Hi, Wm,

In the briefest way:
Singular reinforcement of sailors/sailing ships as the site of chanty practice contributes/ has contributed to gendering chanty singing as particularly masculine *and* racializing it as particularly White. To the extent that masculinity and whiteness are attached to the idea of sailors, we tend to (usually inadvertently) reinforce those qualities when we endeavor to reinforce the sailor-ness of chanties. There is a paradox somewhere in there, in that chanties were certainly a tradition of sailors. It comes down to what is emphasized and what is neglected. What are we seeing and what are we not seeing, in the discourse that has come to shape our current perceptions of chanties?

While we have made progress with the latter (I think, because we have developed a better toolkit for discussing race), discussion of gender lags behind, remains more "invisible."

That gender and race also intersect can perhaps be illustrated by considering a question (to ask ourselves, rhetorically—not to be answered here): How many people, when envisioning a woman as a potential singer of chanties, were envisioning a White women? Were they envisioning a Black woman?

In this way, I consider the project of re-imagining the chanty genre an aid to gender and racial equality. In my opinion, it is a more deeply rooted sort of change that opens the space to women etc. performing chanties that, in the long game, can be more effective than simply asserting that "anyone should perform anything they want." The desired outcome (inclusion) may be the same, but the way of approaching it is different. More difficult, but I think more effective and long-lasting.

The examples I would most like to share are on the Cultural Equity website, which appears to be down presently. Perhaps in the future.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 10:30 PM

Re: Waulking-v-Shanty: Fulling songs

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jeri
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 09:21 PM

When the "discussion" stops being about the purported subject, and shifts into "But you said...no, I never said that, and 'Are these sentences short enough for you guys do get it now?'" (I think the "do" should actually be "to", but perhaps you were trying some "intellectual snobbery" that is beyond our plebeian understanding of language, it's time to walk away, because it's just another excuse to play "mine's bigger than yours". (For the record, I like smart people, but people who seem to be trying to prove they're really smart, not so much.) (And also, I think my first sentence is illegally long, but y'all are smart enough to follow it.)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Wm
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 09:16 PM

Gibb, can you elaborate on the ways folklorization created a gendered understanding of the genre and/or point to historical examples of women participating in the practice of the genre? Don't much doubt your conclusions, but would love to see how you reach them. Greatly enjoyed your book last year btw, and have recommended it heartily.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 08:29 PM

"I go on to say that my opinion that women should sing chanties
does not, however, derive from the bland position of "anyone should do whatever they want." That would be too easy.


Yeah.. why make life too easy...???

Answers submitted making concise points in plain English in less than 10000 words will be disqualified...

Additional marks will be awarded for gratuitous intellectual snobbery...


Now I remember why I packed in post grad ideology and media 30 years ago...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 08:11 PM

"So keeping those old barriers in place is your "intellectual" answer to this question? "

Please tell me where I said that. On the contrary, I said that I see no bar to women singing chanties.

"the thing that you've identified as the issue, but I digress), which I'm reading as "these songs used to be sung only by men"."

What I said was the opposite of that.

???

"Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Gibb Sahib - PM
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 05:13 AM

I don't think the chanty genre —pre-folklorization — was particularly gendered as male."

I go on to say that women participated in chanty singing.

And the implication is that, in term's of my personal opinion, women should sing chanties (or rather...shouldn't shouldn't sing chanties)

(Are these sentences short enough for you guys do get it now?)

I go on to say that my opinion that women should sing chanties does not, however, derive from the bland position of "anyone should do whatever they want." That would be too easy.

Rather, it derives from seeing that the chanty genre, as historically practiced, does *not* seem to have specified the importance of the singer being a particular gender.

And I make the side point that I think, if anything, the process of folklorization added male gendering. I'm not in favor of that; I'm observing that it happened.

Historical practice might not be relevant to one's opinion on this. However, people are evoking historical practice here, and I'm speaking to that. And I'm saying that historical practice does NOT suggest, in my opinion, any bar to women's participation.

I weighed in with that point because most of the points being made seemed to say that history says chanty singing IS gendered as particularly male, then they go on to either say 1. Screw history, we do what we want now or 2. Due to that history I'm not in favor of it. What I said is that this is not true (in my interpretation) of history.

What is the issue? That I'm also saying "Anybody should do anything" is not a very thoughtful or engaged response to the question of gender and performing traditions? Because yes, that's what I'm saying, and it comes from a perspective of studying music traditions where very much is at stake for the performers of those traditions and for the traditions themselves as people who feel entitled to do whatever they want newly adopted performing those traditions. "Can" isn't the same as "should" in ALL cases, so I'm not in favor of blanket statements about what people should do. Ultimately, as a modern, liberal Westerner, I side on the position of "let people do as they want." All I'm saying is that there is something valid to consider --at least a bit of self awareness is in order -- when one adopts the performance of a tradition that has had gender (or class, race, etc.) central to its meaning.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: olddude
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 07:44 PM

Nope truth hurts

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 07:36 PM

That is sooooo sexist!

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: olddude
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 06:25 PM

Women can do anything they want and usually five times better than us men

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 03:12 PM

If modern-day fishermen can sing chanties and earn a million quid contract with it, then anybody can.

Beam me up, Scotty!

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 02:46 PM

You don't need to advertise for a "lady folksinger" - just ask for a folksinger. You don't need to change it to "Josephine" - Jo will do. The songs that aren't gendered don't need to be gendered now for women to participate.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 01:06 PM

A new way to collect chanties ...haul away Josephine.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 01:02 PM

I'd be interested in meeting the first man who said that to Mary Read or Anne Bonny. LOL.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 12:30 PM

Wanted
lady folksinger to haul away Joe, when required

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 12:20 PM

hmmm.. shanties in large crewed intergalactic star ships...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 12:16 PM

Jeri - this is how 'Benign indifference' works for me..

I don't care what other folks do
as long as it's within reason and mostly legal,
and they don't restrict or harm others...

In a perfect post-feminist society,
folks should be able to do mixed gender, men or female only activities
as freely as they want, with whom they want...
It shouldn't bother anyone...

I've been hoping for that for over 40 years,
but obviously we aint got there yet.
Society is still too immature...

I've also been hoping for religions to pack up and disapear...

