Roger D. Abrahams
Roger D. Abrahams
Three Essays on Shantying in the West Indies.
This volume surveys the importance of sea shanties in the Leeward and Windward Islands of the West Indies. In the first chapter the author, an anthropologist and folk-lorist, surveys the documentary record of these work songs in the islands and throughout the maritime world. The balance of the book describes the use of shanties for fishing, whaling, and other work at Newcastle, Nevis; Plymouth, Tobago; and Barouallie, St. Vincent. The text includes lyrics and music for 45 songs. Originally published by the American Folklore Society in 1974, it is reissued by Mystic Seaport with a new foreword and preface.
Roger D. Abrahams became a folklorist when he got more interested in the songs and their singers than in performing himself. First carrying out fieldwork in the Southern Appalachians, like everyone else in folksong in those days, he went on to work (and write about) his primarily black neighborhood in South Philadelphia. Seeking to understand what he had discovered there, he worked in a number of villages on Nevis, St. Vincent, and Tobago. Additionally, he maintained his passion for Anglo-American music, writing books dealing with folksong style and the life and songs of the great Ozark singer, Almeda Riddle. His most recent works have been on the history and contemporary practices of festive celebrations, including Early American pioneer entertainments on the frontier and plantation. He has taught at the University of Texas, Scripps and Pitzer Colleges, and for the last 17 years
at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, where he is now Hum Rosen Professor of Folklore and Folklife, Emeritus.
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