Bob Walser · Bob

Cott’n-Pack’n Song

One of the few cotton-screwing songs for which notation exists was sung by James Scott and published by Natalie Curtis Burlin (Hampton Series: Negro Folk Songs. New York and Boston: G. Schirmer, 1918 Vol 3 (of 4) pp 28-32). Please include the claps at the beginning of your recording, it makes assembling the final a lot easier.…

May Song

Here is the guide track for Dave Webber’s May Song. Pop on your headphones and sing along with this then email me an mp3 of your lovely voice. Please include the claps at the beginning – they make the mixdown easier, then just sing the choruses including the double chorus at the end. Melody .…

Johnson Girls

Years ago when I first heard this song on a recording at the Library of Congress my mind was blown: a whole world of shanties opened that I never knew existed! This opened the door for me to net hauling, cargo loading and other maritime worksong traditions that continued long past the age of sail…

Long Summer Day

Way back in 1935 “Long Summer Day” was sung by a group of men from Andros Island in the Bahamas for Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle (what a great name for someone collecting shanties!) and deposited in the Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folksong, now the American Folklife Center. (AFS…

Saucy Anna

William Fender sang this song for James Madison Carpenter in Barry Dock near Cardiff, Wales back in 1929. You can hear the field recording at the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library. Mr. Fender remains a mystery – other than his address “16 Sydenham Street” Carpenter didn’t record any other information. But this song is a gem!…

Ranzo

This version of Reuben Ranzo comes from the James Madison Carpenter Collection (surprise!). It was sung by Walter Ede in Edinburgh, Scotland. You can see Carpenter’s transcription and hear the field recording at the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library website here. Ede also sang Away Rio, Blow Ye Winds, Barbara Allen (Child 84) and The Baffled…

Shanties in the Carpenter Collection

From 1928 to 1935 James Madison Carpenter collected shanties, forebitters, sea songs, ballads, dreg songs and other folklore in the United States, England, Scotland and Wales. The maritime materials in this collection comprise some 650 songs and fragments – a truly astonishing corpus. Shanties documented by other collectors and scholars are well represented in the…

Published Shanties: Models

Publications devoted to Sea Shanties generally follow the format of folksong collections: One or two verses of musical notation with text underlay with additional text printed as stanzas. In many cases the notations are idealized or composite melodies from sources which are sometimes identified, sometimes not. Examples of this type include Bullen and Arnold, Colcord,…

Editorial Triage in the Digital Age

Editing is – and has always been – about choices. For any project an editor must decide both what to include/exclude and how to best present what is included. The same decisions are required in the Internet age, but digital resources may change both the available options and the tipping points for particular choices. The…

Imagining URLS

As a glance at any URL will tell you, unless you’re a computer with internet access, a “Universal Resource Locator” is nearly meaningless. Further, as IT standards continue to evolve no doubt even this seemingly bedrock spec will probably change. Further, far from “Universal”, URLs are only meaningful in specific, limited contexts: there are many…