Behind-the-scenes rehearsal and Sea Shanty history with Nobby 🍆
This month we hear from the Crew during a rehearsal, and we hear from Nobby, who gives us a lesson on the history of shanty singing.
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Theme song provided by Kale A. Dean
Mentioned in this episode:
Nova Scotia
Transcript
I'm a member of The Port of Bristol Shanty Crew, and this podcast is all about covering what we get up to and how to find us in the future.
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:So hello and welcome to episode 10.
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:Well, can you believe it?
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:10 episodes of Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.
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:It seems right to thank you, the listeners, for coming along every single month and listening to us.
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:It is just been fantastic to provide you the audio and the experience and just an opportunity to get up close and personal to the crew of The Port of Bristol Shanty Crew.
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:So I hope you guys are well.
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:We would love to hear from you.
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:So if you have the time and the inclination, then please do pop over to our newly formatted website that hosts our podcast.
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:So if you pop over to pobshantycrew.co.uk/podcast, click on the podcast logo and you'll see a nice new, shiny new website that is for you, the listener, to navigate all the previous episodes, but also a great way to interact with the podcast itself.
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:So what are your options there?
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:Well, first and foremost, if you have an opportunity, please do click review if you would be so kind and leave us a review, that would be great.
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:It does help us be discovered in the world of podcasting and it doesn't take five seconds to do.
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:So just click a review episode or review the podcast, that would be great.
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:And also if you'd like to leave us a voice message, then we can add that to future episodes.
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:That's hugely beneficial if you just want to send us some well wishes or just some comments about the show or even just say what you really like about The Port of Bristol Shanty Crew.
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:But also if you are a listener of another Shanty Crew and you've got an event that you would like to promote, then this is also a great opportunity for to do that.
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:So on the website, you'll see in the bottom right hand corner a microphone, click on that, leave a message.
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:I'll do the editing and you'll feature in future episodes.
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:So like I said, do pop over to pobshantycrew.co.uk and forward slash podcast and of course you'll see everything there that you could possibly want as a podcast listener.
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:But of course pop over to the website, leave us a message.
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:It would be great to hear from you because I'm very aware that I'm just talking into nothing right now, but I'm hoping you are listening.
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:I'm certainly aware that you are because we are now just over 3000 downloads and so that makes me happy that someone is listening that isn't just me mum and the crew itself.
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:But we'd love to hear from you, so please do that.
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:That would be fantastic.
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:So on this month's episode, we've got a couple of treats.
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:The first one we're going to pop down to the crew room and listen to the crew rehearsing.
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:So it's something that you don't normally get to listen to or hear as a super fan of the Port of Bristol Shanty Crew.
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:But because we've had a quiet month, we wanted to provide you a little kind of behind the scenes look of what we get up to.
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:It's quite exclusive material, because there's a couple of songs in there that we've actually not included in our set list yet.
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:One of which sounds very familiar to the theme tune of this very podcast.
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:But also we have another treat for you, where we're going to carry on in the crew room, but going to pop down the other side, because I've been told that Nobby wants to have an audience with you guys, the listeners, and he's going to give us a little bit of a history lesson on two fundamental people within the history of Shanty singing.
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:And we all know Nobby is an expert when it comes to anything to do with Sea Shanty.
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:And so he's looking forward to delivering a little bit of a lesson to us.
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:So two little treats, and I hope you really do enjoy.
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:So, hello listeners, we are here at rehearsal.
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:We've lifted up the veil of secrecy that we have within the team.
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:The crew is all together taking part in getting ready for some gigs going ahead.
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:Now, we are in a wonderful church at Rev.
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:Yeah.
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:Good evening, how are you?
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:How are you doing?
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:Yeah, all good, thank you.
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:Tell us all about this place that we're here at rehearsal.
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:This place means a lot to me because it was here at Orphaned Parish Church, also known as Holy Trinity, with St Edmund and St Andrew, was where I was a curate, where I started off my ministerial career all those years ago.
