A.L. Lloyd & Ewan MacColl - THE BLACKBALL LINE
£
16
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21
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Description
AN ULTRA RARE ORIGINAL 8 INCH LP
AND AN ORIGINAL FIRST PRESSING ON THE TOPIC RECORDS LABEL
A.L.LLOYD
EWAN MacCALL & CHORUS
ALF EDWARDS --- CONCERTINA
THE ALBUM IS CALLED
THE BLACKBALL LINE
The songs on this disc are either work songs - sea shanties - or diversionary songs - foc'sle songs or forebitters - sung during the evening dog watch,
when the men gathered round a squeeze-box in the foc'sle or, in fair weather, sat around the bitts or around the fore-hatch.
The great days of silor-singing were in the first two thirds of the nineteenth century, when the really fast ships were evolved. When " if the men don't sing right, the ship don't move right " was the axiom, and a good shanty-man was always sure of a job on a fast clipper.
Roughly, shanties are of three kinds ; capstan shanties, used for such jobs as weighing anchor ; halliard shanties for hoisting the heavy yards ;
short drag shanties for taking in slack or hauling on sheets and braces
Notes based on material supplied by A.L.LLOYD and EWEN MacCALL
THE TRACKS AND THE NOTES ARE :
SIDE ONE
1 / THE BLACKBALL LINE. - Ships of this line had a red swallow tail flag with a black ball in the middle.They ran from New York to Liverpool
2 / DO ME AMA. - Afoc'sle song.This version is a little fuller than those printed.
3 / REUBEN RANZO. - Ahalyard shanty.Ranzo is probably a corruption of Lorenzo,and refers to me from the Azores who shipped aboard whalers.
4 / THE HANDSOME CABIN BOY. - A 19th century broadside ballad,that remained a steady seller in fairs and back streets of provincial
towns for more than sixty years.
5 / A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. - A halliard shanty deriving from a mid nineteenth century minstrel song. " A Long Time Ago ".
SIDE TWO
1 / STORMALONG. - A shanty for manning the capstan or pumps.
2 / THE COAST OF PERU. - Is a song from the hey-day of Pacific spermwhaling ;betweeen the 1790's and the 1840's.
3 / THE GAUGER. - A gauger is an exciseman. This song dates from about 150 years ago, when liquor smuggling was going strong
on the South-East coast of Scotland.
4 / SALLY RACKET. - This version of the song probably comes from the ships running to the West Indies.
The tune resembles the Jamaican tune Mr. Ramgoat.
THIS IS THE ORIGINAL FIRST PRESSING ON THE TOPIC RECORDS LABEL
NUMBER MONO T.8
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