Sarah Weik / Translated by: Dorothée LanghoffTorsten Redler

Maritime superstitions in the Odenwald

Far away from the sea, eight people came together on the slopes of the Odenwald in 1989 to sing sea shanties. Today, the concerts given by the Odenwälder Shanty Chor (Odenwald shanty choir) are stage performances conveying feelings of home with a lingering scent of a sea breeze. And the shows are usually sold out.

The very first notes on the accordion evoke the scent of a sea breeze bringing the smell of salt and seaweed to the listener. Together with the guitar and the mandolin, the calls of seagulls come to your mind. And when the polyphonic singing begins, you are right there—by the sea. You can hear the surf and feel the wind. However, all of this happens in the centre of the Keltensteinhalle hall in the Weinheim district of Rippenweier, more than 500 kilometres from any coast. Actually, it can’t get much further away from the sea in Europe than that.

YouTube — The choir travelled through the galaxy in a B.E.M.B.E.L. mug for its 20^th anniversary in 2009.

And yet the Odenwälder Shanty Chor manages after just a few bars to transport its listeners to the place its songs tell of. To the sea—the place where Schann Scheid from Fränkisch-Crumbach once performed his heroic deeds. Manfred Maser, lyricist and narrator in the Odenwälder Shanty Chor, talks about him when the question arises as to why a choir is singing about the sea here in the Odenwald of all places, where only rocks form seas. After all, Schann Scheid sailed the Seven Seas in the 19^th century and was the first Odenwald native to go ashore on many coasts. He founded a shanty choir when he returned home after 25 years at sea. “This story is documented and well researched,” Manfred adds, “by imaginary Prof. Dr. Alfons Netwohr in the role of director of an institute for speculative local history based in Fränkisch Crumbach.”

Prof. Dr. Alfons Netwohr likes to speculate—not only, but above all, about local history.

While Manfred tells the story of Schann Scheid with dignified seriousness, Gabi Walther sits next to him having a hard time hiding her smile, even though she has heard the story many times before. After all, Alfons Netwohr, who incidentally looks remarkably like Manfred, is part of every concert. Gabi was there when the then still nameless choir was founded.

Gabi Walther and Manfred Maser have been on board since the very beginning.

In 1989, it was Odenwald locals—well-travelled, like the imaginary Schann Scheid—who returned to their homeland with shanties in their luggage. The brothers Arno and Thilo Spilger had worked as carpenters on a sailing ship and convinced their friend Matz Scheid that sea shanties also sounded good on dry land. Andrea, the sister of Arno and Thilo, joined in. And so it became clear that this shanty choir was not to remain an all-male organisation. A pub landlord told Gabi and some female friends about the new choir at the time and encouraged them to go to a rehearsal. “That was on a Friday evening,” Gabi remembers. “I had actually imagined something else than singing sea shanties in a living room.” But she has now been doing it for over 30 years!

Before the choir sets sail on the cruise ship La Traviata…

… there must be a soundcheck.

Only when the instruments are tuned…

… the voices are warmed up…

… the costumes are fitted well…

… the choir takes to the stage.

The cruise ship La Traviata has now set sail in the Keltensteinhalle, with 23 singers on board, who perform their current programme Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow). Stage design, costumes, lighting, songs, stories—everything matches. The choir members don’t just sing their songs, they play and tell them, making the performance a mixture of concert, theatre and dialect cabaret. Manfred alias Alfons Netwohr likes to share his “spoon-sharp” observations in Ourewellerisch, the Odenwald dialect.

We want to remain an amateur choir—however, on an advanced level
Gabi Walther

The choir brings a new programme to the stage every two to three years, presenting new songs, new stories and new finds researched by the institute for speculative local history and staging characters, sayings and inside jokes that are an integral part of every performance and that the audience, apparently all regulars, eagerly awaits. When Manfred talks about Schann Scheid, he doesn’t even have to mention where the fellow comes from. “Fränkisch-Crumbach” is already ringing out from the audience. Even as a shanty choir newcomer in a packed hall, you feel like you belong to a close-knit community.

Manfred joined the choir a few weeks after it had been founded. He enriched it with a founding myth and, above all, with the first few all-night programmes. The choir grew and the expectation with it. Matz’s arrangements became more and more sophisticated, the musicians more professional, the stories wilder and the halls bigger. In 1992, the choir was finally given a name: Odenwälder Shanty Chor. “We could have thought of that earlier,” Manfred comments. In the same year, the first CD, Kleine Fische (Small fry), was released, with more to follow. In 2007 and 2010, the choir received the German Record Critics’ Award for its recordings. But it was always clear that “we want to remain an amateur choir,” says Gabi, “however, on an advanced level.” The singers rehearse once a week in the Alte Schule building in Großsachsen. They deliberately keep the number of concerts small, giving ten to twelve in a year. These are usually sold out.

The choir sings of the sea in front of a sea of spectators.

Valentin Moosmann became the choir director taking over the position from Matz in 2023. As a native of the Black Forest, he “didn’t really plan on leading a maritime choir in the Odenwald,” he says with a laugh. Valentin studied music in Mannheim to become a teacher and is currently completing his teacher traineeship where he is significantly younger than most of the singers. Rejuvenation of the choir is progressing only slowly. “None of the old ones want to leave,” says Manfred, pointing with feigned indignation at Werner Schneider, who is celebrating his 71^st birthday today. “I’ll sing until my body tells me otherwise,” he says and climbs the stairs to the stage. Nobody here wants to stop. They have all grown together and grown closer over the decades.

Valentin Moosmann (left) has been directing the choir, some of whose members have been singing here for three decades, since 2023.

And the next generation is ready. Eleven-year-old Mattis sits on the last edge of his chair during the sound check before the concert and sings along loudly to every song drumming on the back of the chair in front of him. “I have to be at least fourteen to be allowed on stage in the evening,” he says. Just like his father Sascha, who sings and plays guitar in the choir. “And you’ll probably have other things on your mind when you have turned fourteen,” Gabi interjects. Mattis looks at her indignantly and hurls a loud “no-o-o!” at her.

The choir is a tight-knit community not just on stage.

Meanwhile, the cruise ship La Traviata is going through a lull at sea. The choir sings about it, turning the “Road to Nowhere” by the Talking Heads into the “Boat to Nowhere”. It’s not just classic shanties that the choir brings to the stage. Folk and rock songs are included in the programme, too; sometimes in the original version, sometimes rewritten in the Odenwald dialect. The choir presents compositions of their own and folk songs from all over the world. Like today, a song by the Wolof, an African people, which Manfred is particularly enthusiastic about because the language has words that sound very familiar. Then a sailors’ choir from the Odenwald, accompanied on an Irish drum, sings a song in an African language about “Monnem” and “Woi,” which in Odenwald dialect mean Mannheim and wine. It couldn’t be any more local!