The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #142469 Message #3285389
Posted By: Little Hawk
05-Jan-12 - 03:22 PM
Thread Name: Why didn't MacColl like Dylan?
Subject: RE: Why didn't MacColl like Dylan?
I have no idea if Ewan MacColl himself showed a general contempt toward singer-songwriters outside his immediate style of music, Jim. I wasn't speaking of him. I never met him. I was theorizing that he might have held such an attitude, but I can't say for sure, not having known the man.
I was speaking of a few little groups of UK-origin folkies who ran a handful of clubs in Toronto, Canada when I was a youngster, and describing the shitty attitude they had toward anyone who wasn't in their tight little in-group. They were approximately one generation older than me, so I'd say they were in MacColl's age group. Whether he shared their general snottiness, I can't say.
I like the traditional music of the British Isles and Ireland. I like it very much. I happily accompany people who play it. What I didn't like was the holier-than-thou attitude of people in those Toronto clubs I alluded to above who didn't seem to respect anything except the traditional music of the British Isles and Ireland. They were intolerant of any style or tradition but their own. They assumed a superiority over other styles and traditions. That strikes me as a mean and immature attitude based on either arrogance or deep insecurity or a sense of entitlement. One often sees such musical prejudice in adolescents, but people should be able to get over that sort of narrow insularity by the time they reached adulthood, I'd hope.
And why would anything "drive you away from the music?" I can't imagine anything that would dive me away from it.