Patrick Tayluer: The Greatest Sea Shanty Singer You’ve Never Heard

This is part of a series of posts about the retired sailor and shanty singer Patrick Tayluer (1856-1948). Find the entire series at this link!

This is the first in series of blog posts looking at the sea shanties, songs, and stories sung and told by retired sailor Patrick Tayluer for collector William Main Doerflinger in 1942. Many lovers of sea shanties have heard of Patrick Tayluer; in 1942, the old salt recorded 66 songs and stories on disc and a further 13 on cylinders for Doerflinger. Doerflinger transcribed and published many of these items in his 1951 book Shantymen and Shantyboys: Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman, and through those transcriptions Tayluer has become a well-known source for nautical singers around the world. But Doerflinger was only able to provide a single paragraph of biography and no photos or other images of Tayluer, and since his book was about songs, Doerflinger didn’t include any of Tayluer’s stories. More importantly, until now, very few singers or researchers have been lucky enough to hear Patrick Tayluer’s voice. This series of blogs aims to remedy that, presenting a biography of Tayluer, several photos, and (most importantly) a selection of his songs and stories.

In particular, Doerflinger was enthusiastic about one of Tayluer’s songs, “The Leaving of Liverpool.” This song has become a standard of the folk revival, thanks to another recording made by Doerflinger, but Tayluer’s version has never been released, and has only been published in transcription, in a 2008 issue of Folklife Center News. Later in the series, we’ll talk about this song and its importance. We’ll also discuss Tayluer’s own complex biography in a future post.

In this first blog, by way of introduction, I’ll explain how Tayluer came to be recorded and present two of his best shanties. That requires that I introduce Tayluer’s friend, the collector William Main Doerflinger. Doerflinger was born in 1910 and grew up in Staten Island, becoming fascinated by sea songs early in life. While at Princeton University, he decided to study traditional songs. He spent vacation time in Nova Scotia collecting songs and wrote them up for his Princeton thesis. After graduating, Doerflinger met and married Joy Homer Doerflinger and got a job in publishing, initially at MacMillan. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, realizing that his home in Staten Island was just a few blocks from Sailors Snug Harbor, a retirement home for sailors, Doerflinger resumed his collecting among the retirees there, borrowing recording equipment when he could.

In 1942, having exhausted the repertoires of the best singers at Sailors Snug Harbor, Doerflinger moved on to the Seamen’s Church Institute, a similar institution near the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, which served as a community center for active and retired sailors. There he encountered Patrick Tayluer, a retired sailor who seemed to him one of the best shanty singers he had heard. Doerflinger did not own recording equipment, but he learned that the Library of Congress sometimes supplied equipment and blank discs for collecting projects. He was acquainted with Alan Lomax through having worked on some of Lomax’s books at MacMillan, so he wrote to Lomax seeking an equipment loan. In his letter to Lomax, dated March 5, 1942, Doerflinger wrote:

“I’ve interviewed and recorded scores of seamen, but with only one or two exceptions none of them approach[es] Captain Tayluer. He represents the best and straightest merchant marine tradition. Although I have come to know sailing-ship men of the old school, I find that nearly all of the Captain’s contemporaries have either passed away or no longer possess anything like his mental clarity and keen memory. A complete record of his material will be an important step in rounding out our knowledge of the sea’s folk-songs and traditions. […] It would be a permanent loss to let Tayleur [sic] go unrecorded at this eleventh hour.”

Lomax apparently agreed. On March 24, 1942, after obtaining the proper government clearances, he shipped Doerflinger a Presto disc recorder belonging to the Archive of American Folk Song (as the AFC archive was then called), along with blank discs. In early May, Doerflinger invited Tayluer to his home in Staten Island and began recording interviews with him. In an interim report to Lomax on May 3 he wrote:

“These should rank with the best shanty and sea-song recordings ever made: the Captain not only sings fine, long versions of his shanties, but he has some good information about them and speaks well extemporaneously. Thus his introductory comments on both shanties and ballads are important and embody some valuable dope.”

Over the course of several sessions, Doerflinger recorded thirty-eight twelve-inch discs of the older man’s song and speech. On May 14, Doerflinger reported to Lomax in a telegram that the recording of Tayluer’s repertoire was finished.

We’ll pick up the threads of Tayluer’s story and the story of the recordings themselves in later posts. For now, let’s see if we can hear what Bill Doerflinger heard, and listen to two of Tayluer’s songs. For some of the sessions, Doerflinger also brought in Karl Fahlstrom, a retired sailor living at Sailors Snug Harbor, to sing along on the refrains, thus evoking the sound of a group of men at work. (For a quick introduction to Sea Shanties, also sometimes called Chanties or Chanteys, visit this previous post!)

