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 Knight (Child 112) for Carpenter.

If you’d like to sing this with me, listen to this recording with headphones on, then record yourself singing along to the choruses using your phone or some other device – your computer if it can keep your voice separate from mine. Then email your recording to me and if even a few people give this a shot, I’ll combine them into a “group” chorus and use them at an online shanty zoom. You can sing along and even hear yourself (if this all works 🙂 ).

Ready? Here’s my guide track: