The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #135224   Message #3084093
Posted By: GUEST,Hootenanny
28-Jan-11 - 11:13 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req:Jock Hawk's Adventures in Glasgow (MacColl
Subject: RE: McColl or Harry Lauder-Jock Hawk's Adventures
OK Jim,
I will try and be brief. I did mis-read the bit on Alan Lomax. I read "and was instigated" as "which was instigated" and misunderstood.

"His argument of taking songs from your own tradition was aimed directly at the threatening Amercanisation of the revival" Your words immediately preceding the above. Bearing that in mind I thought it was strange to take a song from the Scottish tradition and accompany it with American style five string banjo. I thought that was obvious in the first line of my posting.

Guitars?, Bouzoukis? and even the banjo in it's various forms, nothing wrong with any of them in the right context.

Lomax left England in 1958 but if my memory is correct it wasn't until 1961 that Peggy & Ewan left the BBA. In 1959 Peggy was still teaching us how to pick American folk styles on banjo and guitar and including songs with lines such as "Lassie wi a yellow coatie would ye wed a muirland jockie" plus of course the od reliable "Freight Train".

Sorry not as brief as I intended.

Hoot