Marching Inland: Discover Tom Lewis and His Shanty Legacy!

Hi, this is Will Keating and you're listening to Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.

Ship shape and Bristol Fashion. From even gorge to wonderful even all the line. Secure the barrels down below.Bind and tie and lash em this vessel, she is certified ship shape and Bristol Fashion.

Hello and welcome to episode 16 Steam. It's Oggy here and I'm a member of the Port of Bristol Shanty crew and it is my honor and privilege to bring you Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.I hope you guys are well and thank you very much for tuning in.On this month's episode we have our usual segment of the Signaler and Ash will give us a bit of an update of what we've been up to and more importantly, how you can find us in the future. We're going to pop down to the crew room and listen to the Reverend who's going to give us a bit of a background story to one of his favorite songs.And on this month's episode, we're gonna pop over to our special segment called Ahoy there matey. And we're gonna listen to what is actually the original Shanti podcast.The guys are called Press Gang Mutiny and they're over in that wonderful place that is Canada and they've given us a special segment to promote what they're up to and how you can get involved in their new album. That sounds amazing.And so one of the great things about the podcast of course is to to reach out to other Shanti cr, promote what they're up to as well as of course us. As I spoke to you last time about a newsletter that we've launched, I'd like to formally promote you engaging with that now.So what is the benefit of the newsletter?Well, the idea is, is that you can subscribe to our newsletter and hear about all the behind the scene news and catch up with what we're up to in your inbox. We know that a lot of you don't always use Facebook. We'd rather just read a newsletter.So if you'd like to take part in our newsletter and subscribe, then pop over to Shipsh. You'll get a notification in your inbox that you'd like to subscribe. And there we are. Job done.We will send you a newsletter once a month summarizing what's been on here, some behind the scenes content, and more importantly, a way to link in with all the different things that we're up to. And if that wasn't an incentive enough, then if you subscribe this month, we have a special gift from a company called the Bristol Dry Gin Company.It's a local company to us and they, they sell the most amazing range of gin and rum which of course if you're a shanty lover, then you know all too well the pleasure that brings you. So if you subscribe, we will send you a special gift on behalf of the Bristol Dry Gin. Just look out for your inbox for that gift.So let's pop down to the Signal Layer and listen to Ash about the news of the Port of Bristol Shanty Crew.

Yo ho ho, shipmates. It's the signaller here with all the news and goings on in the Port of Bristol Shanty Crew. Well, shipmates, April was a relatively quiet month.There were a couple of gigs, one a private one for St. Monica's Nursing Home where the crew entertained the residents and exchange were provided a wonderful fish supper that I know they all enjoyed.The second gig was a more public one which was down at the Nova Scotia. It's become our resident residency, were there the second Sundays of most months and it was a pretty lively affair. The pub was, was pretty packed.We had a good turnout from the crew and again lots of support from Sam in his pub and his staff and we all had a great time. So whilst April might have been quiet, we move into May which is jam packed with goings on and shanty and all things of the sea.So as we speak, some of the crew are down at the Brixham Pirate Festival supporting our good friend Nobby who lives down there and all of the would be pirates at Brixham and I think they're doing three sets over the course of Saturday.Today the biggest event for us moves on into May on the 10th of 11th when the Bristol Real Ale and Sea Shanty Festival is, is being held at the Masonic hall in park street in Bristol. There are 15 groups singing on the Saturday and Sunday and 20 real owls for you to come and enjoy.It was a fantastic event last year and we've seen a reason why it shouldn't be the same. The Port of Bristol Shanty Crew are hosting it. We've got three rooms with shanties going on simultaneously and lots of beer for people to enjoy.So come on down, get yourself onto the website to get your tickets. It's www.aleshanty.co.uk you can pick your tickets up there and come along and join us for a brilliant time.We're going to have on the 10th and 11th of May we then have a private gig we the curious on 21 May for a corporate group. We're paying lots of money to our charity, which is fantastic.Then on the 24th of May on Saturday, it's the Porter's Head Shanty Festival, being held mainly in the hall in Woodhouse Pub, but also outside on the Marina. It's all day Saturday. There are a number of shanty bands singing, so come along and join us and hopefully the weather will be good.That's followed by the following Saturday by the Newport shanty festival on 31 May, and again a large numbers of shanty bands being hosted by Boise Bryn, who are good friends of ours. So all of this activity leads to some brilliant fundraising.I'm sure you'll be delighted to know that we're up to nearly 40, 43 and a half thousand pounds there we've raised over the three years for the Teenage Cancer Trust. And as well as festivals and local people liking what we do, we've also received some national acclaim for this podcast.So Justin Blackett's doing an amazing job keeping the podcast going and it was reviewed in the Radio Times who said that it was full of interesting characters as well as some mighty impressive singing.So well done, Justin, for keeping this going every month with all of the things you do with the live recordings and great to see you receive some recognition for it. Well done, Oggy. So that's it, Chipmates from the Signaler. Another busy month.We're all looking forward to it and hopefully we'll see you at one of these venues during the month of May. This is me signing off the Signaler and All the Best and keep singing. Bye bye.

