Ship's Company Chanteymen Interview

The Library's Jennifer Cutting interviewed Myron Peterson and Stephen Winick of the Ship's Company Chanteymen.

Speaker Biography: Ship's Company Chanteymen is a group specializing in traditional songs from maritime communities. In the days of wooden sailing vessels, sailors sang work songs, known as chanteys, for the purpose of coordinating their actions during heavy labor. Often, they did this with the help of a chanteyman, a song specialist who traded his expertise in singing for a reduction in the hard labor of raising sails and climbing masts. Maritime communities also had other song traditions, from fishing songs to ballads of seafaring life. For 20 years, the singers of Ship's Company Chanteymen have shared these old salts' songs with audiences up and down the East Coast. Often dressed in 19th century naval uniforms, they perform for historical reenactments, at historic venues, on board ships large and small, and at dockside bars, maritime museums, pirate festivals, and concert venues. The Ships Company Chantymen are Stephen Winick, Dallas Valley, Myron Peterson and Michael Bosworth.

For transcript and more information, visit https://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/fea...