Just shows the extent of the power of hope, whatever "Star Wars" says...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jeri
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 12:01 PM

In a given case, gender dimension might be irrelevant or of low importance, yes.But to think about is not such a ridiculous thing!

"Gender Dimensionality as Applied to the Vocalization of Task Coordination on Ocean-Going Vessels" - there's your paper's title.

Which is what we're arguing about. Not the historically constructed gender dimensions (I'm thinking you should put the Thesaurus down and walk away, because your word choices are actually obfuscating the thing that you've identified as the issue, but I digress), which I'm reading as "these songs used to be sung only by men". Yes, it's about gender, but it's about gender because that's the ONLY factor the OP focused on. It's not the only bit of ex-status quo that's changed. It's conveniently, the one change that gives men, in general, license to sing.

And PFR, I applaud your non-discriminatorical apathy.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 11:39 AM

But I think it's disingenuous and anti-intellectual to ignore historically constructed gender dimensions. In a given case, gender dimension might be irrelevant or of low importance, yes. But to think about is not such a ridiculous thing! Please don't caricature the topic by bringing in silly non-issues.

So keeping those old barriers in place is your "intellectual" answer to this question?

Join us in the twenty-first century, Gibb, you'll find women doing lots of things they weren't doing as much in the era of sea chanteys. And let me suggest that the sophisticated response to women singing chanteys is to not wince and apply a mental asterisk *used to be sung by men when you hear such a performance.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 11:21 AM

"To immediately dismiss all discussion and simply proclaim that everybody may perform every thing...
I get it. It's your value: equality. Great, I believe in equality, too."

I'm making no big deal about equality..
My personal position is sheer indiffence..
I don't care who sings what...

Neither do I care why some others are bothered so much about keeping it men only...

There are far more important things in life to be concerned with...

If a singer engages my attention, I'll listen..
and it's enjoyable... that makes life a tiny bit more bearable for a few short moments...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jeri
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 11:21 AM

I was focusing on what Gibb was focusing on. And "sea-chanteys; i.e., work songs sung on board ships" aren't typically sung as work songs on board ships. Maybe there are people who do that, but most of us encounter the songs in other ways.

The main idea behind all of this who-should-sing-what stuff is that 1)things change, and 2)people resist change, 3)and then complain.

In this case, people don't sing work songs on ships like they used to, but the songs are good, and people like to sing. So the songs will continue, hopefully, with their history. After they why and the when and where are gone, what's left is who. I think THAT is why it's come down to gender.

Oh, and here's Norman Kennedy, Waulking

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 11:07 AM

Ah yes the charm of thin reedy voices, or Kate Rusbyesque gasping about how hellish it is handling sail, punching canvas, heaving and hauling away and pumping like mad-persons, well it wouldn't be like mad-men would it? It lends so much to the song, you could almost taste the tang of the salt-spray in the air as another goffer comes washing over the sharply tilted deck.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 11:00 AM

I still fail to grok how this is even a question.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 10:43 AM

Oh, come on. While I do think Gibb has gone off-track a bit, he is clearly addressing the issue raised in the original post, which he did not write, and pointing out that in his mind much of the discussion has nothing to do with that issue.

I think what Gib has (uncharacteristically) missed is that other possibilities related to 'authenticity' have come up as analogies, rather than as part and parcel of the same issue. Furthermore, I feel he has gone a bit far with the issue of 'genre': until his post, it was clear that everyone who used the term 'chanty' in its various permutations was talking about 'sea-chanteys; i.e., work songs sung on board ships.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jeri
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 10:21 AM

You focus on ONE thing that's not historically accurate. I wonder why it's gender, and not the purpose of shanties, the location where they're sung, and the reason they're sung. You go don't the list of things changed so the shanties can be sung, and you come up with gender.

I'm think it's the single thing the "He-Man Women Haters Club" can focus on that will let THEM keep singing.

We see you. (And we know whose problem it is.)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 07:59 AM

"Women did use songs or chants when doing certain work,such as waulking,"

But waulking songs aren't chanties. It's an unrelated genre. So at best you're saying that there is a precedent for women singing a song applied to work... yet what if that is gendered work? ("Should men sing waulking songs?") And what does it have to do with chanties?

"should young children with no experience of hauling sails, working capstans or consuming a drop of Nelson’s Blood be singing such songs?"
Do you have some feeling that chanty singing is exclusive of children? Where does this strawman come from that someone needs to work a capstan to sing a chanty? "Said literally no one ever."

The OP never said anything about people needing to have done something to sing a genre of song. Yet respondents time and again take it to that theme. Do you guys have some anxiety about that? And isn't that a broader topic, on the lines of an idea that one earns the right or gains the ability to interpret a song based on experience?

This all is so far off from the actual question. Look, music making / singing tends to have a gender dimension. Historically and globally, for instance, men have dominated in the playing of instruments. Men tend to dominate public spaces of music-making as well. Cultures assign normative genders to genres, instruments, venues, etc. Performers may mark gender boundaries in the society through their performances in exclusive gender groups. Performers, by gender, communicate or reinforce gender roles in society.

In short, something can often be observed about gender in relation to music. To immediately dismiss all discussion and simply proclaim that everybody may perform every thing... I get it. It's your value: equality. Great, I believe in equality, too. But I think it's disingenuous and anti-intellectual to ignore historically constructed gender dimensions. In a given case, gender dimension might be irrelevant or of low importance, yes. But to think about is not such a ridiculous thing! Please don't caricature the topic by bringing in silly non-issues.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 06:03 AM

I thought this thread had reached its end, but can I just say that the first shanties I ever sung were in primary school, and I don’t recall the girls in the class being excluded from those songs. That’s not quite true, because I was very good at miming whilst others sung in those days, but it also begs the question should young children with no experience of hauling sails, working capstans or consuming a drop of Nelson’s Blood be singing such songs?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 05:50 AM

Women did use songs or chants when doing certain work,such as waulking,
a communal task which was used in the making of tweed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waulking_song.
Googling waulking songs will find youtube videos of women singing the songs whilst doing the work.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 05:13 AM

I don't think the chanty genre —pre-folklorization — was particularly gendered as male.

Chanty can be recognized as a genre that spanned spaces, contexts, and applications. Only one of those spaces was the deck of the sailing ship. Only one of those applications was shipboard work. That particular context was dominated by male participants.

