"David, I met Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger at the 1960 Berkeley Folk Festival. I heard them in concert and in several workshops. And one evening, I had a chance to converse with them informally at a party after one of the concerts. Then once again in the early 1980s, they passed through Seattle on a concert tour, when I met them again and had a chance, with a few other Seattle singers, to swap songs and conversation with them at yet another post-concert party.

Yes, I know that MacColl encouraged people to perform songs from their own culture. But this suggestion was made most strongly at a time when practically everybody in the English folk clubs were singing American folk songs. I fully understand his reason for urging people to sing songs from their own cultures.

I do not believe he intended that this admonition become an ironclad rule for all people for the rest of Eternity."



He shoots, he scores.