The Handy Bandy Barque (The Campañero) [470-472] (349-350)

A.K.A. 'The Campañero' or 'The Campanayro'

It took some effort to learn; the notation in Hugill's text is often both erroneous and opaquely presented, probably because performance gave the song a jerky-jaunty feel out of strict meter. Like a piece of jazz music, a "swing" rhythm of sorts has to be read into it. My reading of it has also inevitably regularized the meter. The trouble was worth it--it's a great pumping chantey. It reflects the complaints of sailors in the Saltpetre Trade to the West Coast ports of South America. I'd like to think that "The Campañero" was imagined as a stand-in name for whatever vessel the sailor was currently in!-- the preference for being in a Latin American jail (hoosegow/juzgao) rather than in the barque in question is rather dramatic.

Doerflinger is one of the few other collectors to have a version of this, from Capt. Patrick Tayleur. That one is structurally quite similar, though many melody pitches are different. Available recorded versions I have heard have a completely different melody. A sample of that variant can be heard as sung by John Roberts and Jerry Bryant:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/robertsjohn
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jerrybryant2

The pictures (except for the last few, of Cape Horner THE PAMIR) are mine, of various vessels at the Tall Ships event in Boston, July 2009. They are:
SAGRES - Lisbon, barque
LIBERTAD - Buenos Aires, full-rigged ship
CAPITAN MIRANDA - Montevideo, staysail schooner
ROSEWAY - Boston, schooner
CISNE BRANCO - Rio de Janeiro, full-rigged ship
MIRCEA - Constanta, barque

See the whole "Shanties from the Seven Seas" project, here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=58B55DD66F22060C

Category:

Music

Tags:

• chantey
• chile
• peru
• south
• america
• sailor
• shanty
• sea
• song
• pumps
• campanero
• bark
• barque
• ship

[philipsmovies]

Brilliant stuff. Nice pics and clips too.