Sorry to re-open this; I intended to take up where I left off, but wanted to re-listen to the programme before I did.
For me, the nearest the programme came to presenting the facts in a manipulative manner was in placing the bit on MacColl 'demanding' 4 Viet Nam songs where it was placed .
As I've said, the Group was largely made up of people whose political views coincided roughly with Ewan's – no coercion, no brainwashing, no condition of membership – all consenting adults of a left persuasion.
They were very much a part of the anti-Viet Nam war movement, active in Karl Dallas's (I think) 'Folksingers For Freedom in Viet Nam, and performed at concerts and rallies in support for that cause.
Some of the members, notably, Charles Parker and Jack Warshaw, worked to produce a number of radio programmes 'Broadside On' which were sent to North Viet Nam to be broadcast there.
For all of this, the Group undertook to write songs for the programmes and the concerts.
The Carthy programme gave the impression of a sweatshop proprietor demanding goods be turned out to order; MacColl demanding songs on subjects HE had chosen, when, as far as I recall, he was asking that the Group members were forthcoming on the commitment that they had made.
I attended some of the song-writing classes that took place in the Group; we were asked to bring songs of our own choosing to be worked on – no coercion, no brainwashing; these classes produced some fine songs from some very talented songwriters; Dick Snell, Phil Colclough, Sandra Kerr, Jack Warshaw....
Outside the Group, one of the finest songwriters of the time, John Pole was one of those influenced by the encouragement he received from MacColl and the Critics and from the Singers Club (he won a first edition set of Child Ballads (first series) in a songwriting competition run by the Singers – the bastard!! – for his 'Punch and Judy')
The idea that MacColl could influence a bunch of intelligent and talented adults to the point of forcing them to write songs on subjects he had chosen lurks somewhere in the pages of some of my old science fiction novels anyway.
I've dealt elsewhere with MacColl's 'Stalinism'.
Jim Carroll