I was around, in England, in the period that Shimrod speaks of, and he is quite right about the 'fluff.' I thought it was fluffy then, and a good deal of it is still far from my taste now. Some is fine, though, as LH said, but I had my mind poisoned against them by their more popular fluff.

I never met Ewan, but friends who did were not impressed by his personality, his attitude, or his politics.
You can't argue with his songbook, though. He was one of the great promoters and songwriters in this idiom, and his songs had, for me, that extra touch that made them feel 'authentic.'
Which, of course, they have now become, some being adopted by the people he wrote them about.