Thanks, Ash. We've got so much to look forward to over the next month.Please do come and try and find us and if you see me, please do say hello and we'll make sure you feature on a future episode of the podcast.So let's now pop down to the crew room and listen to the Rev, who's got a bit of a background story to one of his songs that he really does like to sing.

Hi, everybody, it's Steve Hawkins, the Rev.And I'm just going to tell you a little bit about a guy called Tom Lewis who I really admire and one of his songs that, that I sing called Marching Inland. Now, some of you know I was shanghaied into Shanti singing by Nobby by Ian Dye and, uh, joined the Harry Brown Shantymen.And I thought, well, I better learn some songs. And one of the first ones I learned was in fact a Tom Lewis song. It was Marching Inland and I still sing it today. Tom Lewis is a fantastic character.He's a legend really, in the shanty world and beyond into the folk world. Interesting life.He was born in Belfast, I think it was 1943, but he soon moved over to Gloucester, not very far from us, and that's where he grew up. But at the age of 16, the law of the sea was calling to him and he left home and joined the Royal Navy as an engineering technician.But he didn't spend a lot of time sailing on the waves because he became a submariner and eventually becoming a chief petty officer. He first served in the submarines. Submariners are a breed apart, as you probably know. They tend to be fairly short for obvious reasons.Anyway, he first served down in Gosport and that's where he started singing in, in local folk clubs down there and started writing songs.And then up to Scotland, where he started another folk club in Dunfermline, where he started to become acquainted with the music of great folk singers like, I don't know, Ewan McCall, Alex Glasgow and from the other side of the pond, Tom Paxton. Anyway, he then, when he left the Navy, I think it was 1980, I'm pretty sure it was 1983.Him and his wife, they moved over to Canada where they stayed for about 30 years. Now, the Canadians, if you talk to them, will often say that he's a Canadian folk singer, but he's not. He's British through and through.And throughout his time over there, he continued to write songs and perform.He would often travel around in a motorhome, not just around Canada, but around Britain, around Australia and the United States, singing in folk clubs and pubs and concert halls. And he got a great reputation that way. I mean, the thing about Tom is he can't play an instrument.Well, a lot of shanty singers can play an instrument, which is why we. Why we sing with a. Without accompaniment most of the time.But he has a voice and an enthusiasm that conveys itself to the audience and he can really get a crowd going. Now, as I say this, one of the first songs I learned was his song Marching Inland.Now, some of you will have heard me say a bit about this it gigs, but I'll just remind you, that song was inspired by Homer's Odyssey, which I'm sure many of you have read, and of course it concerns the Adventures of Odysseus. Now, he had a pretty bad time sailing around with his crew and eventually landed back on the beach in, in Greece.And he basically said, well, bugger out for a game of Soldiers, I'm not going back to sea again. And to make sure he didn't, he started marching inland and a bit strange, but he decided to carry over his shoulder an anchor.And he thought to himself, well, when someone says what's that funny thing you got on your shoulder? Then I'd know that there'd be no temptation to go back to sea.Now as you can imagine, when Tom wrote this song he was looking for good rhymes and he couldn't find a good rhyme for Anchor. Now I know exactly what you're thinking, Tanker.But he ignored that obvious rhyme and instead he substituted an ordinary, which is nearly as bad, I suppose he substituted an oar or which he carried over his shoulder.And the, the chorus of the song says, you know I'm marching in land from the shore over me shoulder I'm carrying an oar when someone asks me what is that funny thing you've got? Then I know I'll never go to sea no more, no more Then I know I'll never go to sea no more. Now little story.One of the first times I ever sang that song was at the Upton Upon Severin Folk Festival. A great festival on the banks of the, of the Severn there.Not just Shanti Festival, folk and morris dancing by the way, I mean morris dancing, they had about, I don't know, 20 Morris sides there and it was very difficult to get around the town because the thing about morris dancers, I admire morris dancers, some of my best friends are morris dancers but once they start it's very hard to stop them. And with 20 odd sides dancing around you had to sort of weave your way through the streets to get anywhere.Mind you, there was one morris side there that, well, no one had the nerve to say, can you stop for a moment? They were actually very unusual.Instead of dressing the, in the, you know, traditional costumes with bells ran there and calves and all that, these were in fact basically Hell's angels, although I'm not sure if they were exactly Hell's angels but they were certainly a pretty tough looking bunch of motorcyclists all wearing leathers with patches all over them. And unusually they performed the traditional Morris dances.But instead of clashing sticks together they had parts of the exhaust system of Harley Davidson's and Holder gold Wakanda gold wings. In other motorbikes made a hell of a noise. But as I say, no one had the nerve to say would you know, would you mind calling down a bit and stopping.Anyway, my. The first gig we sang at was in a, a church hall in Upton and I went out on the. We went out on the stage.I was just preparing to, you know, sing Martian Inland. And it was only the third or fourth time I'd sung it in public. And I was sort of like, oh, my goodness me.I looked out and in the second row was Tom Lewis. And I gotta admit, I was a little bit nervous singing it in front of him, but I sang it as best I could.And afterwards he, he came up to me and he said, you know what he said, you sang that in a very different way to me. I think he was being kind at this point, but he said, I gotta tell you, I really enjoyed it. Thank you for singing it.So that's my little story about Tom Lewis and his marvelous song Marching Inland. Thanks very much, listeners. I'll tell. I might come back again if you want me to and tell you a few more stories about chances that I love.Bye for now.Knew the perfect way to cure your mold and air and if you pay attention his secret I will share to any seasick sailor he gives us advice for free if you feelin sea sit underneath the tree Cause I'm marching inland.