Women participated in singing chanties in other contexts. These included work applications, where the work was on land.

if you're limiting your view of chanties to at-sea labor, then I suggest that is influencing your perception of chanty singing being gendered as male. However, I think it's illogical to apply rules to a genre based on one narrow context of performance.

You'd be better off saying that songs sung in exclusively male spaces are gendered as male— which could also be questioned, but would make more sense than to let "chanties" stand as equivalent to "songs sung in exclusively male spaces."

For these reasons, I think many of the remarks in this thread have it backwards. They present the past/original as male-exclusive and then seek (or not) to rationalize how present can part from that. In reality, the past/original was not male-exclusive; it's later folkloric performers that project an idea of male-ness onto the genre.

I guess it stands to reason that if folkloric performers project male-ness onto genre, i.e. as one of its meaningful traits, then performance by women will disrupt that meaning. Some will respond, "Fine, let the meaning be disrupted," caring more for maintaining their gender-blindness. Some others will say, "Okay... let it be disrupted... but as long as you understand that you have changed the very thing. It's something else you're doing than what the thing really is."

It's up to the individual whether they deem male-ness as one of the meaningful traits that define chanty singing. What I am asserting is that during the pre-folklorized time, chanty-singing does not appear to have been gendered male in particular. Up to you whether you want to go on your personal perception (i.e. "I've always thought about it as X, due to Y...") or consider, more objectively, the meaningful traits of the genre among historical practitioners.

A far more pressing/relevant question for me would be: Should chanties be sung according to a fixed text?

However, I'd be curious to know whether and to what extent current performers might view their masculinity as something significantly meaningful to their engagement of the genre. Are you showing others your maleness when you perform? Are you getting in touch with your male identity? Are you building a male social space? etc. If it's just that you're male and your voice generally has a different timbre as a female's, then I don't think that makes the issue a gender one.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 02:48 AM

Most women don't sing chanties - perhaps I'll hear a few more this weekend at Sweeps.

I shall look forward to looking up the recommended bands who do. Thanks for that.

While reading the comments a very silly thought came into my head.
Life would have been so much better if the RN did sing chanties, and in a conflict the winner could have been decided by a sing off - rather than a shoot out. That would have saved more than hedgehogs.
FloraG

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Iains
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 03:19 AM

Hedgehogs would probably be safer line dancing rather than morris dancing-less chance of painful contact, and a Do-si-do would be out of the question

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 09:26 PM

I don't think hedgehogs should encouraged to sing shanties - morris dancing, fair enough.
However, the line must drawn somewhere.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 05:40 PM

I don't know about ghosts, but chanty singing was necessitated by having skeleton crews.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 05:07 PM

only if they are singing shanties that mention ghost ships

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 04:28 PM

What about ghosts... are they allowed to sing shanties...???

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 04:11 PM

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 11:55 AM

@Sandman
Are you suggsting that a trans woman isn't a "proper" woman?
Iam not suggesting anything , transgender people include women who have become men and men who have become women ,it is my opinion that anyone of any sex should be able to sing shanties, including people who have changed sex

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 02:26 PM

Well, in keeping with the thread drift: White Collar Holler

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 01:25 PM

'for working freelance in their underpants on an expensive....? Oops no, that's even worse!

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 01:07 PM

Jeri - and I tried editing that sentence around at least twice
to defeat that potential interpretation...

dammit.. mudcat wins again...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 12:41 PM

N E fule no, that's not really folk music. And why would you put underpants on an expensive Mac computer?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 12:37 PM

Jeri - let's not stop yet.. this game is fun...

Should middle class white folkies sing black prisoner chain-gang songs
but change the lyrics to reflect modern employment and pay conditions
for working freelance on an expensive Mac computer at home in their underpants...???

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 11:55 AM

@Sandman
Are you suggsting that a trans woman isn't a "proper" woman?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 10:52 AM

OF COURSE THEY SHOULD, why not? SO SHOULD TRANSGENDER PEOPLE.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 09:40 AM

I see this thread has now morphed into one for which people have a familiar script. Oh well, we haven't done "Political Correctness vs. Not Being a ___ist Jerk" one for a while.

Maybe the thread name should change?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 09:16 AM

I take your point, Al. I have in the past self-edited a song as it made reference to losing both legs which I - as the singer - thought was inappropriate. That doesn't mean I should demand that the origial version be 'cleaned up' and replaced with my edited one.
Whenever you sing a song, the likelihood of offending someone is always there. You could sing the Irish Rover and have one of the audience burst into tears because their dog had recently drowned. So, where do we stop? That's the big question. I think obviously a bit of decorum should be used when picking a set for a known venue and audience however, it's impossible to cover all the bases of sensitivity unless you want to restrict yourself to singing "Doh A Deer" and songs of that ilk.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 08:59 AM

Which is okay if you are intelligent and creative enough to tailor your folksong for the audience.

I can remember so many times when I screwed up with audiences. Its like Hemingway says, if you go to war often enough - you'll get killed.

When I was acountry singer - Its hard to love a man whose legs are bentan paralysed. And this bloke walks/stumbles in and across the floor with the bentest pair of legs you ever saw.

I remember , an agent sent me out with this music hall act - and theres this line in knees up mother brown! that goes, and if I catch you bending, I'll saw your legs right off!
Luckily I DID have the presence of mind to change it in a roomful of amputees - but i can think of some singers who are o'on automatic' and wouldn't.

its so easy to get the audience wrong - years ago, like in my twenties - i got asked to do this gig for the OAP's Christmas party. One discerning old chap, observed very loudly in my Jim Reeves medley - this bugger will have us dib dib dobbing next!

its as well someone publishes versions that won't anyone except folk song enthusiasts.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 08:22 AM

"The singer should decide the format of any song he or she delivers."
I think this is fair enough - to a point
As far as misogyny in songs went, we dealt with it in feature evenings such as 'Battle of the Sexes, where men and women singers countered each others songs with their opposites - it usually worked without giving offence - there are as many anti-men songs as there are genuine anti-women songs
As far as racist songs are concerned, I don't think this has ever ben a major problem - usually a change of word does the trick
It would be a pity to lose good songs because they reflected past prejudices - the folk usually managed to adapt older songs to changing values

Personally I find PC an offensive term - objecting to racism or misogyny should be a social issue (how you respond to your fellow human beings) rather than a political one.
In my opinion, the term is used by the prejudiced to excuse their own prejudices
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 08:07 AM

I agree with you 100%, Big Al. People will sing what they want and that is fine by me. My only concern is the 'they' part when talking about the new songbook editors. Who exactly are the 'they' who will have the power to decide what is pc or not? What 'they' think is offensive may be quite acceptable to others.
Imo,songs should be published as per the original (i.e. as written by the composer or as trad). The singer should decide the format of any song he or she delivers.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 06:09 AM

Already buried in folk clubs - hardly necessary burning them.

