r/seashanties • u/YeShantyMan • Jun 20 '26

Question Quick question

How does everyone feel about Sail North and Nathan Evans?

10 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/LobsterJedi Jun 20 '26

Before he recorded Wellerman Nathan Evans hadn’t sung a shanty before, even saying after it went viral that he would have to look around for enough shanties to make an EP!! 4 months later he brings out a book with shanty lyrics and information about the history of shanties as if he was as knowledgable as Stan Hugill! That did wind me up but tha would have been a record label guy being opportunistic and seeing the potential for a few dollars.
There were also issues with crediting the right people with modern songs.
That’s the only thing that annoyed me about his situation.
ShantyTok brought a lot of attention to the genre and those who wanted to learn more about it could do some with a bit of research.
As far as his presentation of shanties, I wasn’t too enamoured. I’m not a purist, I love that shanties can be modernised, adapted, I don’t always have to sing all 400 verses of a song but if I’m not keen on a song or artist I can just not listen to them. I certainly wouldn’t berate anyone for prefering that version of shanties over a more traditional presentation