Sally Brown – heaving shanties family

List of the Bound for the Sally Brown – heaving shanties family

  1. Sally Brown (A)
  2. Sally Brown (A2)
  3. Sally Brown (A – Stanley Slade version)
  4. Sally Brown (A – Dick Maitland version)

Interesting Facts about the Sally Brown – heaving shanties family

Sally Brown – heaving shanties family is another “roll” shanty, the most famous “Roll an’ Go!”, also known as “Sally Brown”, Sally Brown is the capstan shanty, as Stan Hugill mentions it is only one theme in this song, and it is – all about Sally and her daughter. As the author of “Shanties from The Seven Seas” mentioned – there existed many obscene verses, which accounts partly for the fact that popularity never waned! Those songs were always sung at the capstan.

The capstan was used on sailing ships. It was a vertical-axled rotating machine developed for use on sailing ships to multiply the pulling force of seamen when hauling ropes. The capstan was used for multiple pulling (heaving) jobs. However, raising the capstan was the heaviest job so the tempo was the slowest used on capstans. Below image of the capstan working on its sailors.

Man at capstan

On this occasion, I will show you this shanty, described by Stan Hugill in his “Shanties From the Seven Seas”. I hope it brings you closer to the notion of how they were used at the capstan. all video reconstructions tried to direct the listener to how they sounded in actual shipdeck action when sailors used it.

The above image displays sailors working at a capstan.

Short story of the Sally Brown – heaving shanties family

Worth mentioning Sally Brown (A) is the fact that most of the verses Stan Hugill has from my favored shantyman (due to his yelps), Harding Barabadaian the West Indian Seamen.

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.