I grew up in Devon with a mother who imbued me with a love of the sea - at night, I was lulled to sleep with songs of drowned fishermen and forlorn sailors. However, the genre never seemed to penetrate too far inland.
So when I heard a community choir was releasing an album of original and reworked shanties, my ears pricked up and off to the launch party I went. Was I expecting a musty pub filled with white-haired gentlemen popping out for cigarettes between croaky renditions of Blow the Wind Southerly? Perhaps. But what we witnessed was something very different.
Founded in 2017, London Sea Shanty Collective meets weekly with a shared aim to keep the songs of the seas relevant for today’s audiences and From the Waterside is their debut album. Chris “Chip” Wilson, one of the songwriters, calls the group a ‘shamlie’ - they sing at each other’s birthdays and weddings, and have even performed at funerals. In the half-basement of U7 Lounge & Bar, people from all walks of life gather to listen, giggle - and boy oh boy, do they drink. A small stall sells CDs, posters and even cassettes - do I need a diagram for our readers under 30?
Choir members are dressed to the nines - some sporting satin ball gowns, others in pirate hats and embroidered cloaks and giving big Orlando Bloom energy. The Breton stripes are so abundant it’s almost dizzying, but with a playful twist which feels very Hackney.
Once we had settled into a corner, Philip Pearson gathers the choir and pulls them into an explosive rendition of shanty-standard South Australia, then The Bay of Suvla - a swelling, rousing number that’s almost impossible not to join in with. Sombre Sea Coal, about the writer’s hometown of Hartlepool, brings us back down. Scarborough Street is more of a pop-folk number, written by Wilson about the superstitions around wearing green in his native Hull.
Valparaiso comes next, then Haul Away Joe, the choir’s most famous track arranged by Will Rivers - a short-drag shanty. Potentially endless verses spin around with foot stamping and choir members thrust towards the microphone, and just like that, vocal section of the evening is done: a wonderful advertisement for a much longer track list. All the while, the choir beams and blasts with drinks in hand - it’s a cheery, if at times a little musically messy, experience.
The album - pulled together a few years ago in a tiny recording studio in Muswell Hill - has an energy that’s palpable even on a recording. From the Waterside treads the line between traditional and inclusive expertly.
Doodle Let Me Go - a classic song but with some problematic lyrics - is turned by Rivers into Skipper Girls, a song about women cross-dressing as pirates. There is a gay love story (Whip Jamboree), refreshing for a space where male same-sex love was often only marginally tolerated. The Ocean is the most musically complex, choral and tear-pricking track on the whole album.
During lockdown and the rise of TikTok, public interest in sea shanties suddenly crested - but then the wave subsided. London Sea Shanty Collective are doing something more nuanced than merely carrying on an old tradition. With no funding, the choir and its writers are reworking the genre and revitalising a tragically dying art: transporting us to times and tides distant and remote while still staying relevant to our modern lives. And they’re clearly having a roaring good time doing it.
As dancing was threatened, we beat a hasty retreat into the inky depths of the night - these two landlubbers had hit their limit.
From the Waterside is £10 plus postage and packaging, and is available at shantycollective@gmail.com as well as on streaming platforms.
