A category called “Other Types of songs”, where not only odd or unusual types of shanties will appear, it is a place where you can find all songs which appear in books from the greatest collections and authors who give us knowledge about shanties.
Stevedores Chants as Other Types of songs …
First Important thing on the example of the most famous “stamp-‘n’-go shanty. The “Hieland Laddie”. On pages 141 and 142 of the “Shanties from the Seven Seas” by Stan Hugill, we can read about the version which comes from Nordhoff’s book. It calls actually not ‘Shanty’ only ‘chant’ – this is how Nordhoff described songs that used cotton stevedores.
Screw the cotton …
Screw the cotton for the 19th century, it was one of the most important parts of the economy, the cotton industry. This industry was based and built on international trade. America produced cotton abroad countries, around the world. It was only one way to move cotton cargo from one country to another; This way was the merchant ships (yes those sailing ships where shanties were used).
The first thing is that cotton ready for trade-in has the form of bales. To squeeze cotton into bales producers used a huge device powered by horses or humans, called a cotton press.
Cotton in bales form was transported to huge warehouses in ports, from those warehouses bales of cotton was loaded into ships by cotton stevedores or droghers, they were specialized groups organized in small gangs, what they do it have several stages of work, the last stage was packed as many as possible cotton bales into ships, the bales was squeezed inside loading bays, for this squeeze job was used cotton screws.
In this work was sang songs, those songs according to Nordhoff was called Chants, one of those songs Hieland Laddie (B) from Nordhofs book gives us Stan Hugill on page 141,142 of the first edition of “Shanties from the Seven Seas”. The Version is ‘screw’ the cotton song, which is actually not ‘Shanty’ only ‘chant’ – this how has Nordhoff described songs of cotton stevedores. This is one of the great examples, of why not every ‘work song’ is called ‘shanty’.
Shore Sea-Songs as Other Types of songs
It is another type of song, loosely coupled with shanties tradition, which is shore sea songs. A great example of those type of song is “The Powder Monkey”; this is the first song; from Stan Hugill’s “Shanties from the Seven Seas” (1st ed p 148) which is not shanty or forebitter; as Stan Hugill mentions itself it is a “shore sea-song”. Basically in this category; we can include all general songs used onshore in sailor Jack’s life; sometimes those songs give impressions to implement them as full-blooded shanties.
Index Of The Other Types of songs
- Across The Western Ocean ( 2 )
- Blow The Wind Southerly – Shore Song
- Brindisi Di Marinai
- Cialoma Di Li Tunnari
- De History Ob De World
- Heave Away – American Folk Song
- Hieland Laddie (B) – stevedores chant
- Lay Me Down – Folk Song
- Mainsail Haul – Sampson – Sea Song
- Roll The Wood-pile Down – Shore Song
- Shule Agra – Irish Folk Song
- The American Railway – Shore Song
- The Ghost of John James Christopher Benjamin Binns (Victorian Ditty)
- The Irish Emigrant – Irish Folk Song
- The Powder Monkey – Shore Sea-Song
- The Wild Miz-Zou-Rye (Alan Lomax) -River Song
- Timber Drogher’s Shanty
My private collection of books
Shantyman library – you will see descriptions and recommendations of positions worth diving into, true sources of knowledge about sea shanties. To gain knowledge about sea shanties is the main ultimate purpose of this library; every book in this library is somehow related to sea shanties and before mast songs.
More involvement in Traditional Sea Shanties
You can find this record here or directly listen below. If you want to discuss the record or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here.