"The songs Child & co collected were pop songs. "
Not in the sense that the term is used today they weren't
Child called them 'Popular Ballads' not because they enjoyed great popularity but because he believed they came from and belonged to the PEOPLE - as far as you can get from today's pop songs which belong to somebody and bear a little (c) which identifies them as doing so - today's pop songs, no matter what reason the authors made them, are commodities to be bought and sold - as far away from the traditional repertoire as you can get, which belonged to nobody and were freely passed on.
Pat and I have been given many hundreds of songs by the older singers - we'd have had to sell our house and live in a tent if we'd been collecting pop songs.
Those songs are now archived and accessible for anybody to do what they wish with them - can't think of a single pop song we would be free to do that with - can you?
These songs are part of the social history of ordinary working people, which is why they are important and what distinguishes them from any other art form - THEY ARE OUR SONGS - not John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's, or anybody elses'.      
The only foolishness here is the idea that you can ignore all this and flush an entire genre of songs (the artistic creation of working people) down the pan at a whim and not be bothered enough to come up with an alternative definition for what passes for "folk/tradition.
Jim B
You've heard the urban legends and spiteful stories about MacColl - I knew Ewan for twenty years - I worked with him, I was a recipient of his and Peggy's incredible generosity when I moved to London - they fed me and gave me a bed until I found a job and somewhere to live.
I was part of the workshop they ran for singers who wished to become better singers - once a week in their home for nearly ten years, all while the rest of the folk stars were getting on with their own careers.
I don't "hero worship" Ewan - I admire the work he did for folk song, his ideas on them, the work he and Peggy put in to pass them on, not just in their own singing but in what they collected (*all freely available to interested people - they actually rigged up their home for visitors to stay over and copy their field recordings of Sam Larner, the Stewarts etc (some have finally been made available by Musical Traditions).
Ewan and Peggy have left a massive legacy - of their own singing (which you can take or leave) - their work, their ideas, the hundreds of songs they made (both were insistent that what they wrote weren't 'folk songs' by the way).
I never found the Singers Club sterile, but there again, I only went to the place for nearly every week for about twenty years, so what the hell do I know?
You want to rely on malicious gossip - feel free, I'll stick with personal experience, if its all the same with you.
In all the twenty years I knew Ewan I never once saw him shout anybody down in public, nor did I ever see him rude to people, certainly not in a crowded folk club.
Arrogant - maybe (I never found him so) - confident in his opinions, certainly, but having had a close look at those ideas over a long time and put them to the test in our work with traditional singers, I've come to the conclusion that he had a right to be - he was prepared stick his neck out and put those opinions up to be measured - happy to live with that anytime.
I don't particularly like Bob Davenport's singing, but that's my personal taste, but I deplore his arrogant and ill mannered attitude to his fellow performers.
I don't mind self confidence in people who merit it - it's the talentless ones who think they're god's gift who are the pain in the arse - never got that with Ewan and Peggy (we're still in touch with Peggy - still as generous and forthcoming as she always was) - plenty of others who don't live up to their own image of themselves.
Jim Carroll