Hoot
"Do you seriously think that the people in the present-day folk scene would be interested in purchasing Ewan and Peggy's seminars"
No, of course I don't; why should you think they should be sold? But some of the work we did may be of some use to singers, so why not make them available, on the internet say?
The Critics Group spent around ten years working on singing; whenever a problem is raised on this forum: voice production, pitch, range... whatever, quite often my reaction is - we did that in the C.G.
It may well be that other groups were doing similar work, but if ours is useful for singers - what's your problem?
"The music existed long before Ewan and Peggy told us all how to do it."
Perhaps you might tell us where to find "Ewan and Peggy telling us how to do it".
I gave the presentation on The Critics Group at the symposium held for his 70th birthday, and my main criticism of the group and Ewan was that, in spite of all the shit thrown at him, or the misrepresentation of the group's work, or John Brune's efforts to sabotage the radio ballad 'The Travelling People', (don't suppose you were at The John Snow meeting, were you?) and all the rest of the crap surrounding Ewan, his ideas and his work, he or they never publicly commented about what was happening in the folk scene, never criticised or analysed other clubs or performers, but just got on with what they were doing.
The ironic thing about all this is, of course is that people who snide about Ewan telling people how to sing, what to sing, (even chucking gypsies off his non-existant property), are behaving exactly as they accuse him of behaving.
"Ewan may be your personal hero....
He isn't/wasn't.
I knew him, enjoyed his company, liked his singing, respected his work and was grateful for the time he devoted to me and other less experienced singers while the rest of the revival 'stars' were getting on with their careers, but in spite of your snide accusation of hero-worship, I recognised him as a flawed human being with loads of faults, some of them serious.
My problem is that I would like to see an open debate on the work and ideas that came about through the Critics Group, but each time the opportunity arises we have to scramble a shit-mountain (finger-in-ear, Jimmy Miller, war record...... yatta-yatta-yattata, and it just never happens.
If I had to choose between MacColl, warts-and-all, and all this bollocks - sorry, no contest.
Jim Carroll
PS I was hoping for a response to my earlier question from Greg Stephens