From the shore over my shoulder I'm carryin a oar when someone asks me what is that funny thing you got? Then I no one ever go to sea no more no more Then I no one ever go to sea no.

More Now Columbus he set sail to find out if the world was round he kept on sailing to the west, west, west wherever it might be until he ran aground he thought he found the Indies but he found the USA I know some navigators who can still.

Do that today so I'm marching inland from the shore over me shoulder I carry in an oar when someone asks me what is that funny thing you've got? Then I know I'll never go to sea no more, no more that all I know I'll never go to see.

No more Next up is a segment called Ahoy There Matey, which gives an opportunity for fellow shanty crews to promote what they're up to. And since we started this podcast, we are very aware that we weren't the first to generate a shanty podcast.Our friends across the pond in Canada already had one going, and we have come alongside them a few times just to kind of communicate and link up. And they are planning on coming on our podcast formally at some point for a bit of a collaboration.However, they've got a great project coming up and they're going to use this opportunity to promote what they're up to.

Ahoy there, matey.

Hi, everyone. My name is Stefan and I sing with Toronto's Shantymen press gang Mutiny. And thrilled to be here on Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.Big thanks to Justin and everyone at the Bristol Shanty Crew for having us on to tell you a little bit about us, a little bit about a really exciting project that we're working on.And in fact, what I'm going to do in just a moment is I'm going to turn this right over to an interview that we did on the creatively named Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, our CBC to your BBC. It was an interview that aired on a show called Fresh Air, which goes out province wide here in Ontario.And we got to talk to the host, Ismaila Alpha, all about Shanties and our new project Departure. But before we do that, I want to tell you a little bit about us. As I mentioned, off the top, we are based in Toronto, Canada.We are a quartet and we've been singing shanties for about a decade now. Well, as a group for about a decade. Some of us for longer than that. A couple of our guys grew up with choir backgrounds. I grew up singing in pubs.I'm an expat Morris dancer and I met one of our other guys sailing tall ships around the Great Lakes. So at least we can say we sort of came to Shanties honestly in that way. So our four members are James Mackay.He's also really our musical director and has been one of the real creative forces behind the new album.

