On traditional singers, the book outlines some thoughts MacColl had about this (page 227) as expressed in the introduction to a book about the folklore of the Stewarts of Blairgowrie.

The book (Till Doomsday...) was produced by MacColl and Seeger jointly. The ideas seem to apply to all source or traditional singers.

Harker also says in this context that this book illustrated some of the contradictions in which the Seeger/MacColl vision was always caught. So it isn't just me who has noticed these contradictions.

Seeger and MacColl hoped to bring the riches of folk culture to light through 'politically oriented folk institutions.' But in the book they noted that these institutions had made minor celebrities of 'the folk' whose songs and stories were 'now being used, almost exclusively, to entertain the visiting folklorist, journalist, and television crew'

'Twenty years ago, the Stewarts saw themselves as Travellers', now they were 'observers - sympathetic, but detached observers'. (Quotations from the Till Doomsday in the Afternoon Book.)

Singing for the folk scene, MacColl and Seeger thought, had 'eroded their authenticity, introducing self-consciousness into performance' (Harker page 227). It's the contradictions around this concept of 'authenticity' which caught my attention. In saying this I am not 'having a go' at left wing philosophy, but pointing up the contradictions around the idea of 'authenticity'.

(But of course, the politically biased ideological framework within which source singers were so often presented within the 2nd revival brings with it more questions about the authenticity of the vision offered. I know saying things like this makes you unpopular, and leads to allegations that only somebody 'right wing' would say them, but there you are! )

McC and S referred to 'stereotyped formats of presentation, borrowed from the music hall, the cinema, and television' (quoted on Harker p228)

MacColl and Seeger wanted the folk to be unselfconsciously authentic (their songs and stories should be what Seeger called 'a function of their everyday life')AND knowingly to embody and preserve the pure artistic practices MacColl and Seeger associated with the tradition..' Harker p 228.

IN a 1980 interview, according to Harker, 'MacColl admitted in a 1980 television documentary, 'Our intentions were good - are good. We have tried to liberate whole areas of a submerged but living culture - the survival of which is, we think, vital to social and political progress.' But MacColl now asked himself whether one could expect the resources of that culture to withstand the rapacious culture industry.

NB
Harker says that one traveller pressure group took issue with the book -in a publication called 'Traveller Education'. But the Stewart family themselves admired the book and it was critically well-reviewed. Here I try to reflect what the book says accurately, and to focus on the broader issue, not on folk song and Traveller culture (which is dealt with in other threads).