Hello chantey singers. As I pass the torch to Park Ranger Casey Fenton, I want to reflect on the 37 years I’ve been at the chantey sings; what they mean to me and perhaps what they might mean to you. I hope these ruminations of my experiences might strike a responsive chord with some of your own experiences.
I came to my first chantey sing on Saturday, November 4, 1989, a date burned into my memory; a night which changed my life. Two friends of mine from the Starry Plough pub Irish music sessions where I played fiddle, Simon Spalding and Beth Clark, called me up one night and asked if I wanted to come to a chantey sing in San Francisco. I’d never been to one, though I liked chanteys, so I was game. When we arrived at Hyde Street Pier and went aboard the Balclutha, there were around 70-80 people singing the chantey “Whiskey Johnny,” led by a NPS Ranger with guitar. I had visited Hyde Street Pier in the 60s and once in the 70s during its State Park days, and had visited the Balclutha several times with my parents and sister, beginning around 1958 when she was docked further down the wharf. I did not realize until I saw the ranger that the ships were part of this NPS site, which shows what a large gap in the years since I last visited the ships.
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