From the Beeb: Sea shanty recordings unearthed.
Relatives of a sea captain from Sunderland have heard their long dead ancestor singing sea shanties recorded in the 1920s.
The songs, which were in a collection recorded on wax cylinders by American academic James Madison Carpenter, were restored for a BBC documentary.
Mark Page, born in 1836, ran away to sea as a boy and contributed to the scholar’s work when he retired.
The recordings then lay untouched in an attic for decades.
Relatives of Mr Page were tracked down by BBC documentary makers and invited to the family reunion, but not told the reason why. One guest came from Australia. [continue, see video]
I wonder if our families 50 or 100 years from now will find our journals or blogs archived somewhere and re-read them, sharing our current lives decades hence?
I love sea shanties and sing them as well. To have an old source of original recordings was a great discovery.
You can hear some newer versions of old shanties here. Best of all there are hundreds of pages of lyrics and chords etc.
http://www.sailorsongs.com Hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for the interesting info
Roger Chartier