Month: May 2022

Joanna Colcord – Roll And Go – Songs of American Sailormen (1924)

Joanna Colcord – Roll And Go – Songs of American Sailormen

The book by Joanna Colcord – Roll And Go – Songs of American Sailormen is a cornerstone of the American heritage of the sea shanties. The author herself was born at sea. Her father Lincoln Colcord was a captain of a merchant fleet ship for over two decades. Joanna Colcord describes a huge amount of shanties not only from the musical point of view but also from the side of the work for which the shanties were used.

Colcord’s book is, next to William Doerflinger’s “Shantymen and Shantyboys” and the works of Frederick Pease Harlow, the most important authentic source of shanties and information on shanties.
An interesting fact for Polish fans of shanties is that Joanna Colcord’s book was one of the main source texts of the works, of one of the two most popular shanty bands in Poland: “Cztery Refy”. According to the story of Simon Spalding, in the 1980s, at the request of Jerzy Rogacki, Simon Spalding, using a photocopier (Xero), copied the work of Joanna C Colcord at the Mystic Seaport Museum, one for Jerzy Rogacki and the other for himself. Jerzy Rogacki received a parcel from “America”, containing a valuable photocopy of this wonderful book.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to the Roll And Go – Songs of American Sailormen

The Atlantic Monthly – July (1858)

Robert C. Leslie – A Waterbiography (1894)

Jerzy Wadowski – Piesni Spod żagli (1989)

Frederick J Davis; Ferris Tozer – Sailors’ songs or “chanties” (3rd edition 1906)

Frederick J Davis; Ferris Tozer – Sailors’ songs or “chanties” (3rd edition 1906)

There is hardly any collection of sea shanties that would not mention Sailors’ songs or “chanties” (3rd edition 1906) as a real source of shanties. Through Joanne C. Colcord, Stan Hugill, and many others, everyone respects this source, and the source is truly wonderful. If any of you are planning to gain this phenomenal position, please be careful, because of the earlier editions, the fewer shanties. So the first edition contains twenty-some sea shanties, and the third edition fifty. One of the main advantages of this collection is a sufficiently large number of stanzas for each song.
Note about the edition, why even bother? Well, the first edition of the Sailors’ Songs or “chanties” (3rd Edition) contains 24 sea shanties, the second 40, and the 3rd one 50, so there is a huge difference in the amount of the content.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to the Sailors’ songs or “chanties”

John Sampson – The Seven Seas Shanty Book (1927)

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 2 (1926)

The Atlantic Monthly – July (1858)

John Sampson – The Seven Seas Shanty Book (1927)

John Sampson – The Seven Seas Shanty Book

It was challenging for me, to buy John Sampson – The Seven Seas Shanty Book Shanty collection. This is because every time, when I type “The Seven Seas” part of the title in search engines, the display tones of results relate to the biggest book of Stan Hugill’s book “Shanties From The Seven Seas. Paradoxically, I know about this book from a reference list placed in Stan Hugill’s book. This book is a treasure, for any shanty enthusiasts. The book contains forty-two shanties and sea songs.

The great thing about this book is that each song contains a fair amount of verses (most books from this time, have only a few verses, and that’s it), For example, Shanty “Shenandoah” contains seven verses. It is worth noting each song has a very nice description. Each description gives us some information about the type of sea shanty, time where it is from, and so on. Overall, this rare book is worth any money to have it.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to The Seven Seas Shanty Book

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 1 (1921)

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 2 (1926)

Alex Anderson – Windjammer Yarns (1923)

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 2 (1926)

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 2

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 2 is one of the most recognized shanties collections ever. This is the second part. It was published in 1926. It is a continuation of the first part, after an additional five years of research, Richard Runciman Terry added another thirty-five shanties. Similar to the first part, along with sheet music for voice and pianoforte. The introduction and descriptions of shanties contain a huge amount of useful knowledge. This book is one of the many published during the so-called “Grand Hall shanty revival”. The descriptions contain a lot of important information, e.g. names of the seaman from whom the individual songs were obtained. This is a ‘must-have’ for every shanties enthusiast.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to The Richard Runciman Terry’s Book

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 1 (1921)

Alex Anderson – Windjammer Yarns (1923)

The Shell Book Of Sea Chanties (1952)

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 1 (1921)

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 1

Richard Runciman Terry – The Shanty Book Part 1 is one of the most recognized shanties collections ever. The first part of this fantastic collection was published in 1921 and built using an author’s great experience. It contains thirty shanties along with sheet music for voice and pianoforte. The introduction and descriptions of shanties contain a huge amount of useful knowledge. This book is one of the many published during the so-called “Grand Hall shanty revival”. The descriptions contain a lot of important information, e.g. names of the seaman from whom the individual songs were obtained. This is a ‘must-have’ for every shanties enthusiast.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to The Richard Runciman Terry’s Book