It still sounds like something's like pitchy and I'm starting to think maybe it's the Rollie keyboard.

We have Richard Cott, the Velvet Foghorn.

Check, check.

Oh, that'll do it. There you go. I can hear myself now.

Then we have Tim Pyron. Tim and I actually met sailing tall ships. And Tim has turned carpentry and shipwright work and rigging into a career.

Most people just say rigging, but technically it's masting and rigging.

And as I mentioned, off the top, my name's Stefan. I'm the funniest, best looking and of course the best singer in the group.

Right.

So as I said, off the top, we're working on a new album. We were actually in the studio just last night doing our final day of tracking and we're well down the path in mixing now.I just stuck a little recorder on the floor. So here's what this sounded like.

Rolling up, rolling down we'll all get drunk in Tilbury town 24 hours to turn around and go rolling down the river.

But I did also say off the top that this project is one of our most. Well, it is our most ambitious to date.And that's because we're stepping outside of the a cappella comfort zone and bringing in instrumentation, sampling beats. We've got some great guest artists from the world of reggae, ska, blues and hip hop.So when that track actually gets released into the wild, it'll also have a little bit that sounds like this.

This bottle of broken promises Got me deep in emotions it got me roll it up, rolling down One more sip of this potion before this merry made.

Ocean and I' okay, so that's just a tease.

At the end of this segment, you'll hear a full track, our version of Holloway Joe featuring Lead Belly on guitar. That was a lot of fun to pull together.

So if that sounds interesting to you, and I hope it does, or maybe.

It will after you hear the interview, I have one small favor to ask. Look, making an album is expensive, particularly an album that's this complicated. And so we're doing a pre order and a fundraiser.There's lots of great goodies there, like limited edition vinyls. We've got T shirts which always seem to sell out signed editions of the album.

I don't think we can do the house concerts in the uk, but hey.

You know, if you want to pay.

Our airfare, fill your boots.

So head on over to pressgangmutiny.com and you'll find a link there that'll take you to everything you need to know. But I'll turn it over now to the interview that we did on the CBC on the show Fresh Air with Asmaila Alpha.

Here he is.

So do you remember sea shanties?

Once was a ship that put to sea. The name of the ship was a belly of tea.The winds blew up her bowed up turn below my billy boys blow soon may the wellerman come to bring us sugar and tea and rum. One day when the tonguein is done.

We'Ll take our leave and go. Soon may the wellerman come to bring.

Us sugar and tea and rum One day when the tongue in his gun.

Will take our leave and go.

You may remember in the early days of the COVID 19 pandemic, most of us were stuck at home for the most part, in many cases going a little stir crazy. Eventually. Now many people started spending time with others online.You remember the introduction of Zoom and FaceTime, meetings for work and just conversations with family.Well, for some, getting online to connect with others meant linking up on tick tock on that app, there is a feature called Duets where you can duet somebody else's video. Well, there were compounding duets that were happening, connecting people to sing sea shanties, as we just heard.Now, for the guys in Press Gang Mutiny, it was time to shine. That's a quartet of Toronto musicians who discover and perform sea shanties across Canada and the U.S.well, now the band is pushing to the future of the sea shanty with a new project called Departure. James Mackay and Stefan Reed are members of Press Gang Mutiny. I spoke with them earlier.

Good morning.

Great to have you in the studio. Let's start with you, Stefan. What exactly is a sea shanty, for those who don't know?

So a sea shanty is a call and response work song that would typically have been sung to accompany work on board a ship. And it was in many ways a technology to coordinate work on board of a boat. So if you can imagine, you've got these sailors from all over the world.Maybe they don't speak the same language and they have to, you know, hoist up a heavy sail or walk around a capston to bring up the anchor. So you had these songs that would coordinate when the effort would happen.And the songs have sort of, you know, traveled around the world and withstood the test of time because obviously they're not being sung in a work context anymore. So now they're part of a broader folk music type of tradition.

