I never saw MacColl sing. The only time I ever saw his widow Peggy sing was at an old time fiddler's convention, where she was the mid- day "name" act. Her choice of instrumentation and material was hardly traditional. She accompanied herself for many of her numbers on an electric piano. I wasn't particularly impressed.
She has moved on since her days with Ewan, and, she told us, she is living with someone decidedly not like Ewan now (sexually I mean, not politically). OK......
But back to who is monitoring whom. Both Capitalist and Communist governments (but not necessarily exclusively those two types) seem to spend a lot of time collecting information for files on people. I wonder if the KGB had a file on Ewan MacColl? Or on me? Naww.....