Sloop John B.

[Fruitcake14]

Hi All!

I have a favor to ask. The music teacher here at school is doing "Sloop John B" with her chorus as a "Caribbean folk song"....and she was trying to find any back story to the song, but she hasn't been able to find much....So I told her I'd see what I could find out...and naturally who better to ask than the parrot heads does anyone know if there even is a history behind the song?

Thanks in advance to for any help!

[gunthermoose]

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/arc ... 45896.html

[surfpirate]

Google it. Lots of back story out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloop_John_B

[gunthermoose]

http://www.finance.reachinformation.com ... ohn_B.aspx

[LIPH]

Learn something every day. I thought it was a Beach Boys original.

[pair8head]

http://www.finance.reachinformation.com ... ohn_B.aspx

There's a virus connected to that link. According to my company's firewall.

[phjrsaunt]

Learn something every day. I thought it was a Beach Boys original.

I learn so much here!
(and I kind of thought it was a BB orginal too, Larry)

[LIPH]

Sarah's a teacher so of course she'd give us all a teachable moment.

[springparrot]

I had no idea about the story or what it took for the BB to get it recorded.
Thanks for the info

[Fruitcake14]

Thanks guys!

She said she knew it wasn't a Beach Boys original (I didn't ) but was looking more for the history of it from the Caribbean...we'll have to keep digging!

Merci beaucoup!

[Fruitcake14]

Sarah's a teacher so of course she'd give us all a teachable moment.

I try....what can I say

[Tiki Torches]

Thanks guys!

She said she knew it was a Beach Boys original (I didn't ) but was looking more for the history of it from the Caribbean...we'll have to keep digging!

Merci beaucoup!

It's actually not a Beach Boys original but I didn't learn that until reading the Wiki entry.

[phjrsaunt]

On a related, semi-Beach Boys note:
This thread reminded of this tidbit about Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys:

He wrote the Billboard number one, Barry Manilow hit "I Write the Songs" for which he won a Grammy. "I Write The Songs" has been recorded by over two hundred artists (including Frank Sinatra) and it currently has a cumulative singles/albums worldwide sales figure of twenty-five million copies. In addition, Johnston wrote backing vocal arrangements and also sang on the recordings for Elton John's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" and Pink Floyd's album The Wall.

Pretty cool, I think

[Fruitcake14]

Thanks guys!

She said she knew it was a Beach Boys original (I didn't ) but was looking more for the history of it from the Caribbean...we'll have to keep digging!

Merci beaucoup!

It's actually not a Beach Boys original but I didn't learn that until reading the Wiki entry.

Total type-o...it should have said "knew it wasn't"...I had a student walk in and ask me a question...

I didn't know it wasn't theirs either.....

[PA PAR8 HED]

On a related, semi-Beach Boys note:
This thread reminded of this tidbit about Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys:

He wrote the Billboard number one, Barry Manilow hit "I Write the Songs" for which he won a Grammy. "I Write The Songs" has been recorded by over two hundred artists (including Frank Sinatra) and it currently has a cumulative singles/albums worldwide sales figure of twenty-five million copies. In addition, Johnston wrote backing vocal arrangements and also sang on the recordings for Elton John's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" and Pink Floyd's album The Wall.

Pretty cool, I think

It is my understanding that Bruce wrote "I Write the Songs" about Brian Wilson - he certainly did write the songs that made the whole world sing.

I haven't read the links above, but I think there is some info on Sloop John B. in the booklet that comes with the Beach Boys box set. I'll check when I get home for that.

I do remember that the success of Sloop John B. led the BB to record another folk song, again at Al Jardine's suggestion - Cotton Fields.

[PA PAR8 HED]

Jerry Jeff covers the song on his Cowboy Boots and Bathing Suits CD for another take on the song.

[chippewa]

Jerry Jeff covers the song on his Cowboy Boots and Bathing Suits CD for another take on the song.

RM plays that version once in awhile.

[surfpirate]

A 1647 colony in the Bahamas included a Welshman named John Bethel (John B).
The folk ballad of his crew is believed to have descended through the centuries
into the folk song "(Wreck of the) Sloop John B."

In 1926 the original wreck of this ship was discovered in Nassau, a Bahama island near Florida.
(Sloops were precarious 16-foot vessels, sailing hundreds of miles without a chart with a 5-person crew.)
Poet Carl Sandburg adapted the folk lyrics into a poem, which thirty years later was recorded by The Kingston Trio.

Apparently there's also a forgotten third verse

The stewardess she got stewed,
Ran 'round the poop deck nude
Constable had to come and take her away.
Sheriff Johnstone please let me alone
I feel so breakup, I want to go home.

* source: http://www.destinyland.net/sloop-john-b.htm

A classic folk tune and shanty, “The Sloop John B.” It began as a Bahaman folk tune
and was first recorded by archivist Alan Lomax in 1935. From there, groups like
The Weavers, Kingston Trio and The Beach Boys.

"The John B. Sails" is a folk song that first appeared in a 1917 American novel, Pieces of Eight,
written by Richard Le Gallienne. The "secret" narrator of the story describes it as "one of the
quaint Nassau ditties,"
the first verse and chorus of which are:

Come on the sloop John B.
My grandfather and me,
Round Nassau town we did roam;
Drinking all night, ve got in a fight,
Ve feel so break-up, ve vant to go home.

(Chorus)
So h'ist up the John B. sails,

See how the mainsail set,

Send for the captain—shore, let us go home,
Let me go home, let me go home,
I feel so break-up, I vant to go home.

Whether it was an authentic folk song or one created for the novel is not stated.

1927: Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg included it in his 1927 collection of folksongs, The American Songbag,
as "The John B. Sails." He states that he collected it from John & Evelyn McCutchen who told him,
"Time and usage have given this song almost the dignity of a national anthem around Nassau.
The weathered ribs of the historic craft lie imbedded in the sand at Governor's Harbor,
whence an expedition, especially sent up for the purpose in 1926, extracted a knee of horseflesh
and a ring-bolt. These relics are now preserved and built into the Watch Tower, designed by
Mr. Howard Shaw and built on our southern coast a couple of points east by north of the
star Canopus." John McCutchen was a political cartoonist from Chicago.

Sandburg's version has only minor variations from those in Le Gallienne's Pieces of Eight,
but Sandburg does add an additional verse:

De poor cook he got fits,
Tro' 'way all de grits,
Den he took an' eat up all o' my corn!
Lemme go home, I want to go home!
Dis is de worst trip since I been born!

While not appearing in Le Gallienne's Pieces of Eight, this verse does in fact appear in the
version of the song published in Gallienne's article, "Coral Islands and Mangrove-Trees"
on page 82 of the December, 1916 issue of Harper's Magazine.

Sandburg's version of "The John B Sails" is the one most often recorded.
It is perhaps the remarks by the McCutcheons, which Sandburg attached to the song,
that a frequent title—"Wreck Of The John B"—is derived, since no lyrics report a wreck.

1935: Alan Lomax recording

Alan Lomax included the song in his collection, Deep River of Song, as "Histe Up The John B Sail";
sung by the Cleveland Simmons Group, Old Bight, Cat Island, Bahamas, July 1935.

** source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_John_B._Sails

[sonofabeach]

[bravedave]

I tried desperately to find a video of Will Robinson and Judy singing SJB on "Lost in Space."
No joy.
But if you remember it, jump right up and show your age.