"Fakelore singers would claim copyright at the drop of a hat."
Never understood the Fakelore logic on this. On the one hand Ewan and Bert were accused of faking the authenitcity of their songs, on the other they were claiming copyright on them - doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I had four goes at reading Fakelore, three of them I was overcome with distaste and abandoned because of the 'hit-list' approach (who shall we junk next?), the fourth I managed, but emerged none the wiser from the other end.
I think there is a danger of adopting that somewhat distasteful approach here.
All this stuff was issued over half a century ago when accessibilty to information was a thousand times reduced than it is today.
If they got it wrong, fine, let's examine what they got wrong and discuss it in the context it was presented.
If they deliberately produced false and misleading information, let's examine their claim to scholarship and see how it stands up (Dave Arthur's book seems to have made a reasonable stab in this direction for Bert - Ewan has yet to be discussed fully with this in mind; so far, all we have is a handful of urban legends).
"Saying nothing", as was suggested earlier, doesn't seem an option to me.
Apart from the enjoyment and the desire to be involved that I got from these early albums, I also wanted to know more about the subjects - something that has stayed with me all my life.
It seems as 'smug hindsightish' to berate the early singers for getting it wrong, as it did when Harker et al dismissed Sharp, Kidson, Broadwood.... and all the pioneers, without whom we wouldn't be talking to each other.
Jim Carroll