As we’ve seen, one of the things Doerflinger liked was that Tayluer tended to explain his shanties, though he realized that Tayluer was sometimes wrong, writing to Lomax: “It has been good fun and valuable to me to work with Captain Tayluer, who is full of useful lore, most of it true though sometimes he makes mistakes.”

Let’s hear two shanties that come with Tayluer’s explanations and see how they hold up. We’ll begin with “Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her,” which Doerflinger particularly liked. It’s one of Tayluer’s shorter performances, but no doubt he could have kept singing much longer; as you’ll see, many of the lines seem improvised, and the task he describes, raising the anchor, took a long time. In these situations, observers and scholars of shanties tell us the shantyman could extemporize, stretching the song out to fit the task. You can press play on the player below and listen, while following along with the transcription below that.

Now this is a song, a shanty, known as the up and down lever shanty. In the old ships, the wooden ships, they never had no capstan gear on the fo’c’sle head. So they always heaved the anchor up by the up-and-down stroke, as you will hear in the song, as it was sung by the seamen on board of the ship. They were split out, starboard watch one side and the port watch the other, and so they up and down on this lever business to get the anchor up.

Now the times are hard and the wages low
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Ah, the times are hard and the wages low
It is time for us to leave her

Oh we’ll leave her now and we’ll leave her very soon
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh we’ll leave her now and we’ll leave her very soon
Oh it is time for us to leave her

Oh no more crackerhash and dandyfunk
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh no more crackerhash and dandyfunk
It is time for us to leave her

Now the captain don’t like to give us our pay
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh the captain don’t like to give us our pay
But it’s time for us to leave her

So we’ll leave her now and we’ll leave her very soon
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh we’ll leave her now and we’ll leave her very soon
Oh it is time for us to leave her

I’ve got my pay and it’s this ol’ way
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
I’ve got my pay and it’s this ol’ way
It is time for us to leave her

Oh no more voyages along to the horn
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh no more voyages along to the horn
It is time for us to leave her

Oh we’ve left her now and we’ve left her for good
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
We’ve left her now and we’ve left her for good
And it’s time for us all to leave her

Tayluer’s explanation of the use of this particular shanty doesn’t agree with that of most other shanty singers and scholars. What Tayluer describes is raising the anchor through the use of a brake windlass, a simple machine that uses a see-saw-like motion, with one team of men on each lever handle pushing alternately up and down. The windlass translates each push on the handle into enough force to move the anchor a short distance, and the men raise the anchor by pumping up and down on their handles for a good long time. This would naturally occur at the beginning of any leg of the voyage when the ship was at anchor and needed to get underway.

The more conventional view of the use of this shanty was that it was sung for pumping out the ship at the very end of a voyage. Interestingly, while Doerflinger printed Tayluer’s text in his book, he printed this more conventional view of its use in place of Tayluer’s explanation:

“Traditional last shanty of the voyage was ‘Time For Us to Leave Her.’ This was sung during the final spell at the pumps, in a wooden ship, as the vessel, her canvas furled, lay snug at her pier, another long, hard passage over. Only one final task—to pump her dry; then the men could go below to the familiar forecastles for the lat time, shoulder their sea chests or sea bags, and ‘leave her for good.’ With sardonic humor, the shantyman tried to sum up all the time-honored ‘grousing’ of the whole voyage as the flywheels of the pumps creaked round until the job was done.”

Yet there is no reason Tayluer can’t be right as well. Operating a brake windlass requires roughly the same motion one uses for pumping–depending on the design of the windlass and pumps one has aboard. The tasks are similarly long and sustained. The same shanty could easily have been used for both tasks.

More than that, I think we need to recognize the pun inherent in Tayluer’s version, where “leave ‘er” is a homophone of “lever,” referring to working the lever handles on the windlass. This allows the song to be saying wistfully “it’s time for us to leave ‘er” or more pragmatically, “it’s time for us to lever.” This pun, while admittedly silly, might well have encouraged a poetically-minded shantyman to use this song at any task powered by a brake windlass.

Crackerhash and dandyfunk were two traditional food items made from hard tack. Hard tack was basically a ship’s biscuit baked very dry to allow it to keep for years. Despite this, such biscuits were often infested with weevils, which had to be dislodged by tapping the buscuits on a hard surface. Recipes for crackerhash and dandyfunk varied, but they involved soaking the biscuits, often pulverising them to make dough, adding other ingredients, and then, when possible, baking them into a kind of pan-bread. Crackerhash was usually savory, and involved adding meat and lard or suet, while dandyfunk was sweet and involved butter and sugar when available, but more often suet and molasses. Mentioning these foods, which were rare treats, makes Tayluer’s version of the song seem somewhat wistful. Often when food was mentioned in this shanty, it was more of a complaint, along the lines of “Maggoty meat and weevily bread/ Leave her, Johnny, Leave her….” This is the kind of individual interpretation a good shantyman could bring to an otherwise standard song.

