Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents information about Stan Hugill and Harding who shared a number of shanties with him.One of these quotes includes a list of West Indian songs in Stan Hugill's 1961 book Shanties from the Seven Seas.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric, historical, and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Hugill and Harding for their folkloric legacies. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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This post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series on African Americans and West Indians chanties (shanties). Click the tags given below for previous posts and subsequent posts on this subject.
INFORMATION ABOUT STAN HUGILL AND ABOUT "HARDING THE BARBARIAN"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Hugill
"Stanley James Hugill (/'hju:ɡɪl/) (19 November 1906 – 13 May 1992)[1] was a British folk music performer, artist and sea music historian, known as the "Last Working Shantyman" and described as the "20th century guardian of the tradition".[1]
Biography
He was born in Hoylake, Cheshire, England,[2] to Henry James Hugill and Florence Mary Hugill (née Southwood). His sailing career started in 1922, and he retired to dry land in 1945.[2] He notably served as the shantyman on the Garthpool,[1] the last British commercial sailing ship (a "Limejuice Cape Horner"), on her last voyage which ended when she was wrecked on 11 November 1929 off the Cape Verde Islands.[1]
[…]
In the 1950s he also taught sailing skills (and sang sea shanties) on the sail-training ship Pamir but was not on its ill-fated last voyage.[1]
[…]
When laid up with a broken leg in the 1950s, he began to write down the shanties that he had learned at sea, eventually authoring several books and releasing several LPs of performances later in coordination with a Merseyside folk group called Stormalong John.[1] Although "shanty" is also spelled "chantey", Hugill used the former exclusively in his books.
[…]
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This is the earliest publishing date for this book.
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Excerpt #2
From http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/Hugi170.html
"Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas got this ["Roll Boys Roll” shanty] from his friend "Harding the Barbarian," a black sailor and shantyman from Barbados. Harding said it originated in the West Indies and was popular in ships which carried chequerboard crews. – SL"
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"Chequerboard crews" refers to sailing crews that were composed of Black sailors and White sailors.
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Excerpt #3
From http://www.tynefolk.uk/folk-articles-shanties-black-origins Sea Chanties...Black Origins
A look into the origins of these wonderful songs is long overdue.
by Jim Mageean [no publishing date given but copyright 2021]
..."Our greatest shanty collector Stan Hugill ascribed about 120 of the shanties from his 'bible''Shanties from the Seven Seas' (1961) to Black American and Caribbean origins. These were mostly collected from his West Indian informants Harding the Barbadian, Tobago Smith and 'Harry Lauder' from the Island of St. Lucia. He even tried to imitate the yelps and 'hitches' these black shantymen put into their singing of the shanties. Many of these had never appeared in a shanty collection before including 'ESSEQUIBO RIVER', ROLL,BOYS.ROLL' and 'WHERE AM I TO GO'. He also collected the great favourite South Sea Island shanty 'JOHN KANAKA' which he claimed was 'one of a body of Poynesian shanties'. Stan also made frequent reference to his experience of 'checkerboard crews' (one watch black and one author Frank Thomas Bullen who along with his friend W.F.Arnold wrote 'Songs of Sea Labour' in 1914watch white) where shanty-swapping must have occurred.
[...]
Sadly, apart from Hugill and Bullen, no other major British collector seems to acknowledge the black origins of some of the shanties they collected. Most seemed keen to promote them as part of an English folklore heritage. Consequently the revivals in shanty singing and folk singing that occurred in the 1920's and 1960's assumed this to be the case. With the new worldwide revival in interest in shanties that has begun it is important that we portray them as 'world music' with a multi-ethnic background with particular emphasis on the black origins of many of them."
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"Negro" spelled with a lower case "n" was the norm in the 19th century and early 20th century, but even then some people, especially Black people, considered the lack of a capitol letter for "Negro" to be offensive.
