Compare and Contrast Cecil Sharp and Ewan MacColl

Who's starting the thread, then? It's a good idea - though, since both men tend to provoke extreme reactions, I can see endless possibilities of rancour.

I must say I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the ghosts of both. Having recently given a presentation on traditional singers that included sections on both Sam Larner and Queen Caroline Hughes, I was struck by MacColl's good collecting practice in both cases, and his insistence on giving a full and fair account of both singers' lives - in 'Singing the Fishing' and his and Seeger's Introduction to 'Travellers' Songs'. Yet only the other day a non-folkie friend who is involved with the Mass Trespass commemorations in Hayfield told me how aliented he'd felt after hearing MacColl's demolition of a songwriter at the Critics' Group, that was aired on Radio 4 a while ago. A complex character.

And don't get me started on Cecil Sharp...