"These should rank with the best shanty and sea-song recordings ever made." So said the sea shanty expert William Main Doerflinger in May, 1942, describing the recordings he had recently made of the retired sailor Patrick Tayluer. Circumstances have conspired to keep those recordings under wraps, until this blog series. In this second post, we’ll hear another of his shanties (“Paddy Lay Back” or “Mainsail Haul”) and one of his sea stories. Then, we’ll use available evidence to create a new biography of Patrick Tayluer (1856-1948), a multifaceted sailor, soldier, singer, storyteller, model-builder, long-distance walker, and, of course, shantyman.
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. This post introduces Tayluer and presents a photo and two of his best shanties.