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:And I was here for about nearly four years, lived in the parish, and obviously threw myself into everything here.
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:And this is a very, one of my spiritual homes, one that I look to a lot.
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:I've got a lovely painting on the wall at home.
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:Yeah.
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:Very nice, great.
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:We've got a few of the crew here.
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:Do you want to say hello, chaps?
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:Hello, hello.
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:I'd like to add to what the Rev said, because this place has got special memories for me as well.
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:Tell me about that.
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:On the 10th of July, 1982, I got married in this church.
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:Did you?
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:I didn't know that.
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:Yeah.
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:Look at that.
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:So not only Nobby getting married in this church, I should, myself as well.
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:Wow.
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:That is a special place.
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:It's a special place.
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:Shall I come here for a blessing, I wonder?
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:Well, we're going to now just do some rehearsal.
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:We've got a few gigs coming up in the next couple of weeks, so we're just getting ourselves ready for that.
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:So listen to some of the behind the scenes rehearsal of the crew.
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:So shall we just go through the ones that we can, just to make sure that we're matched fit for those, and that everybody remembers what they're supposed to be doing.
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:So make a change.
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:So Fish, do you want to start, because you're seconding with All For Me Grog.
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:On the second line.
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:Were we saying, so professional on the podcast up to this point?
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:Oh, I'll make it sound great.
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:Shall we try again?
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:And it's all for me grog, me jolly, jolly grog.
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:So it's all for me grog, me jolly, jolly grog.
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:And then we all come in on the all for me beer and tobacco.
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:First line, and then everybody comes in on the second line.
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:And double chorus at the end, and the last verse is the bed.
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:Gets put to bed.
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:Cool.
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:So, Ash isn't here, but he will be back from India on Saturday, right?
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:Yep.
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:So next up, this skipper.
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:An alternative plan for that.
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:Do you need that?
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:Because you've sung it so many times.
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:So, I'm still going to South Australia.
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:Okay.
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:So, we'll have another go then.
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:Just do the first and the last verse.
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:First and the last verse.
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:Hey, now you're confused.
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:Yeah, don't keep confusing me now.
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:I mean, do it.
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:I can't long.
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:So don't forget, in the last, when we repeat those last two lines, it's So, it's just a little pause between each one.
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:Superb.
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:Good, good, good.
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:Then, next on the list is.
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:Take me where it's warm and cosy.
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:Good.
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:Yeah.
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:Okay.
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:Sit down now.
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:And then...
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:Donkey riding.
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:So, we've got donkey riding, then Leifher, Johnny Leifher, and then Wild Rover.
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:And then, do you want to rehearse Pirate?
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:I don't mind.
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:Are we doing Wild Rover or Wellerman on Saturday?
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:Wild Rover or Goddang.
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:If you want to do Wellerman, I can fit that.
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:It's up to you, Bill.
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:See what the other responses are like.
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:Yeah.
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:I can do either one.
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:Okay.
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:Well, let's do...
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:We have to find a place to put Wellerman in though.
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:So it will fit in with the...
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:Instead of Wild Rover.
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:It's up to you.
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:I can put it in easy.
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:Let's do donkey riding for now anyway.
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:Johnnie Leaver.
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:Favorite wedding song.
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:I told him that at the wedding, at my son's wedding, I told him that.
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:We always have this one, I said.
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:He went, really?
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:If the age group of the audience, Wild Rover will go down better.
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:Because more people will know that.
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:Yeah.
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:I think you're joining in one and they'll all be pissed by them.
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:They're the basins.
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:Oh!
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:Yeah.
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:Okay.
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:I'll go Wild Rover.
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:I think that's an anthem that everybody will join in for.
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:And then Pirates.
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:Is everybody happy with Pirate?
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:Yeah.
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:I am.
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:Good.
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:Okay.
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:Cool.
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:So then we've covered everything on the set list.
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:There are a couple of songs that would be nice to sort of secure and tidy up tonight if we can.