The Shell Book Of Sea Chanties (1952)

Alex Anderson – Windjammer Yarns (1923)

Clifford Beckett – Shanties And Forebitters (1914)

Alex Anderson – Windjammer Yarns (1923)

Alex Anderson – Windjammer Yarns

Alex Anderson – Windjammer Yarns is over two hundred fifty pages documentary report of the life of a sailor employed on sailing ships and steamboats in the 1880s. This is one of the few unique books that help us understand the realities of a sailor’s life. Captain Alex Anderson’s book includes several shanties along with sheet music.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to the Windjammer Yarns

Clifford Beckett – Shanties And Forebitters (1914)

Robert C Adams – On Board The Rocket (1879)

S. Taylor Harris – Six Sea Shanties (1925)

The Shell Book Of Sea Chanties (1952)

The Shell Book Of Sea Chanties – by The Shell Petroleum Company Limited (1952)

The first odd thing about this collection is that it does not have an author. This book is a collection of the sea shanties, printed by concern Shell. Only what we can find, is an editor of the book which is Hereward King. It is indeed an interesting collection. The collection is mentioned by Stan Hugill in his “Shanties From The Seven Seas”, and it has several unique versions of popular shanties. As mentioned previously, the shanties printed in this book (i.e. versions of those sea shanties), you can not find anywhere else.

Of course, the unique versions described may only be of interest, to someone interested in the footnotes and materials mentioned by Stan Hugill. What is also worth mentioning is the spectacular graphics of this book. Each illustration is a work of art and the print quality is second to none. Of course, if you are interested in any of the texts, contact me privately, I would be happy to share.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to The Shell Book Of Sea Chanties

Clifford Beckett – Shanties And Forebitters (1914)

Frederick Pease Harlow – The making of a sailor (1928)

Frederick Pease Harlow – Chanteying Aboard American Ships (1962)

Clifford Beckett – Shanties And Forebitters (1914)

Shanties And Forebitters

Clifford Beckett – Shanties And Forebitters (1914) is a collection of eight songs. The short introduction contains some interesting information, it is interesting, for example, that some of the sentences from this description sound identical (almost word for word) to the part of the introduction to one of R. R. Terry’s collections, written several years later. Noticeable is that this book is the first place where we can find the word “forebitter”. For Polish fans of shanties and “forebitters”, there are the original lyrics for the song “Chinese Sailor” sung by one of the two most popular shanty bands in Poland, the Old Bells.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to Clifford Beckett – Shanties And Forebitters

Robert C Adams – On Board The Rocket (1879)

S. Taylor Harris – Six Sea Shanties (1925)

Harpers Monthly Magazine (1882)

S. Taylor Harris – Six Sea Shanties (1925)

S. Taylor Harris – Six Sea Shanties

The full name of this book is: “Six Sea Shanties music / collected from the singing of SM Woodward and edited by AW Whitehead and S. Taylor Harris; and arranged for solo, unison chorus and pianoforte by S. Taylor Harris; with a foreword by John Goss “. It’s amazing how much we can learn from even the title, of this very rare and hard-to-get position. So we have the name of the shantymen, Mr. S. M. Woodward, the author, and the type of instrument for which the score was arranged.
Returning to the item, it contains six sea shanties, along with sheet music.

The introduction of Taylor Harris – Six Sea Shanties front page is also full of information that may be useful. It is worth mentioning that this item is (or should be) especially valuable for Polish shanty lovers, because here for the first time appeared in print, a well-known and popular shanty “hullabaloo-balay”, Polish title ” halabaluby lej “. The copy I bought, was the last copy available in the entire virtual world.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to the Six Sea Shanties

Gibb Schreffler – Boxing The Compass (2018)

The Chamber Journal (1869)

Richard Terry – Shanties With Descants (1921)

Robert C Adams – On Board The Rocket (1879)

Robert C Adams – On Board The Rocket

Robert C. Adams – On Board, The Rocket is precious for shanty lovers, aside from the great description of real life on a sailing ship, from an officer’s perspective. It contains one of the oldest collections of shanties. Robert C. Adams – On Board is the “must have” for anyone who wants to seriously gain real knowledge about life on board, and shanties. One of the curiosities is the text of the sea shanties “Tommy’s Gone To Hilo” This book is proof that the word “Hilo” is out of the question, and the original title is “Tommy’s Gone, A High Low”.

Do you want to be more involved?

You can find excellent records of sea shanties here. If you want to discuss this book or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or below post in the comment section.

Related to Robert C. Adams – On Board The Rocket

Frederick Pease Harlow – Chanteying Aboard American Ships (1962)

Halina Stefanowska – Rozspiewane Morze (1975)

Jim Mageean – Sail Away (2021)