Next let’s hear another standard shanty, “Reuben Ranzo,” which Tayluer called “Roving Ranzo.” Tayluer’s version comes with a bonus story explaining the shanty’s origin. Once again, you can press play and follow along with the transcription.

“Now this is a shanty that was made up on t’Battery, or when it was known as Castle Gardens many years ago. It’s of two poor fellows sitting together. One was a hobo and the other was a tailor. And it was very funny how the song was thought of, and how it was written, and how it was sung. As we know, down on the Bowery and the environments of the Bowery, many’s the bright man went there to bury his sorrow because he couldn’t better himself. As it happened, this man was really a singer and really a poet. So when the boarding master’s runner came up: ‘Hey fella, he says, would you like to go to sea?’ ‘Why, Hell no,’ he says, ‘I’m no sailor. I’m a hobo. What’s the good of me going to sea? Well, try this fellow next door.’ He went to the fella next door, and he said: ‘Say, boy, how would you like to go to sea?’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’d love to go to sea but,’ he says, ‘I ain’t no sailor. I’m a tailor. I had a tailor shop in New York, and now I’m busted and broke and down here on Castle Gardens, living my life out.’ And the other fellow looked at him, and the thoughts run through his head, and he made this song up.”

Oh poor old roving Ranzo
Ranzo boys Ranzo
Oh poor old roving Ranzo
Ranzo, you’re a Ranzo

You are no New York sailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo
You are no New York sailor
But you’re Ranzo boys Ranzo

Now Ranzo he was a tailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo
Oh Ranzo was a tailor
Ranzo boys, poor Ranzo

“Now the song caught up with the sailors, and the sailors made one of the most beautiful shanties that was ever sung on board of any ship of poor old roving Ranzo. Now the man’s name who sung it, his name was Clark, a hobo all over the country. And the tailor, his name was Rudy, and he called him Rudy Ranzo. So therefore you see how these songs went ahead and how they became popular. And it wasn’t so much as a thing itself, that every sailor at sea always made something in his shanties of somebody that either lived ashore or lived in…at sea. This song was written in about 1875, and this is the way the shanty is sung.”

Oh poor old roving Ranzo
Ranzo boys Ranzo
Oh poor old roving Ranzo
Ranzo boys, Ranzo

Now Ranzo he was no sailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo
Oh Ranzo was no sailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo

[Disc side ends 6593A ends and side 6593B begins]

So poor old roving Ranzo
Ranzo boys Ranzo
So poor old roving Ranzo
Ranzo boys, Ranzo

Now they shipped him on board of a whaler
Ranzo boys Ranzo
So they shipped him on board of a whaler
Ranzo boys Ranzo

I’ve told you he was no sailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo
Oh I’ve told you he was no sailor
Ranzo boys poor Ranzo

Now the captain he liked Ranzo
Ranzo boys poor Ranzo
Now the captain he liked Ranzo
Ranzo boys Ranzo

So the Captain taught him how to read and write
Ranzo boys Ranzo
He taught him how to read and write
Ranzo boys poor Ranzo

He taught him navigation
Ranzo boys Ranzo
He taught him navigation
Ranzo boys poor Ranzo

When he got his first mate’s papers
Ranzo boys Ranzo
When he got his first mate’s papers
Ranzo boys Ranzo

He became a terror to whalers
Ranzo boys Ranzo
He became a terror to whalers
Ranzo boys Ranzo

He was known all over the world as
Ranzo boys Ranzo
He was known all over the world as
Ranzo boys Ranzo

As the worst old bastard on the sea
Ranzo boys Ranzo
As the worst old bastard on the seas
Ranzo boys Ranzo

He would take his ship to Georgia
Ranzo boys Ranzo
He would take his ships to Georgia
Ranzo boys Ranzo

And there he’d dreg for sperm whale
Ranzo boys Ranzo
And there he’d dreg for sperm whale
Ranzo boys Ranzo

His last and only ship he had
Ranzo boys Ranzo
His first and last and only ship
Ranzo boys Ranzo

Was the Morgan and she’s known everywhere
Ranzo boys Ranzo
Was the Morgan and she’s known everywhere
Ranzo boys Ranzo

[Disc side 6593B ends and side 6594A begins]