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:I'd like to do Herbie Hunter if we can.
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:I'd like to do Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.
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:And I'd like to do the Viking Shanty thingy.
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:Good to be able to.
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:Right.
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:Should we do about Blow the Man Down?
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:Should we do that one next?
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:Could do a few.
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:You're pretty sure about that.
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:Nobby has invited us as an audience to listen to two influential women in the world of Shanty singing.
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:We're going to hear about Joanna Colcord and Cicely Fox-Smith.
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:This is a short podcast about two female Shanty collectors.
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:The first one being Joanna C.
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:Colcord, who was born aboard a sailing ship in the Southern Ocean.
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:And the late 1800s.
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:And the second one is about Stitesky Folk Smith, who was born in Lancashire.
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:Son of a barrister.
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:She traveled the world across the Canada and Vancouver and places like that.
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:And while she was there, started collecting sea shanties from old sailors.
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:And she did this around London as well.
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:In the London docks.
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:Some of the places she mentions are still there today.
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:Like the old Mahogany Bar in Wellclay Square.
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:But to add a sea cold card, cold cord, one of the first shanties that I learnt was.
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:For the crew to learn.
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:And that shanty was based on Boston, Boston Arbor.
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:And the other one that you could think of besides that is actually Boston Arbor.
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:And bearing in mind, this is Boston on the East Coast of America, sort of Maine, not Boston in Lincolnshire, which was more famous for tourism.
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:But John IC.
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:Calkard collected Sea Shanties from a wide source of semen that she met on ships when she was at sea, and around the bars and the fishing ports and docklands of Boston, New York.
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:From the forward in her book, Songs of the American Sailor Men, which was a publication that followed her first publication in 1914.
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:This one was published in 1934.
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:It says that John at Corcoran possesses a rich heritage of the sea, and is particularly fitted to bring together the great sea shanties of the old sailing days.
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:A descendant of five generations of seafaring New Englanders, she was born at sea on her father's ship of the Sad Sea Islands.
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:Most of her early life was spent at sea in the China trade.
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:It was on such ships as those which illustrate this edition that she first heard the shanty and caught the spirit and flavor of these grand old songs.
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:So it's got quite a lot of history attached to it, and she's got quite a massive collection.
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:The interesting thing is that some of them follow on from the English style as well, which you can find in Stan Hugil's book, Shanties of the Seven Seas.
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:Now, her love of shanties led to a collection of different types of shanties, like short drag shanties, halyard or shanties, windless or caps and folkshaw songs.
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:And folkshaw songs being those that were sung in times of leisure.
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:Folkshaw songs that go into Joanna M.
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:Colcord were actually done when the day's work was over, supper eaten and the mess pans put away in the pipes or teaks as the case might be, filled with strong plug tobacco came the sailors' time of leisure during the dog watch.
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:In the early evening, both weather or stowed away in sheltered spots when it was increment.
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:Singing, dancing and yarn spinning were then the order of the day.
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:An accordion, beloved of the sailor and hated for some unknown reason by every master mariner I ever knew, she says.
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:Happy the crowd that had a black sinner for he had a repertoire all of his own.
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:Songs popular with shore at their place in the evening concerts.
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:Sentimental songs for choice, but never the sailor songs so favored by amateurs ashore.
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:I never heard such a wet sheet and a flowing sea or bend backstays sent by sailors.
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:They are made uncomfortable by hearing others sing them.
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:That means that they were invented ashore by landlubbers basically, where the sailor song was more, a bit more raucous really.
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:And also on the American ships, patriotic ballads of early American history were highly prized in the Folk Song.
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:The most stirring of these goes by various names.
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:The Ranger, although the real air called by that name is quite different from the one to which sailors sang the words.
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:The Yankee Man O'War or the name under which my father used to sing it.
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:The Stately Southerner, which I think you might find in Stan Hugel's book, Seven Seas.