You mustn't resent the world taking folksongs and morris dancing on its own terms. The living people are the living component, who breathe life into the folk songs.

They will use the songs or not. Its their call how they use them.

We may dispute the wisdom of their choices, but twas ever so.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 05:13 AM

Why don't we burn all the books and old recordings and just pretend these songs never existed? I'd much rather we did that than try to sanitise them.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,PC or not to PC
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 01:23 AM

I am told by good authority - aka a good mate of mine on the folk scene - that there is a movement in the shanty / chanty scene to remove all aspects of sexism, racism, ageism, and indeed all 'isms' to appease the politically correct. In schools I can just about understand this; but why for adults? Shouldn't shanties be sung the way they were collected - in the rough so to speak?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: mg
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 11:01 PM

I think you can if you want, but if you have a soft voice, male or female, and are trying to lead a pack of loud voices, it will not be well received usually. If you have a pack of quiet voices, it does not matter..sing at will. Know the culture of the group and know where your voice fits..if it is a large group, let the leaders lead and shine somewhere else. Now, as to changing the gender/sex whatever the rule is, please try very hard not to do that. It is very annoying to me and I presume others. We expect one version and hear another. I think it never improves a song. At the very least say you have changed it. Also..man changes woman to man in song. next woman hears it and thinks i can't sing like a man and changes it to woman..on and on. song gets mangled.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 10:42 PM

Shanty sounds very much like shandy, which we all know is not very manly,
so therefore it's perfectly logical that it is actually men who shouldn't sing shanties...

right then, cleared that up...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 09:59 PM

I think some shanties are just good songs, quite independent of their origin.

I saw the Birmingham Rep do a version of Treasure Island, and they did Lowlands, quite beautifully in a sort of choral arrangement.

You can't limit or legislate the creative spark that a song ignite

Women, troupes of dancing kangaroos, The wombles, The Smurfs... they're all out there!

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 09:59 PM

Of course women should sing shanties! And so should chimps, dogs, parrots, etc....more fun for everyone. :)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 08:28 PM

"Who cares what other people think?"
Nor should you Jeri - any more than I do
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 07:24 PM

Producer-package-consumer... if the customers are buying it, who cares about the critics?

Rebecca W. Bates (1793-1881)
American Army of Two

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 05:12 PM

The "Folk Police" idea is ridiculous. I'll keep singing shanties, and not one thing will happen. Who cares what other people think?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 03:08 PM

Jim - arrest them... slap 'em in the Folk Gaol... and throw the keys away..

..just don't leave visible bruises when they get their lawyer's visit..

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 02:54 PM

Why is it always the 'singing Horse' bullies who complain about being bullied by 'folk police' - usually with insulting terms like 'folk police' ?
Insecure lot, aren't they !!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 02:31 PM

Folk Law Enforcement Agency.

Ruh-roh.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Iains
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 10:36 AM

The Peatbog Faeries performing Folk Police!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVV6OQpuHD4

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 10:26 AM

We still have a few Proper Chanty Singing Officers in our neighbourhood. We just call them PCSOs nowadays.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 09:22 AM

There is no limit to a a musician's creativity..
Accept that Heavy Metal and Electronica shanties exist
and are enjoyed by younger audiences,
who probably know eff all about folk clubs and folk law enforcement agencies...

Folk Police...???

Howabout...

Folk Special Constables..??

Folk Community Support Officers..???

Folk Traffic Wardens..????

If those are to formal and you don't fancy wearing the uniforms..

What about Folk Neighbourhood Watch..???

The Folk Militia...???


I quite fancy the option of Folk Vigelantes..
going dark and rogue like Batman..

... the Folk Caped Crusaders...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: IanW
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 09:22 AM

I remember going to a festival about 15 years ago and going to a maritime session. The chap running the festival nearly caused a riot when he said "If you want to sing put your name on this list, men that is"

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 09:11 AM

Performers who claim to reproduce historical situations as closely as possible must be measured by that ideal. If they restrict this claim to the acoustic result, they need not wear sailors' clothes or beards. However, if they use harmonies or other musical devices thta were unknown at the time they envisage (usually the time when the song was created), they may still make good music, but will fail their claim. The situation is similar to a picture restorer in an art museum who uses modern colours - a failure!

On the other hands, many shanties and other songs have never been sung in the situations they describe. In such cases, a really authentic performance may well include a piano, five-part harmony etc.; present-day audiences may prefer "fake authenticity" to "authentic fakes".

Have shanties ever been sung in the upper octave in genuine situations? I certainly think so, not only by those few women dressed as men, but by young boys, e.g. from orphanages. Some workhouses sent their boys to ships as a punishment, or sold them. Others were so bad that inmates deemed themselves happy to escape on a ship.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 07:42 AM

"I think there are 'trad ' folks in folk music who want the performers to adhere rigidly"
If there are, I don't think they have put an appearance in here
I think there is no greater evidnce of "folk policing than the use of the term "folk police" - it's a form of unnecessary insulting
None of this has anything to do with folk "authenticity" - it is a matter of communication
For me, normal women's voices singing about turning capstans and hauling mainsheets sound as ludicrous as hairy-arsed rugby players complaining about being stuck up the duff by blacksmiths - neither convince me
Women are as free to sing shanties as I am to say that, unless they develop their voices to the extent that they sound convincing , they end up sounding rather false
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 06:45 AM

I wonder how big and unnecessary obstacle it would be if a song had to be sung in it's original key? (I'm assuming the 'trad-policeman' mentioned above is demanding that all songs should be forever sung in the 'traditional' key of its composer).
Good luck with that one, Officer.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Anon
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 06:10 AM

I think there are 'trad ' folks in folk music who want the performers to adhere rigidly
to the original versions of the song. I've heard some folks disapproval of using harmony in traditional Irish music, b/c (supposedly) in all those centuries of Irish friends and family gathering to sing; no one added harmony to the song. I' m not even sure that's true, but there are folks who think that way. I remember once in a song circle, I led the song Candyman. I had a lot of rousing support with folks singing along ( and rewarding applause btw). However one member of the 'trad police' loudly announced his displeasure that I sang the song in the "wrong key" and that he had never heard it sung that way. His comment landed like a lead balloon in a more open minded group of musicians.

