so I assume (?) that in NEGRO SINGER'S there are notes on context (i.e. that ART OF BALLET could have used to sketch the scene.) 2.If the whaleman Smith copied down "Fanny" in his journal, I am not sure what implications that has that he *sang* it. Without having seen Frank's exact words, I can't form a solid opinion of how likely that was. Worldcat indicates that NEGRO SINGER'S includes no music notation (though there certainly may have been other ways to cook up the/a tune). What stumps me most is why such an incidental, ad-libbed song would be taken and reproduced in later performance. Perhaps if a minstrel group took on the song and, after a rather artificial staged fashion, worked up a performance version of it, it would then become popular and spread itself, no longer subject to the usual "rules" of performance in the "folk" tradition. I guess what I am voicing is my skepticism --though it may be due to lack of info-- that this "Fanny" song would have been performed by the whalemen 2 decades after it was observed on a New Orleans dock. Well, at least not in an "authentic" way. But anything is possible, I suppose. Gibb, Frank does not give any indication of contextual notes for "Fanny" in NEGRO SINGER'S. Nor does he give any references for his statement about this being a "cargo-loading" song. My *guess* is that he may have gotten this from ART OF BALLET, which takes us back