Sea Chanties

So yesterday I posted Ewan MacColl singing about Nancy Whiskey; which led a Facebook friend to start singing it; which led her son, to point out that the video game Assassin’s Creed 4 has almost an hour of sea chanties that get played in the background whilst you are sailing about. The whole thing is on Youtube:

It’s quite a good selection of songs, many I’ve heard and many that I’ve not; and there are some (like “Spanish Ladies”) where I know the words from Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series but have never heard them sung before. Hearing them is very cool. The performances, though, are just adequate. Here are two particularly good albums that are worth your time, if you like this sort of thing.

The first is Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd’s Blow Boys Blow
. This is a great album, and the one I’d start with.

Then, if you want more, try Classic Maritime From Smithsonian Folkways. This is a big collection, with authentic performances by many different performers. I especially like “Bully in the Alley”, by Morrigan; it’s the second tune in the Assassin’s Creed recording, above, if you’d like to compare.