There seems to be almost a religious fervor with those who want to preserve the old style of folk music - as opposed to those of us who embrace the 'folk process' and just want to have fun.

The Johnson Girls , as mentioned by a previous poster, are a band of women I' ve heard in concert,
who bring a refreshing energy to Chanty music. However, glancing at their website, I see that even Pete Seeger voiced a compliment on their robust style that to me is at best a left handed compliment. "I didn't know women could sing that way " is how the old school gent put it.

Ah well, you gotta love Seeger, but after all, he is the one who tried to yank the cord out from Dylan's electric guitar.

Personally,I' m glad that Dylan decided to graduate from the old school.

Room for all, in my book, and if you only want to sing seas chantries as performed in a prior century - go ahead. Meanwhile, I love a good song anyway it's done - as long as it's done well- whether it's Ragoan Road by Mark Knopfler or a pristine melody by the Pennywhistlers or for that matter, Dylan 's uproarious Pretty Peggy O.

Sing on - and sing out , folks.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Ged Fox
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 04:16 AM

Were shanties sung in the fighting navies of nations other than Britain?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 09:09 PM

Joe Offer, the answer to your question, if someone else hasn't answered it and I've missed it, is Celeste Bernardo. She's on the bill for this June's Mystic Sea Music Festival, and you can read about her here.
http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_32175439/exhibit-citys-heritage

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 05:07 PM

Interesting implication that Royal Navy ships sailed in worse storms than merchant navy ships. Maybe there was a difference in practice, but if so it was because of a difference in attitudes to the workforce and discipline etc. The "Royal Navy ships were better manned" argument scarcely holds water either, unless one assumes that prize crews, or decimated crews that had survived battles & scurvy, were allowed to sing shanties.

Well Jed just an observation but Merchant vessels are engaged in trade and tended to sail with cargoes from point A to point B. They also had smaller crews as they only have to sail the ship and the aim of the vessel owner was to maximise profit. Something like a Clipper had a crew of between 28 and 35 men. On the other hand Royal Navy men-of-war have to be manned so that the ship can be sailed and fought simultaneously. A typical 74-gun ship of the line (smaller than a clipper) had a compliment of 550 men. Men-of-war were also tasked completely differently, they had to remain at sea regardless of weather to maintain blockades of enemy ports and patrol. Only in extreme conditions would they run for shelter, even then frigates would be left on station to keep an eye on things. Merchant crews signed for each voyage, sailors in the Royal Navy signed on for the entire commission of the ship and that could be years. Common sense would tell you that under such circumstances a sailor in the Royal Navy would know his ship far better than a sailor in the merchant service as he spent more time in his ship and far longer at sea in it. No Shanties/Chanties sung in the Royal Navy to work the ship - they weren't needed.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 02:37 PM

Favourite Film quote from Man for All Seasons by Moore to Richard Rich who has betrayed him for the governorship of Wales
"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? - but Wales !!!!"
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 01:45 PM

Jim - However, folkies have such immense disdain
for the programmers who invented "Autotune"...???

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 01:38 PM

"Thus dispelling the dominant stereotype about the Welsh..."
Common Liverpool saying
"The person who persuaded the Welsh they could sing did the world a great disservice"
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 01:34 PM

Stilly - don't I know it..

My mrs has a limitless memory for lyrics, and boundless enthusiasm for singing..

Unfortunately her voice is completely tuneless...

Thus dispelling the dominant stereotype about the Welsh...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 01:28 PM

Jumping to the bottom here - what a silly question! Women can sing anything they want! /rant off

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 01:20 PM

"What I do find incongruous are chanties accompanied by guitar."

Well, I would think they are only congruous if they are being sung by seaman on deck for the appropriate tasks, or, possibly, by former seamen who did those tasks singing them for collectors. Once they become entertainment only, anything goes, as far as I'm concerned - as long as some outlandish claim of authenticity is not being made - but even then, that's showbiz, isn't it?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 10:00 AM

"Photo for Jim"
She could haul my topsail up the mast anytime, shanty or not !
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 09:36 AM

Photo for Jim

"[female]Cadets douse the sales aboard the USCGC Eagle, during the Grand Parade of Sail in Boston. The USCGC Eagle, “America’s Tall Ship, ..."
https://images.app.goo.gl/1FrTfPWBGzYnYEdX7 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What I do find incongruous are chanties accompanied by guitar.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Ged Fox
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 09:12 AM

"If by British Navy you are referring to the Merchant Service then singing of shanties was not banned.

If you are referring to the Royal Navy then there was never any need to sing shanties to work the ship as all work was undertaken to direct order or by pipes on a bosun's call that would always be heard in action or in a storm whereas a voice would not."

Interesting implication that Royal Navy ships sailed in worse storms than merchant navy ships. Maybe there was a difference in practice, but if so it was because of a difference in attitudes to the workforce and discipline etc. The "Royal Navy ships were better manned" argument scarcely holds water either, unless one assumes that prize crews, or decimated crews that had survived battles & scurvy, were allowed to sing shanties.

Not that it matters in respect of folk clubs where, inevitably, it is far more common to hear pshanties, i.e. barber-shop shanties, rather than work songs.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 05:56 AM

To open another item of contention, when singing a song related to gender, should the gender be changed to suit the singer of the song? For example, I've heard the Beatles "This Boy" being sung by a female as "This Girl". It just didn't sound right. She'd been better just singing "this boy" or better still, chosen another song. The Teddy Bears "To know him is to love him" is one song that is easily adaptable by changing "him" to "you". Imo, it's one of the few 'gender' songs where a change works (albeit it's to the second person).