Yeah, there.

There are some examples that are, I think are very popular. Right.

Drunken Sailor, Blow the Man Down.

How did you two get into sea shanties, James?

Oh, good question. I was exposed to bits of sea shanties, both from my dad sort of singing little snippets of it growing up.And later on when I got into sort of Irish folk music, a bunch of the Irish groups like the Clancy Brothers or the Dubliners would incorporate some of the shanties into their repertoire.So I sort of grew up hearing it without really making the distinction that this came from sort of a different tradition, but that it got lumped into the. Into the sort of folk tradition. And Stefan came through to it through his. Through his dad as well.

Through my dad as well.

Yeah.

Who's been a folk singer for years and years. So I grew up with it.

Yeah.Now, the content is one thing, the style that it's done in, you know, there are just parts of it that I think for a lot of people who enjoy singing are just. They feel good, they're fun to do. What, in your opinion, makes for a good sea shanty? A Fun one to sing.

I mean, I like ones that have big, joiny, inny bits, obviously, relatively simple chord structure, so it's easy to harmonize, even if you don't know much about music.I like ones that have a bit of tempo to them, you know, probably singing it faster than you ever would have on an actual ship, but where you can sort of stomp your feet and clap your hands. Anything that gets other people singing qualifies for me as a great shanty.

What do you think, James?

Well, I think that's part of the nature of a shanty is it's accessible music, and it was meant for the purpose of people joining in. People who maybe were not particularly musical to begin with or, you know, the focal point wasn't really to sound pretty on the ship.It was to get a job done. So the very nature of the structure is for people to be able to join in.So I think that's why they're a popular kind of song to sing in a social setting.

What's interesting here to me as well is that I think when people hear an example of a sea shanty or hear the words sea shanty, our minds go straight to, for some reason, British sailors. Also, another area is to pirates, for some reason. But who were the actual creators of sea shanties?

Excellent question.

Yeah. And we've tried to track this down to the best of our ability.And over the course of the pandemic, we did a podcast where we talked to shanti singers from around the world.And one of the themes that came up is, yeah, this tradition goes way back further in terms of its origins than what was sort of written down at the tail end of the Age of Sail, when a lot of these songs were recorded. And the people who were recording that down were, you know, British, or there was a famous collector in Canada, Helen Crichton.And so they wrote these songs down from their own lens. And what they were seeing was British and American sailors singing these songs.But what we uncovered was there are deep Afro, Caribbean, probably African American, probably West African roots to these songs and connections to other work songs as well. So probably what was happening is sailors were picking up these songs from workers ashore. Those workers ashore were itinerant workers.They would be coming on the boats and bringing their songs with them. We went down to St.Vincent and the Grenadines back in October of 23, 22, 22, and spent time with the last real living shanty man in the world, who they were singing these songs for work as late as the 1970s. So these songs kind of came from all over.Their origins are probably a lot richer and deeper and more multi cultural cultural than most people might suspect.

I think that's so neat that you traveled to Grenadines and St. Vincent to meet Shanti's singers. Tell me about one or two of the singers you met.

Well, it sort of came out again during the Pandemic, which is when we spoke, I believe, the last time we started doing a podcast called the Shanty show. And we just kind of. We had this idea that why don't we just try to reach out to the who's who of the shanty world and sort of ask them questions and.And pick their brain and that kind of thing.And, you know, everyone was locked up at home and everyone at the end of each episode would say, you know, I hope one day we get to get together and sing and all that. And we got to chat with. With George Tall 12.

Frederick.

Yeah, he goes by the name Tall 12. Tall 12. And he's the. He holds the record for having caught the largest pilot whale in the town of barely in St. Vincent.He's very, very proud of that fact. And he's the last guy that really sang these songs. So, yeah, we got invited down to St. Vincent and the Grenadines to spend some time with him.So we jumped at the opportunity when finally we were able to travel. Yeah, so that's how that one sort of came about.

And to meet a sea shanty OG like that.

