Bøger udgivet af Bob

The first edition of Old Salem at Sea in Ballad and Song contained 89 songs and ballads recalling Salem and reflecting Salem's rich maritime history and its relationship to the sea. Many songs found were documented in shipping logbooks, broadsides, songbooks, or periodicals. Some of these ballads will be familiar, while some may be new or slightly different to the reader. Most of the material in this book comes from public domain sources. In this second edition of Old Salem at Sea in Ballad and Song, we published a larger format for ease of reading, added the Roud Folk Song Index numbers, and included forty-five additional songs. Over time, folk music enthusiasts became aware of my project, and more ballads and songs surfaced and needed inclusion in the new edition.* Folk singer, researcher, and entrepreneur Lisa Null suggested a song from her youth called Old Salem Town Once More. Lisa's family sang the song to her as a child in the 1950s while living in Worcester, Massachusetts.* Irish ballad singer Michael O'Leary introduced me to Salem-born George Edward Clark, aka Yankee Ned, who had four songs published in the book called Fisherman's Ballads and Songs of The Sea.* Peter Marston sang a version of the Ghostly Crew at the Monday night Shanty Sing in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The song is about how the fishing schooner the Charles Haskell and its deadly collision with the Andrew Johnson out of Salem on the George's Bank and how the crew of the Andrew Johnson haunted the Charles Haskell, working their regular nightly shift before going overboard and heading back to Salem.

This collection includes sea chantey variations, sea songs, work songs, parodies, light verse, forecastle songs, and the occasional ballads culled over the last year from newspapers, libraries, and online sources. Most of the songs originated between 1850 and 1930. The need for clipper ships and sailing packets slowly disappeared in the mid to late nineteenth century, and the sea songs and chanteys soon followed. The sounds of the donkey engine and the steam capstan have replaced the chantey. The chantey and forecastle songs slowly moved from these vessels to the boarding houses, pubs, and along the waterfront of large seaports, keeping the tradition alive.* Several songs in this book are variations of older sea chanteys, while other songs are composed and sung in the tradition, using the voice as a vocal metronome with a pronounced rhythm.* At the turn of the century, there was a rejuvenation of interest in the history and the singing of seachanteys and sea songs with concerts and folk music collectors.