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"Bullen" is "Frank Thomas Bullen who along with his friend W.F.Arnold wrote 'Songs of Sea Labour' in 1914"...
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Excerpt #4
From https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=46147
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Huckleberry Hunting (Pumping Chantey)
Subject: RE: Rare' Carib. shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 02:01 PM
… "I did once read through Hugill with an eye to which shanties were from Harding, but I didn't keep a strict list. My goal at the time was to sketch a rough picture of the percentages of what chanteys came from where. Needless to say, that is impossible to say with any accuracy since as many people would disagree on the origins (or dismiss the effort as rather pointless). The number of course will also vary widely depending on what you count variations. For whatever it's worth though, here are some of my stats:
Total number of shanties, not including textual variants or little "sing outs," is about 181. Usually I counted each different tune as a different chantey. "Blow the Man Down" was counted as a single chantey, despite there being "Flying Fish" version, "Blackballer" version, etc.
Of these, 78 were of "Black" origin. Out of those 78, I filed 47 as Black American and 31 as Caribbean. Keep in mind that this also includes minstrel song types, which are difficult to distinguish from authentic African-American songs of the period. Also, the Caribbean number may seem low because many of the chantey, even if learned from Harding, seemed to originate in the Southern U.S., as minstrel songs, etc.
8 were "American," exclusive of "Black" or "Irish."
"All Others," an undifferentiated category, numbered 80.
I did not note which were "English" specifically, though that number was comparatively few. Moreover, many of these are forebitters that Hugill admitted into the collection on the criterium that he'd hear one person say they had been used as a capstan song. A contrary statement one could make is that they are all really "English," since it was Stan, an Englishman, who sang them!
Take those numbers with several teaspoons of salt.
Gibb"
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Subject: RE: 'Rare' Caribbean shanties of Hugill, etc
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 11:26 PM
There are 55 in total, at my count -- I may have missed some. So, a good third of the shanties in Hugill's text came from theses guys
From HARDING 'THE BARBARIAN' OF BARBADOS - 36 shanties:
Stormalong, John
'Way Stormalong John
Stormalong, Lads, Stormy
Sally Brown
Randy Dandy O!
High O, Come Roll Me Over
Where Am I to Go, M'Johnnies
Roll, Boys, Roll
The Codfish Shanty
Ranzo Ray (C)
Hilo, Come Down Below
Hello Somebody
Shallow Brown (B)
Can't Ye Hilo?
The Gal with the Blue Dress
Johnny Come Down the Backstay
Rise Me Up from Down Below
John Kanaka
Hooker John
Haul 'er Away (A)
Old Moke Pickin' on the Banjo
Gimme De Banjo
Haul Away, Boys, Haul Away
Walkalong, My Rosie
Coal Black Rose
Bunch o' Roses
'Way Me Susiana
Do Let Me Lone, Susan
Doodle Let Me Go
Sing Sally O (Mudder Dinah) (A)
Sing Sally O (B)
Round the Corner, Sally
Essequibo River
Alabama (John Cherokee)
Dan Dan
Hilonday
From "OLD SMITH" OF TOBAGO:
Lowlands Low
Walkalong You Sally Brown
Hilo Boys Hilo
Good Morning Ladies All (A)
Sing a Song, Blow Along (Dixie Land)
Tiddy High O
From HARRY LAUDER of ST. LUCIA:
Heave Away Boys, Heave Away (B)
Sister Susan (Shinbone Al)
Eki Dumah
Bulley In the Alley
From TRINIDAD, anonymous:
Roller Bowler
Miss Lucy Long
Miss Lucy Loo
From ST. LUCIA, anonymous:
Heave Away Boys, Heave Away (A)
WEST INDIES in general, anonymous:
Roll the Woodpile Down
Tommy's on the Tops'l yard
Haul 'er Away (B)
Good Morning Ladies All (B)
Won't Ye Go My Way?
If Hugill was writing his book in today's era of scholarship, Harding might be listed as a co-author!"
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