That's right.

Now that brings us to this new project, which I'm fascinated with. Tell me about the new project.

Yeah, we're pretty excited about it as well. So we had a couple things kind of collide and click together.The first was everything we were learning as we were going through the Shanty show and talking to people and realizing that there were these other musical potential connections to other styles of work songs, maybe other musical genres like blues or hip hop or reggae. And for years, James has been playing around with shanty remixes and putting beats and taking samples from old recordings and playing with that.And all of a sudden, as we were thinking about what we wanted to do next last year, it clicked into place to say, hang on a minute, there's an idea here. Why don't we bring together the sampling the beats, guest musicians from other genres, and see what shanties could be with that mix.You know, stay very true to the tradition of what they are, but really explore those interplays with different rhythms, different samples. Maybe having some hip hop laced into It. So, yeah, it was really fun for us to pull together.And some of the guests we got to play with as well were just wild. And it was great what they brought to the table.

That sounds like it must be a really cool experience to kind of work with different genres together and then kind of watch the walls drop between them as they kind of just become something that's undefined.

Yeah, it's interesting.A lot of what I do is sort of rooted in traditional music, but of course, traditional music started out as current music, as popular music and all that. So it's this funny sort of thing where you could continue to present traditional music as sort of like a historical recreation in a museum piece.And I think that's a very valid way of approaching it.And I appreciate people that focus on that exclusively, but if you don't bring in something different periodically, I think we lose the ability of keeping it kind of current and bringing it to a more sort of modern audience. So I think that's a fine. It's a fine line to sort of. To walk.And, I mean, we're so blessed in Toronto that there's so much incredible music around us. And, you know, myself, I've grown up listening to all kinds of music simultaneously. So in a way, it kind of made sense to make those.Those connections and sort of think, like, well, what if we got this artist? And, you know, I'd like to hear what they would have to bring to this genre and make it sort of a living tradition again.

Tell me about some of the guests in this project.

We had some incredible guests. We had the legendary reggae guitarist Carl Harvey, who plays with Toots in the Maytols.We had one of our favorite singers, former submariner, Navy Submariner, a guy named Tom Lewis, lived in Canada for a while, wrote these unbelievable songs that have kind of become part of the shanty tradition now.We had a local MC named Matt Somber, but I think my first favorite, if I could say that, at least experience in the studio, was with a guy called Sunray Grennon. He's the son of Winston Grennan, who invented that sort of classic reggae, one drop beat.

Okay.

And what we did with him was really cool. We took a song called Sally Racket, which sort of goes like little Sally Racket, haul him away, and a Jamaican folk song.Sunray is Jamaican Hillangully Ryder Hillangully. Melodically, very similar. Same call and response structure. And so we played around with. How could those songs sort of, you know, fit together?And then Sun Ray is just this Brilliant improvisational singer and emcee. And so he was just riffing and telling stories about his life and creating all these verses about his travels.And that just felt really true to what shanties actually would have been because, you know, you never knew how long the job on a ship would take.

Right.

So the shanty man's job was to improvise. And what would he improvise? His life. The owners, what was going on on the ship, the gossip, the girls in town.And here was Sun Ray, this guy who, you know, came from outside the shanty tradition, doing exactly what a shanty man would have been doing, but in his own unique way, it was. It was really fun.

That is so neat. How far are you through the project? Right now?

We're in the mixing process. Okay. Yeah. So we're hoping to get it wrapped up sort of by the end of this month.

Yeah.

So we're nearing the finish line.

When you think about where you started when the idea came to you, and you listen to what you've got right now, how do two things compare?

I have to admit here, I'm maybe the more traditional stick in the mud when it comes to this stuff. So when James first presented the project, at first I was a little resistant, and then I was trying to soft pedal it.Well, what if we mixed it in with more, you know, some instrumental stuff or some, you know, just pure a cappella stuff like we've normally done, but working on the project. And now we've performed it for the sort of, you know, start to finish for the first time. Last two weeks ago.And we'll do the same in May on the 22nd at Jerome Taberna to see now it's starting to click and for audiences to start to relate to it. We joke that it's our Dylan going electric moment, which maybe is a bit grandiose.But what we're trying to do is akin to what Ashley MacIsaac did with Cape Breton fiddle music in the 90s. To bring this element that is a bit surprising that maybe gives new entry points or access to audiences who otherwise wouldn't be interested in it.And yet it's just fully true to Cape Breton fiddle music.So to now hear that coming together and, you know, of course we're playing it for friends and family and to get the reactions we're getting has been, I think, really, really gratifying. And, James, I gotta say, publicly, I was wrong. Thank you.

