Subject: Lyr Req: Stan Hugill's Unpublished Shanties
From:
Lighter
Date: 09 Oct 04 - 09:03 PM
I posted this suggestion to another thread the other day, but now I think it should be separate.
As most Mudcat shanty singers know, Stan Hugill wrote in "Shanties from teh Seven Seas" that many of lyrics had to be "camouflaged" (Stan's word for "bowdlerized") before his publisher would print them, back in 1961. He turned the full texts over to folklorist G.Legman, however, in the expectation that Legman would publish them as part of his projected collection called "The Ballad Unexpurgated."
Legman died before he was able to finish his book.
Now there's a disturbing rumor circulating that Hugill's collection, which is/was one of the most significant folksong collections in English of the 20th century, has now disappeared or, in fact, never existed.
Hugill himself told me in 1988 that the manuscript was real. He'd compiled it at Legman's request so that "if we're all blown up by an atom bomb the songs will survive." Maybe he was too optimistic.
Legman stated in print several times that he'd promised to publish it. He did print two or three of Hugill's roughly thirty texts in the notes to Vance Randolph's bawdy folksong collection, "Blow the Candle Out" and "Roll Me in Your Arms," published by the University of Arkansas Press a dozen years ago.
Maybe John Mehlberg knows something about the manuscript's whereabouts or whether, like a big chunk of the Percy Manuscript, it wound up used for kindling.
Meanwhile - and here's where Mudcat comes in - Stan occasionally performed some of the bawdy shanties at late-night singalongs at Mystic Seaport and elsewhere. Any 'Catters who may have picked up lyrics from him in person can help posterity in a small way by posting what they remember.
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sj
