"apparantly not according to Peter Cox"
Peter's book is one of the most thoughtful and objective books written about MacColl and his work - taking one line about one Radio Ballad is meaningless
The entire book on all the Radio Ballads is dedicated to pointing out exactly how important and unique they where - which is what I said.
All the Radio Ballads had their weaknesses; according to the team who made the Ballads, the weakest one was 'Song of a Road', I'm not sure why.
One of the problems of 'On The Edge' was that the subject matter being dealt with was in a constant state of change; fashions, taste, language were in a constant state of flux and became quickly dated.
None of this in any way reduces their importance and their role in changing the media's approach to broadcasting the working voice; taking comments out of contexts seems to be a little facile.
Jim Carroll