A Connecticut inn has hosted sea chantey singalongs for half a century | Hacker News Reader

A Connecticut inn has hosted sea chantey singalongs for half a century

atlasobscura.com

64 pointswglb21 comments

Related: "Roll the Old Chariot" from the 2010 Portsmouth, New Hampshire Maritime Folk Festival:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49FWp7WLYKw

David Coffin is an amazing vocalist. There’s more on his own channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCuF5l9Scauvp9kQesRIfWmA

That's on the shortlist- thank you!!!

Shared, public singing is nearly dead, yet it's one of the most joyous things we do. Participative culture in general is fading.

One of my absolute favourite moments was being in a pub with a few dozen people in Ireland all singing boisterously. I recommend it.

Mine too. I used to play in bar band in my local pub (in Ireland), the whole pub would be on their feet singing along by the end of the night. Most fun I've ever had in a pub

Moved to Ireland ages ago and it's one of the best things, but rare even here. We wandered in to a pub in Ballinskelligs and had the best night ever.

Confess I checked out your post history. "Being polite when some idiot's wrong" - wisdom there :-)

I think you're right. At American universities I've been around, lots of alumni with grey hair seem to remember a bunch of fun sounding singalong songs for football games, including (in Louisiana) some weird Cajun? lyrics. It'd be awesome to gob down beers and belt out toons. I think my voice is beautiful after I have a few.

With enough friends, I'm sure it is.

Shanties continue to be a mental-health pillar since I became a parent. While I barely played Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I was impressed by the music and learned many of those chanteys to sing while pushing the stroller or walking to work. Something I heard on NPR around 2010 said when times are tough (2008 recession) we tend to listen to music with a steady beat and no surprises.

My wife and I almost went to a pub in St. Paul, MN for their monthly shanty night but opted not to because of a statement on their webpage to the effect of “if you can’t sing in tune, we don’t want you.” One of the best things about Concordia Language Villages is the use of song to get everyone forming the sounds; no one is singled out, and it really lowers the barrier to trying. Some other cultures expect everyone to sing, doesn’t matter how “good” because it’s something we do together and it is healthy. Together we’ll improve.

I've recently gotten into Sea Shanties and can highly recommend 'The Longest Johns' to anyone who is interested in getting a taste for what it's like.

Some of my favourites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KO7cofMJH0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVkD4lgXTEU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49FWp7WLYKw

There's just something about having a group of people singing that is just so appealing to me and I just can't put my finger onto why but I think it has something to do with the social side of it.

Beautiful vocal harmonies.

My recommendation is the Dreadnoughts. "Roll Northumbria" is an old style shanty about a modern day oil tanker. Hands down best introduction to the group. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d3XHQVMHDM

"Dear old Stan" will have you randomly chanting "Arise and be Merry" at random intervals throughout the day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHpizfjWrXA

> There's just something about having a group of people singing that is just so appealing to me...

If you like The Longest Johns, check out Port Isaac's Fisherman Friends. Similar large vocal group.

I can tell you why I like a lot of those groups: It's people who can sing, singing. No autotune, no filters, no massive audio processing pipelines. I've heard plenty of groups like that at festivals over the years, and they tend to sound just like they do on the album (for good or for bad - Gaelic Storm's live shows have no energy to them, they're just performing the album).

Also, barbershop needs to come back. :D

This may be my best and only opportunity to share my favorite sea shanty band with any wider audience. I suspect I only discovered them because YouTube has me in a geo-bubble and they're local to here.

Aside from just being good renditions of famous sea shanties, they're also bilingual (alternating verses?) French/English, and some have some local NZ flavor. https://www.youtube.com/user/Wellingtonseashanty/videos

Friends of mine. Had a great time singing shanties with them (and about a hundred others) at the Breaker Bay Hall on Saturday night.

Monday night shanties at the Gris are great! Years ago, friends and I made it a weekly habit to drive the 45-50 minutes up to Essex on Monday nights. I'm glad that they're planning on making a comeback after COVID and put it on my list of things to do when it's safe, but now I'm wondering if they're going to be even more crowded.

Bawdy Sea Shanties is a fun record, if you don't mind raunchy

https://www.amazon.com/Old-Time-Bawdy-Sea-Shanties/dp/B001FT...

Salty Dick's Uncensored Sailor Songs is similarly... "not safe for ears."

https://www.horntip.com/mp3/2000s/2004_salty_dicks_uncensore...

I need to figure out how to get Spotify to grasp that just because I like sea shanties, I would rather not have that stuff randomly show up in the "generated mixes." I've discovered plenty of great groups by just letting stuff auto-play after an album, but I do have kids, and I'd rather they not learn about "Christopher Columbo" from this album... even if it's probably more true than most histories.

Tell the kids that it's "educational", and they'll ensure they don't hear a word of it.

Sounds about right for Connecticut inns. Also, if you want to sleep in a haunted room, there are several inns in Connecticut that will accommodate.

I saw this and immediately thought of the scene in The Other Guys

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