Ooooh.... turns out this call-and-response thing in sea shanties *came from* the African style... and it was picked up mostly by *American merchies*, not British men'o'war. (British fighting ships were by rule no-talking zones during an evolution, so that orders could be heard... instead of a shanty, the bosun would play his pipe, or a fife or fiddle would be used to keep the beat, but no singing.) *reads further* Aha. While the sailors were free men, the *stevedores* often were not... and there's where the songs jumped the gap. The capstan shanty, in particular, was derived from the stevedores using huge jackscrew capstans to stuff the cotton their brothers and sisters had harvested into the holds.
The age of steam killed the shantyman's job (and much of the music onboard ship), but the old tars weren't going down lightly, and set about preserving their music; to this day, the old shanties can be heard along many a waterfront (including Seattle's Center for Wooden Boats, a supremely appropriate venue).
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dancing_serpent
Re: Well ...
Date: 2018-01-18 11:09 pm (UTC)The age of steam killed the shantyman's job (and much of the music onboard ship), but the old tars weren't going down lightly, and set about preserving their music; to this day, the old shanties can be heard along many a waterfront (including Seattle's Center for Wooden Boats, a supremely appropriate venue).