Photo courtesy of Brew City Shanty Sing
A Brew City Shanty Sing at Layman Brewing
A Brew City Shanty Sing event at Layman Brewing
The pastime of participatory song and music has been bringing people around the world together throughout history and civilization. Sea shanties are traditional maritime work songs sung aboard ships in synchronicity with labor, typically featuring one person leading the song with call-and-response choruses. As a Great Lakes city, Milwaukee is an ideal place for sea shanties, and the dynamic duo of Sarah Warran and Phil Cruise Warren embrace it by way of the Brew City Shanty Sing, which takes place at Layman Brewing (6001 W. Madison St.) in West Allis on the third Thursday of every month from 7 to 9 p.m. The shanty sing motto is “No experience required. Enthusiasm necessary.”
“I love the aspect of community singing,” Phil says. ‘There’s an emotional, visceral reaction to singing with a group of people together that’s joyful and connective, and you can’t get it any other way. I think that’s the most important part of the event.”
Sarah adds, “I think something like sea shanties lowers the bar for entry. You don’t have to be a good singer to do this or feel you don’t know enough lyrics to be here. Just show up willing to have a good time, and soon enough you’re just banging on the table along with 30 other people, excited to be here and in the groove! It’s a very human experience and one we don’t get enough of these days.”
All Are Invited
Photo courtesy of Brew City Shanty Sing
Brew City Shanty Sing at Layman Brewing
A Brew City Shanty Sing event at Layman Brewing
With a $5 cover, the Brew City Shanty Sing invites all to take turns leading in song as they eat and drink in working-class spirit. Attendees are welcome to bring their own instruments, especially those commonly used in folk music like accordion, harmonica, fiddle, concertina or spoons. Everyone is provided three booklets of song lyrics—one white, one green and one blue—with more than 40 songs to choose from altogether.
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Sarah cites “Santiano” as her personal favorite sea shanty while “Randy Dandy Oh” and “Jump Around the Jug” are Phil’s favorites. “Drunken Sailor,” one of the best-known shanties, is typically sung every month with lyrics changed in humorous ways around the room. In addition to the traditional songs, modern tunes like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and even the “SpongeBob SquarePants” theme song have been sung before. Phil observes, “I love when we have a newer person who’s either sat in the corner the whole time or has come back a couple of times, and they stand up and lead their first song. You can tell that the look on their face when they’re done is relief but also euphoria that they did it. That’s always a great thing to witness.”
The two hosts met while working at the Broadway Theatre Center in the early 2010s. At the time, Phil had caught notice of Sarah’s poster seeking folks interested in a shanty sing. “My eyes lit up,” Phil remembers. “I had to talk to this person and attend this event.”
Tall Ship Tales
Image via Brew City Shanty Sing - Facebook
Brew City Shanty Sing at Layman Brewing event art
Originally from Maryland, Sarah had been introduced to sea shanties in high school and eventually started a shanty singing group in college. Phil, on the other hand, grew up here in Wauwatosa and had a love for tall ships, sailing and maritime history from a young age. As an adult he has lived and sailed on both the East and West Coasts and continues to sail frequently to this day. “I’ve been able to sail on a couple of tall ships—Europa, Lady Washington, and Eagle,” he mentions. “Separately, I got a connection to sea shanty music from a CD a friend had and I just fell in love with it.”
The Brew City Shanty Sing started in 2012 in the basement of now-closed Milwaukee Beer Bistro. It was also hosted at Three Lions Pub, 42 Ale House and Paddy’s Pub. “Milwaukee has such a strong port connection and culture, and we had the Denis Sullivan already, but there was no active sea shanty group,” Sarah notes. “Someone’s got to do it, so let’s do it!” They connected with local singer-songwriter David HB Drake, who had previously led a shanty singing group years prior. “He gave us a bunch of the lyric books that they used,” Phil recalls.
Meanwhile, Sarah and her husband Kyle Ida had aspirations of opening their own brewery, which ultimately became Layman Brewing in 2020. “At that point, our hobby was going to corner bars and just being in that traditional Wisconsin drinking culture,” she explains. “It’s welcoming and very uniquely Milwaukee. We kept seeing places get cleaned up and lose their charm, and we wanted to create an ode to the corner tavern, which is the kind of place we like to hang out at - and do sea shanties.”
Word of Mouth
At Layman, the Brew City Shanty Sing resumed during Covid quarantine with socially distanced singing sessions on the brewery’s patio before moving indoors for winter of 2022-23. “We’ve been growing through word of mouth,” Sarah affirms. “People who have a good time at our place tell their friends who they think would have a good time, so it’s self-sustaining. Some people have never heard of us because they don’t know the right people yet (laughs).”
Some folks have been coming to the shanty sing since before Layman opened. Past attendees have included Dean Calin of maritime music quintet Bounding Main, the Chant Claire choir and even the sailors of Lake Express Ferry. Notably, one regular wrote an original composition dedicated to Deep Thought, better known as the famed “Milwaukee Boat,” that has since become a monthly staple.
Though the shanty sing has historically taken place around the front bar, Layman recently unveiled its new back room where the event will be hosted moving forward starting this Thursday, July 16. The renovation adds capacity for at least 45 more people and will allow for future programming and activities like live music, tabletop gaming, writing workshops and private events. In the meantime, cribbage nights take place at Layman on the fourth Thursday of every month from 7 to 9 p.m. Regardless of whether there is an event or not, folks may enjoy Layman Brewing’s delicious pub fare and “everyman” beers adapted from Ida’s family recipes.