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 05:33 AM

On cowboy songs: a building firm we once misguidedly employed were so bad we addressed letters to them at 'the old corral'. Cowboys for sure.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Mo the caller
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 05:13 AM

meself said
"Surely it's a matter of personal taste - should formal, ('white') church-y choirs sing five-part-harmony arrangements of folk songs? That sort of thing doesn't appeal to me in the least - but I'm not going to say they shouldn't do it: let them have their fun. "
Our choir sings mostly classical music but in summer we include a couple of those un-folky arrangements from the "Oxford book of Folk Songs for Choirs". Fun?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Mo the caller
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 05:07 AM

My question is
Are there some shanties that MEN shouldn't sing. Some of the words are very misogynist.
When I hear a woman singing those I realise just how horrid they are and feel uncomfortable with it.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:33 PM

I love this Wurzels song . Some people say its a folk song.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zbtAxQdZcU

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:17 PM

... well ... this forum does get a bit dull when there's a long stretch when no one asks one of those questions that can't be asked ... !

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:02 PM

Seriously, how can this question even be asked?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Acorn4
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 02:59 PM

Last time we visited Ireland there was C and W on about half the radio stations we tuned into.

There are some male singers whose voices wouldn't suit shanties and some whose voices do.

Kate Rusby sounds great on her "deshantification" of Ranzo but can't imagine her doing "Chicken on a Raft"; She Shanties sound great on belting out what they do.

Horses for courses?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 02:58 PM

Same silliness here but calypso: A very uncomfortable question- perform other trads

My own experience with the so-called sail training genre has been limited to search and recovery. Opposite of fun.

Pretty much any persuasion can pull their share at nautically themed folk club singarounds. Just don't be a dick.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 12:26 PM

Bonz - depends.. I won't let my mrs do any cooking...

But she seems capable enough ironing her work clothes..

But that's all that gets ironed in our house...

I'm sure there are ironing songs..
I saw something on TV recently, women slapping clothes on a river bank while singing in time to the actions...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 12:20 PM

Should women iron shirts??????????????

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 11:42 AM

"but there are plenty of women who have jobs just as arduous as men"
Some most certainly do, but I doubt if any of them did the work associated with shanties - a few went to sea in disguise but they've got their own songs
I really wasn't going to make an issue of this - I feel the same about hairy fellers singing about being seduced by passing gentlemen - it raises problematical pictures somehow
I think, just as an East End Jack-the-Lad singing about his problems rounding up cattle, a little too far for me to make the link between the singer and the subject matter
I believe it's largely a tonal thing - the sound of most womens' voices acts contrary to what is being described in the songs
I was discussing this with Pat (my partner) earlier, and she pointed out that shanties make excellent exercises for but women and men to extend their tonal and musical ranges, but not for performance
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 11:40 AM

My mum still had to move and carry full milk churns in a cheese factory
while she was expecting me..

When I was litte, her impressive party piece was bending nails with her bare hands..

Now she's 87, she still impresses Drs with her resillience...

I don't reckon she'd have let down the rest of the crew if she'd sailed the 7 seas..

Though, that wasn't a job option in her younger days...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 11:21 AM

Shanties are work songs which I, as a manual worker, am able to associate with different jobs I have carried out in my working life, ...

Genteel ladies may spend their time arranging flowers in church but there are plenty of women who have jobs just as arduous as men. My mother worked in a biscuit factory and spent her time digging dough out of huge containers and loading it onto the work-belt while the men stood round in brown coats, supervising. Even stay-at-home housewives, in the days before automatic washing machines, cars and click & collect, had to lug heavy shopping home, wash and dry heavy laundry by hand and walk miles taking the children to and from school. They knew what hard work was from personal experience. Enough to justify singing chanties as any other landlubber.

DC

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 11:14 AM

"Because I'm from Scrumpyshire, I should only sing wurzle songs...???"
Why should you - they sound equally odd ?
Oooo -arrr ia as patronising as you can get
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 09:29 AM

"It's there for those who want to listen to it Al" - could have sworn I was talking about singing it
Moving to were we have means I can listen to good traditional music any night I wish by turning on the tele - radio and shuffle down the road a while to sit in on a session six nights a week (we really will have to sort Tuesdays out)
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 09:26 AM

Because I'm from Scrumpyshire, I should only sing wurzle songs...???

Even though the accent was educated out of me decades ago,
and I'd sound like a posh actor trying to do zummerzet yokel roles...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 09:17 AM

On the face of it, moving to Ireland to get away from Cowboy songs and country music - well it doesn't sound the greatest of moves.

I always loved Welsh and irish country singers - Johnny MacEvoy, Royston jones...

in fact I always thought Charlie Pride had a Welsh voice, despite him not coming from Wales.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 08:57 AM

I'm not a Paulist

the childisher the better!.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 08:53 AM

Me too - When I was a child I acted like a child - but wen I became a man I put aside childish things' Al
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 08:50 AM

I owned every cap gun Woolworths ever had on the toy counter. Including the Cisco kid one. In fact my mother quite unbidden sent for me a gun you could load with toy bullets, with labels from the Sugar Puffs packet.

yep!

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 08:15 AM

"Brits who like singing cowboy songs..."
That's always appeared a bit ridiculous to me too - as has while Londoners pretending to be on Chain Gangs
None of this means they shouldn't, of course - just my take on things.
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 07:59 AM

Jim - your personal view is a bit too restrictive for any Brits who like singing cowboy songs...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 06:37 AM

Chanteys in Royal Navy?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 06:10 AM

"Was/is singing sea shanties really banned on the ships of the British Navy? It seems an odd rule, especially on sailing ships where the rhythm helps a group of people to coordinate lowering or raising a heavy sail, for instance."

If by British Navy you are referring to the Merchant Service then singing of shanties was not banned.

