Essequibo River 416417 317318

>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=jDq4C9_tHUI

This chantey is somewhat monotonous, so I thought I'd mix it up a bit... • Stan Hugill printed this one for the first time in SHANTIES FROM THE SEVEN SEAS (1961). He learned i, like many others, from his Barbadian friend Harding. HE writes: It is obviously of West Indian or Guiana origin and needed a Negro shantyman to do it justice, having its full compliment of yells and hitches (at several points in the text he talks about how Black singers, in his opinion, were best at executing vocal ornalments such as hitches, i.e. a type of break in the voice). Well, I haven't heard many of these yells and hitches in the recordings of this chantey that I've come across, ha. • At some point, this was done as a folkly skiffle-ish number (although I'm not sure by whom first), so it does have a bit of a recorded existence in that vein. The rhythm of the third solo of each verse tends to vary in each rendition; FWIW, I followed Hugill's notated rhythm. • Essequibo River seems to be related to both Mobile Bay and John Kanaka, other chanteys that can be attributed to the Caribbean. All of them have the unusual pattern of three phrases (most typical is 2 phrases) in a halyard chantey, where the third has some sort of singing-out/yell/yodel/etc. [It seems like most recorded versions repeat the third phrase, i.e. making 4 phrases total, probably in an unconscious effort to bring it more in line with the usual popular song format. So without Hugill's text, it is harder to make the connection to other chanteys.] • Compare: • Mobile Bay: • • Mobile Bay [286-288] (210-211) • John Kanaka: • • John Kanaka [288-289] (211-212) • Essequibo and John Kanaka both have more or less nonsense choruses. buddy-tana-na is similiar to john-kana-kana-ka. I imagine Somebody-o is just filler for words in a foreign language that the singer didnt understand! • I'm surprised that Hugill does not make the connection. • See the whole Shanties from the Seven Seas project, here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...

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