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Johnny Bowker

[ Roud 353 ; Ballad Index Doe009a ; DT JONBOKER ; Mudcat 67154 ; trad.]

Joanna C. Colcord: Songs of American Sailormen W.B. Whall: Sea Songs and Shanties

Paul Clayton and chorus sang Do My Johnny Booker in 1959 on his Folkways album with the Foc’sle Singers, Foc’sle Songs and Shanties.

According to authorities, this favourite short haul shanty was used mainly at tacks and sheets by American sailing vessels, and under the British flag was sometimes used also for furling sail.

Doerflinger cites Johnny Booker as “one of many characters shanghaied into shanty lore from the songs of the blackface minstrels, or possibly from Negro folksong…”. And, indeed, the antics of the hero of this song are prominently displayed in songs appearing in various mid-nineteenth century minstrel songsters, as well as in orally circulated songs collected in this century mainly from Negro traditional singers.

For additional texts and information, see: Bullen, p. 30; Colcord, p. 44; Davis, p. 64; Doerflinger, p. 9; Frothingham, p. 298; Greenleaf, p. 339; Ives, p. 73; JFSS #20, 1916, p. 313; King, p. 13; Sharp, p. 45; Shay, p. 20; Terry I, p. 55; Whall, p. 146.

Jim Mageean sang the sweating-up shanty Do Me Johnny Bowker in 1978 on The Shanty Men’s eponymous Greenwich Village album, The Shanty Men.

Danny Spooner sang Johnny Bowker on his 1988 album We’ll Either Bend or Break ’Er.

Tom Brown and chorus sang a medley of Haul on the Bowline, Paddy Doyle and Johnnie Bowker in 2011 on the CD of songs by Watchet sailor John Short collected by Cecil Sharp, Short Sharp Shanties Vol. 2. The accompanying notes said:

Sharp noted that, according to Short, Paddy Doyle was “similar to Johnnie Bowker i.e. sung once by everybody, the chanty man leading off”. Tozer, Whall, Bullen, Colcord, Terry and Doerflinger all comment that Paddy Doyle was exclusively a bunting shanty. Whall gives only two verses and Terry claims that “the same verse was sung over and over again”. Nevertheless, Short gave Sharp four verses. Evidently, even for Short, it was not always simply a one-heave bunting job, and in line with our principles we’ve recorded all Short’s verses. As to who Paddy Doyle was, who knows? Some say he was a Liverpool boarding house master, others that he was a boot and shoemaker who lived in Paradise Street, Liverpool, in the mid-1800s, or perhaps the Patrick Doyle who a kept a chandlery in Nelson Court near the Liverpool dock at about the same time. Whoever he was, his name went all around the world.

There is also a consensus among published sources that Johnnie Bowker was used more as a (longer) short-haul shanty on American ships although sometimes for furling and bunting. Short gave it to Sharp as a bunting shanty, and was adamant that, in his experience (here, we may say—‘in his usage’), “the song is sung once only, the one action on the lead [actually final] note completing the job”. We’ve duly recorded it ‘only once”.

Lyrics

Paul Clayton sings Do My Johnny Booker

O do my Johnny Booker, come rock and roll me over,
O do my Johnny Booker, do.
O do my Johnny Booker, and I always was a rover,
O do my Johnny Booker, do.

O do my Johnny Booker, come rock and roll me over,
O do my Johnny Booker, the mate he’s never sober.

O do my Johnny Booker, come roll me in the clover,
O do my Johnny Booker, and I’ll never tell my mother.

O do my Johnny Booker, come rock and roll me over,
O do my Johnny Booker, you’re not too long at Dover.

Danny Spooner sings Johnny Bowker

Do me Johnny Bowker come rock and roll me over,
Do me Johnny Bowker do.

Do me Johnny Bowker from Calais up to Dover.

Do me Johnny Bowker, the mate he is a croaker.

Do me Johnny Bowker, the bosun’s never sober.

Do me Johnny Bowker, the old man he’s a soaker.

Do me Johnny Bowker, we’ll either bend or break her.

Do me Johnny Bowker, just one more pull and choke her.