If you are referring to the Royal Navy then there was never any need to sing shanties to work the ship as all work was undertaken to direct order or by pipes on a bosun's call that would always be heard in action or in a storm whereas a voice would not. The crew of a warship was always far greater in number than that of a Merchantman so working the ship was much easier.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 05:22 AM

Why not? Very few are actually sung now as Shanties/Chanties, they have just become "songs" to be performed as desired by the artist - little or no connection to what the songs were ever actually about. I was fortunate enough to listen to someone employed as a Shantyman on a sail training ship lead a shanty on a Square-rigger with the watch on deck working to it. It put the thing in context.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Iains
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:36 AM

I think Lesbians, Gays and transgenders should also sing shantys with gay abandon.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:29 AM

We had a guy used to sing often sea-shantys at our local folk club. He was a helicopter pilot.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:08 AM

"Have you ever sung a murder ballad, Jim?"
'Course' I have - I can identify easily with the emotions that are associated with those ballads
You don't sing murder ballads to explain how to kill
Shanties are work songs which I, as a manual worker, am able to associate with different jobs I have carried out in my working life, especially during the five years I spent serving an apprenticeship on ships
I am certainly not against women using unexplored areas of their voice - far to many breathy head voices for my taste, but I think there are far better ways of doing it than singing man's work songs - it seems an exercise in pointlessness to me
I have no problem with anybody singing what they choose but I do believe there needs to be a reason for singing certain songs
If women can associate with hauling canvas and turning capstans, more power to their elbows, but as an audience member, I would have a problem imagining them doing so
Jim

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:01 AM

Was/is singing sea shanties really banned on the ships of the British Navy? It seems an odd rule, especially on sailing ships where the rhythm helps a group of people to coordinate lowering or raising a heavy sail, for instance.

If we're to limit our songs to experience I will heretofore cautiously refrain from singing An Mhaighdean Mhara (or would if I could sing more than two lines any more without my voice collapsing).

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 03:41 AM

"I've picked up a dive mooring in the middle of a tropical storm turning into a hurricane when our anchor rode parted...."

I have no idea what any of that means.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 03:08 AM

I only sing songs I can identify with ...

Have you ever sung a murder ballad, Jim? Should we be worried when there is a suspicious death in your area?

My own repertoire would be pretty limited - there are not many songs about oil refineries.

If there is no objection to male librarians, accountants, teachers and the like, who seem to make up a fair proportion of the average folk club, singing chanties, then why should female chanty singers be frowned upon.

DC

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 02:43 AM

Can't see any reason why women can't sing shanties, on the other hand, I can't see any reason why they should want to
Shanties are work songs associated with specific jobs done entirely by men - it seems a little pretentious that women should want to sing them
I only sing songs I can identify with - that's what gives me pleasure
Whatever turns you on, I suppose
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: BobL
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 02:05 AM

FWIW, should agnostics, atheists or Jews be allowed to join in Sacred Harp singings? Outside of the Deep South, that is.

Songs are like children - once they leave home they live their own lives.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 01:49 AM

What's the name of the woman named Celeste who was chanteyranger before chanteyranger? She's now superintendent of a landlubber national park, but Peter Kasin still invites her to sing in San Francisco. She's a wonderful singer. I wonder if she has recordings.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Catamariner
Date: 24 Apr 19 - 12:40 AM

Um, woman with a strong baritone chest voice here. I sail, I fix boats, I've picked up a dive mooring in the middle of a tropical storm turning into a hurricane when our anchor rode parted, I'd damn well better be allowed to sing a chantey ;-)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 10:49 PM

And I did it again--left out the link! Here's the link I meant to include in my post.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7759x3sma4

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 10:46 PM

I enjoyed hearing the She Shanties at the above link.
Bonnie Milner of the Johnson Girls has been a teacher of the Sea Music classes at Mystic Seaport. Because I've taken the classes, I've had several conversations with her. She and the other Johnson Girls not only sing these songs, but they also know the history and origins of them I'll be seeing them perform on Saturday night, and earlier in the day I'll see Bonnie when the current Sea Music Class students give their final,performance.
Here's a fairly recent video of them singing in New Hampshire in late September, 2018. I like they way they created a medley of Ranzo songs with each of them taking the lead on one of those songs.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 05:05 PM

Why on earth or sea was this question even raised?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:51 PM

:)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Lester Gayley Moe
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:18 PM

Probably not as women can't really do anything right other than serving men and preparing food. They can actually do that pretty well, I'm chuffed whenever I see a pretty woman prepare food. I love it because thats their place. But as for shanties? Nah they're not capable of it. That takes balls, which women don't have.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 03:38 PM

I'll second the recommendation of the Johnson Girls. I didn't find a YouTube channel for them, but their audio page has some examples of their recordings.
The Johnson Girls, Joy Bennett, Alison Kelley, Bonnie Milner, and Deirdre Murtha, are a very Mudcat-friendly group. Only one of the four has not been registered as a member of Mudcat.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 03:16 PM

To the best of my knowledge these female sailors all followed their true loves into RN ships where chanties were forbidden anyway.

Another thumbs up for 'She Shanties'. Listened to a full album of theirs last autumn. Super stuff. Nice harmonies and some strong voices. Sadie and Ruth were always strong voiced but the others have come on greatly since I first heard them live.

The fact that only men sang them originally has no relevance. Practically the whole of the folk scene is based on re-invention and innovation. Any criticism would be double standards. (IMHO)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Acorn4
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 02:08 PM

But as we all know many of those bold sailors were women "dressed all in mans' array" in any case.

I rest my case!

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Vic Smith
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 01:17 PM

Should women sing chanties
Should anyone sing chanties?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 01:10 PM

'Perhaps if women chanty singers wore fake beards and prosthetic beer bellies...???'

Only ex public schoolboys have those sort of fantasies...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: meself
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 12:48 PM

Surely it's a matter of personal taste - should formal, ('white') church-y choirs sing five-part-harmony arrangements of folk songs? That sort of thing doesn't appeal to me in the least - but I'm not going to say they shouldn't do it: let them have their fun. Similarly, there are no doubt those horrible, primitive people who do not find female shanty-singing appealing; that shouldn't stop any female from singing sh/chanteys/ies.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 12:35 PM

'Farbs,' 'progressives' and 'stitch counters.' Oh MY!

The U.S. Navy started letting the ladies sing them way back in the nineteen and eighties. They do it just for the fun of it. You too may have the fun. Think of them as summer camp songs.

Is anybody actually doing so-called 'living history' with the shanty/chanty/chantey/fhanty these days? If so, avoid them like the plague, never mind the genders.

You shouldn't want to be involved in the latter for the same reasons white folks shouldn't want to act in the role of plantation slaves. It's not about you or now. It's about them & then.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 11:37 AM

Perhaps if women chanty singers wore fake beards and prosthetic beer bellies...???