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:It recounts the exploit of John Paul Jones off the Irish coast in his privateer, The Ranger, which was fitted out in Portsmouth near New York in 1777, as he had no connection with the Spanish, with the South, that I've been able to discover.
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:I'm unable to state why she appeared in the song as the Stately Southerner.
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:There are other ones called like Parliament of England.
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:You know, they often came out in the American Civil War.
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:It was Yankee John Short of Wachick who worked on the ships running arms to the Americans.
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:As I imagine, that would be the northern states of America to fight those in the South in the Civil War, resulting in the battle at Gettysburg and things.
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:Another good song is the James Town and Homeward Bound.
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:And on the other hand, in England, Seafork Smith was busy collecting shanties.
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:And one of the early songs that I used to sing, which I didn't see well, we can't resurrect it with The Port of Bristol, is a song called Rio Grande.
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:Say, was you ever in Rio Grande?
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:Away!
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:I'll get three to the dinner music for it.
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:The air of the song is identical in early collections.
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:The words on the other hand, vary a good deal.
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:Sometimes the fishes was used to this tune, Pretty Maid.
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:Frank Bullock, another collector, gave it as, Oh Captain, Oh Captain, heaved your ship too, for I've got letters to send home to you.
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:The identity of the Rio Grande referred to some interesting speculation.
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:The reference to the rivers which run down golden sand, rather suggest the Mexican Rio Grande.
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:But the gold discoveries there were not made until the 60s, and the Shanty was known long before that date.
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:There seems then just a possibility that it may go back to the 18th century, when crowds of gold seekers were flocking to the south of Brazil, in which case, it must be one of the oldest of the Shanties.
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:And it is pronounced, as Stan Hugo would have said, Rio, not Rio.
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:Now, here's one.
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:I think Fish is famous for this.
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:Or such for the case, but I am inclined to doubt it.
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:The sentiment seems rather too high-falutin for age which had not developed tolerance to the pitch it was attained at the present day, or learned to win a war, only to make the enemy a free gift of the peace.
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:Boney was a warrior way out, a boney was a warrior, John Francois.
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:They had often used that expression, Francois.
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:I remember singing that going through a tunnel in breast.
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:Should be singing with a bit of a croaky throat, but still never mind.
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:We'll just jump back or onward now to Sea Fox Smith.
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:And a really nice little song, which is really one of her poems.
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:It wasn't written as a song.
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:It goes like this, it's called A Sea Bird.
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:And you repeat the song twice, tailed off the tune a bit there on the end, I'm afraid.
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:But you repeat the song twice.
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:It's only got three verses.
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:But it's rather a nice little song.
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:And you can imagine when Sea Fox Smith was going around the Millwall docks and then down the other highways and places like that, listening to these songs coming out from the local pub or two.
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:And that's a fact.
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:At the Museum of the East End, there is one of these mock-up sort of streets.
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:And some of the music coming out of the local pub is like the old Sea Shanties.
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:All very dimly lit, and you can imagine what it would have smelt like and what it would have sounded like really.
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:So, forever up in London Way, and you go to the Museum of the East End, you know, the docks, well worth a visit.
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:It's a nice little area to walk around, actually.
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:And if you know of Seafork Smith's poetry, or you know some of these Sea Shanties, they do come to mind at the time.
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:I really, really enjoy it, if I go up there.
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:Well, that was due for now, I think.
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:I'll get my, my accomplice here, who's recording this, because I've got no technical ability, erm, to the next podcast.
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:Well, that's it for this month's edition of Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.
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:Like I said before, please do pop over to our website and leave us a review.
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:I hope you've really enjoyed this month's content, not only listening to us rehearsing, not getting it quite right every single time, but a really informative lesson by Nobby.
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:And he promises there's more of that to come.
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:So please do let us know if you did enjoy that content, because that will just spare him on to produce some more content.
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:And of course we're very thankful for his partner, who did a lot of the technical recording for him.
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:So that's it.
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:Fair winds and following seas.
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:And we'll see you next month for Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.