We got it on tape, James.

We sample that. I think one of the best compliments I got was from Stefan's dad, Paul Reed, who's absolutely incredible folk singer.But after the first time we premiered one of those songs, he said, you know, I didn't think I would like that, but I did. So that was a huge compliment coming from Paul.

That was amazing. You know, sea shanties. So fun to listen to, so fun to sing. What you guys are doing with them is really cool. Why did they ever stop? What, What.What happened to sea shanties? I mean.

Good question. So, I mean, in a nutshell, steamboats came around in the late 1800s, and all of a sudden that's when the sort of.The collectors started writing this stuff down because they realized these songs are going to disappear because there's no function for them anymore.

Well, I gotta say, and here's what we gotta be precise, right? Cause these songs were also still being sung for work in various places in the world, like in St.Vincent and the Grenadines until the 1970s when the outboard motors came along and all of a sudden they didn't need it. So there's two sort of parallel things going on. One got a lot of attention and the other one didn't.

Yeah, and I just add to that too. In St. Vincent, the guys who were keeping these songs alive, they had modified the function of these songs.So it's no longer for, you know, these giant clipper ships or these deep water ships. They're in these rowboats, six guys in a canoe. And they're singing it for different purposes as well.So sometimes they would sing just to alert the people back on the shore that they had a catch and they needed people to help sort of, you know. So it's interesting, the shanties, they could really be modifiable. And they have been sort of in their whole. In their whole existence.

Well, it is great to have Press Gang Mutiny bringing sea shanties back. Thanks to both of you for coming in today.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, it's a pleasure.

That is James Mackay and Stefan Reed of Press Gang Mutiny. The band is performing some of the music from Departure, their new album they'll be performing on May 22nd at Drum Taberna.And apparently physical copies of the album will be available in June. So keep your eyes out for that.Here's one of the tunes that you might hear at the live performance and you'll definitely hear on the album, if you can get your hands on one in June. This is Holloway Joe.

When I was a little boy. So my mother told me to me.

When Halloween Jo, that if I did.

Not kiss the girls My lips would.

All grow moldy to me Way haul away where haul away Jo where haul away we're bound for better weather to me Where Haul away Where haul away.

Joe well first I met a Yankee girl and she was fat and lazy.

To me Way Halloween way Holloway Joe.

And then I met a nice Irish girl She damn near drove me crazy.

To me way hallway way hallway Jo Way Halloway we're bound for better weather Where Holloway where? Holloway Jo St. Patrick was a gentleman.

He came from decent people to me.

Way haul away Way haul away Joe.

He built a church in Dublin town and on it hoed a steeple to.

Me Way haul away Way haul away Joel Way haul away we're bound for better weather tonight Way haul away Way haul away Jo King Louis was the.

King King of France before the revolution but then he got his head cut.

Off his spoil is Constantine where all the way where all the way joy all the way Joe.

Love that. That's press gang mutiny with Halloway Joe. Can't wait to hear the full album. Album as mentioned, they'll be doing a show on May 22nd at Drum Taberna.

Ahoy there matey.

Well, that's it for this month's episode of Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.Please do pop over to the website shipshapepodcast.co.uk to find out more about this episode and of course a great way of subscribing to our newsletter. So you take care. I hope to see you at some point this month in one of our many events. And until next time, fair winds at following seas.

You shape and wrist old fashioned boys along the harbor side from even gorge two under four will even haul the line Secure the barrels down below Bind and tie and match em this vessel she is certifying shipshape and Bristol fashion.So haul away me laddy boys haul away you're free Haul me laddie boys and save a drink for me Haul away me laddie boys Haul away your free Haul away me laddie boys and save a drink for me.