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Mark
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 11:15 AM

Big Al said:
"not everybody who plays macbeth has to stab a member of the royal family in bed. "

Yeah, but it would make auditions more interesting and, arguably, perform a public service.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 11:14 AM

If you're trying to be "authentic", you shouldn't sing shanties if
-you aren't on a ship
-you aren't singing to coordinate work
-and you probably aren't sing reliably on pitch
-and the ship isn't a period-appropriate working vessel

If you can manage all that, and you happen to be a female ramblin' sailor, go for it. But "authentic" can go too far.

My actual philosophy on this is, if you allow giving a fuck about what other people think you should or shouldn't do stop you, you probably shouldn't sing them.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Lester
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 11:01 AM

I assume men are banned from singing Waulking Songs then
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekO8W0zSZO8

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 10:35 AM

No its like a speech from a play. not everybody who plays macbeth has to stab a member of the royal family in bed.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Mark
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 10:01 AM

I wonder if we need a spin-off thread, as I have something of an interest in the points "Thompson" raised above.

Quite a few years ago, a member of the band I was in suggested covering Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road". I was not comfortable with the idea - the gulf between the experience that Earle was discussing and ours seemed too big. The song seemed perhaps too specific and too personal.

Any thoughts?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Raedwulf
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 09:56 AM

"Why shouldn't women sing chanties" would be more to the point.

As eny fule knoe, chanties are work songs (well, originally they were!). They're intended to give a steady rhythm / tempo to a group task that requires repetitive co-ordinated effort. Is anyone trying to say that women never engaged in such work? So why shouldn't they sing them?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: mayomick
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 09:44 AM

The fact that they can’t do any physical damage when singing chanties should be the only thing that counts surely?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: NOMADMan
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 09:35 AM

Here's the Johnson Girls' website.

The Johnson Girls

John Mazza (NOMADMan)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 09:18 AM

Women shouldn't sing sea shanties as long as

* only working sailors are allowed to sing them
* nobody who does not live in Ireland is allowed to sing Irish music
* the Blues can only be sung by black Americans from the Deep South or New York
* traditional nursery rhymes rooted in 16th- and 17th-century England are verboten to anyone not living in that era in that place…

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: RTim
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 09:08 AM

Stupid question and I wondered whether I should even bother to answer.

The fact is many woman sing shanties and have for years - the best in the USA are The Johnson Girls -
See here - The Johnson Girls - Home

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 08:36 AM

You need to be sufficiently loud to lead a shanty - and not all women are.

But some are. A generalisation should not be turned into a restriction on a whole section of the population. Not all people can sing in tune or in time. Does this mean that nobody, men or women, should sing in public?

DC

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Daniel Kelly
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 07:59 AM

I've listened to and learnt shanties from some fantastic (and very loud) women singers. Of course women can and should sing whatever they feel like.

It isn't like someone is going to walk out on a shanty group performing because Gavin couldn't tie a bowline to save his life.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 07:49 AM

I think my prejudice arises from noisy pubs. You need to be sufficiently loud to lead a shanty - and not all women are.
FloraG.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 06:43 AM

Of course they should, as Buffy St Marie said,' it's only music, you can't break it '

Anyone should sing anything they feel like singing.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 06:04 AM

I dunno, but I do know that real men don't eat quiche...

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 05:05 AM

... and we're already suspending a lot of disbelief anyway, when it comes to songs and stories.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Johnny J
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 05:01 AM

To answer the original question seriously... Yes, why not?

Very few singers are left who have actually "lived" the life that sea shanties and bothy ballads etc relate, in any case.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:57 AM

I don't really have a problem with the narrator-persona being sung by someone of a different gender. Again, same goes for writing. A good song or story, well portrayed, can stand on its own merits. So can a good singer or writer.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:55 AM

Songs are for singing.
I really enjoyed the She Shanties in the link above.
As for suggesting women can't sing these types of songs, well 'blow the man down' who said it :)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:54 AM

Should fat old men who'd be no use on a real ship sing them?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:51 AM

"A lot of the songs composed by these singer song writer types, women and men, sound as if they were composed while they were sitting on the chanty".
:-)
A lot of them these days sound as though they're SINGING them "while sitting on the chanty".
Anyone can sing anything they want, as far as I am concerned.
There was a similar discussion years ago here in Aberdeen concerning women singing bothy ballads. Seems a bit academic now, since the major "Bothy Ballad" competition was won a few years ago by Shona Donaldson.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:48 AM

It's how they are sung rather than who sings them.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:44 AM

The answer is not quite as easy if the question is "Should performers sing songs in concerts (with admission fee) if they cannot act as the narrator?" They do it all the time, often with great success, but there are limits beyond which it may become ridiculous. Always ask yourself: Will the audience enjoy it, or otherwise at least learn something new?

On the other hand, most folk songs are "fake" in some sense, among these the most enjoyable ones.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Johnny J
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:37 AM

A lot of the songs composed by these singer song writer types, women and men, sound as if they were composed while they were sitting on the chanty.
:-)

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Erich
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 04:02 AM

Oh jes. "She Shanties"!! I like them, they are great and a lot of fun.
Keep singing, ladies.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 03:56 AM

I'm never happy with blanket judgments being made about what any pre-defined group of people "should" or "shouldn't" sing (or dance, or write). Especially since where you tend to hear shanties - usually in clubs/sessions/festivals/showcase events - is within a context of listening, not as hands-on crewing work.

Why on earth shouldn't people sing anything they like without courting disapproval?

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Acorn4
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 03:51 AM

There is an outfit called "She Shanties" who are doing an extremely good job of interpreting the songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TknOkXR7h7E

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 03:40 AM

If they want to. If you don't want to hear them, go somewhere else.

DC

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,Mark
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 03:40 AM

Quite possibly

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 03:34 AM

If my memory isn't failing me I seem to recall Chris Coe saying that her version of Shallow Brown has the Stan Hugill seal of approval.

Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 03:27 AM

yes anyone should sing whatever they feel like. thats how we arrive a folk music. it a very democratic process.

Subject: Should women sing chanties
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 23 Apr 19 - 02:43 AM

I think this is my last prejudice. I know they can sing them - but should they?
Anyone else got any strong opinions?
FloraG.