Now he’s gone to Hell and we’re all glad
Ranzo boys Ranzo
Oh he’s gone to Hell and we’re all glad
Ranzo boys Ranzo

Now I’ve told you he was no sailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo
I’ve told you he was no sailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo

He was a New York tailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo
He was a New York tailor
Ranzo boys poor Ranzo

Whether a tailor or a sailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo
Oh, whether a tailor or a sailor
Ranzo boys Ranzo

He sure became a Ranzo
Ranzo boys Ranzo
He sure became a Ranzo
Ranzo boys poor Ranzo

Tayluer’s version of “Roving Ranzo” is fascinating not only for the song itself but for the story Tayluer tells about it, which is an entertaining yarn containing realistic details about New York. As Tayluer says in setting the scene, the Battery in lower Manhattan in the 1860s and 1870s was the site of Castle Garden, the main point of arrival for immigrants to New York; its role would be shifted later to Ellis Island. Because of the large influx of people needing work, a labor exchange was located there from 1868, where prospective workers and employers or employment agents tried to find one another. The Bowery, which is the name of both a street and a neighborhood, was known in those days as an area of cheap flophouses and brothels. The Bowery didn’t extend all the way down to the Battery, but it would be a short walk from a Bowery flophouse to the Battery labor exchange at Castle Garden, where a busted out tailor and a hobo could find a few days’ work on a construction or demolition gang to pay for their cheap Bowery lodgings. It would make perfect sense for a boarding master to send a runner to recruit sailors from among the crowd at the labor exchange. This story is thus a realistic account of something that might have occurred in 1875.

On the other hand, we know Tayluer’s story isn’t fully accurate, because several firsthand accounts by sailors show that the song “Reuben Ranzo” existed well before 1875. Captain Charles Robbins, in his book The Gam, remembers it on a whaling voyage in the 1850s, and W.B. Whall in Ships, Sea Songs and Shanties, remembers it from the 1860s. It’s also true that whaling vessels didn’t start visiting “Georgia,” that is, the South Georgia whaling stations, until 1904. As a merchant sailor rather than a whaler, Tayluer would have heard of the whaling stations in South Georgia during his later career, but it seems he didn’t have a good sense of when they were in operation.

Most sailors from the age of sail who commented on the song “Reuben Ranzo,” including Whall, suggest that “Ranzo” was short for “Lorenzo,” and that the song was intended to be about the difficulties a Portuguese sailor encountered on an English-speaking vessel. In support of this, several early versions of the song call the character “Renso” (see Robbins at the link above) or even “Orenso.” The character’s usual first name, “Reuben,” was in the 1850s a stereotypical name for a rustic or yokel, which Frederick Pease Harlow tells us in Chanteying Aboard American Ships was often assigned to lubberly sailors; later in the 19th century the longer name developed into the more familiar abbreviation “Rube.” Thus in many performances of the song aboard sailing vessels, “Reuben Ranzo” was understood as the combination of a word for a bumpkin and a common Portuguese name—possibly a mild ethnic slur.

On the other hand, Harlow says that Ranzo was “purely a southern Negro term used in the cotton ships at Mobile and New Orleans, and also sung by the ‘Badian negroes at the fall.” Harlow does not tell us what the “term” Ranzo meant, but Tayluer also seems to think of it as a word rather than a proper name, declaring “he sure became a Ranzo.”

Tayluer’s version of the song also makes the tailor’s name Rudy rather than Reuben. Tayluer uses traditional verses and some verses clearly improvised on the spot, which by all accounts was common among shanty singers. He also incorporates references into the song that were quite contemporary: the “Morgan,” or the whale ship Charles W. Morgan, “known everywhere” in Tayluer’s words, had in fact been big news in the maritime community just six months before this recording session, when she had been moved from Massachusetts to Mystic, Connecticut, to be preserved and exhibited at Mystic Seaport, where she remains to this day.

As with his version of “Leave Her,” Tayluer clearly improvises many of the lines, exactly as you would if you needed the song to stretch to the length of a longer task. In doing so, Tayluer follows the main outlines of the typical “Ranzo” story, although in some versions it’s the captain’s daughter who takes pity on him and teaches him reading and navigation. In fact, Tayluer’s own plot, in which the captain takes a liking to Ranzo and teaches him what he needs to know in order to succeed as a sailor, may reflect Tayluer’s own biography, or his imagined biography, as much as it reflects the traditional “Reuben Ranzo” story. In the next post in this series, we’ll look at Tayluer’s account of how he went to sea in the 1860s. We’ll also look at other evidence about his life and try to construct a biography of this extraordinary shantyman.