Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'

Subject: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Tom
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 02:57 PM

Does anyone here recall the "Singer's Club" that wasw held in a venue in Kilburn , back in the 50s ? What was the name of that venue and did Joe Heaney sing there ? Grateful for any help.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 09:46 PM

Is this the one set up by Ewan McColl? - my folk history knowledge is not great. Try Cecil Sharp House or EFDSS.

IF

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 03:49 AM

Like Ian, the only Singers club I can recall Was run by Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger. Firstly in the Princess Louise pub in Holborn, and then another pub that I can't rember the name of, but still in that Holborn Bloomsbury area.
Whether it started in the 50's I cannot say...(Being a little bit too young for pubs at the time!)
No doubt the power of Mudcat will prevail, and more info will be forthcoming.
Kilburn is certainly more likely a district where Joe Heaney might have performed. Always been a hotbed for Irish music.
I'll keep looking at this, an intriguing question.
Cheers Ralphie

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 04:28 AM

Yes, the Singers Club at the Princess Louise certainly started in the 50s — first off there was a skiffle club there where Henry Morris was leading resident; then the Nancy Whiskey Club started in 1956; then the MacColl-Seeger Singers Club took over in, about, early 57. I was a regular there 57-58 but don't remember Joe Heaney appearing. If there was a pub-club in Kilburn at same time, I should expect it to have chosen a different name to avoid duplication or confusion. I think the other pub refd above by Ralphie where the Singers later appeared was The Bull & Mouth.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 04:28 AM

At that time, every pub along the Kilburn High Road (like many another as yet ungentrified urban stretches such as Upper Street, Islington) was home to some kind of session or singaround. One of the first was Ballads & Blues at the Princess Louise in Holborn, a forerunner of MacColl's "Singers" and birthplace of a string of extraordinary myths.

Peggy Seeger explains it here. So, a choice made by the membership and applying to that club alone. The outcome, however, was that the "Singers" proper took off on a circuit of pubs embracing Soho, Holborn and Clerkenwell with one very brief foray to a place I can't exactly remember in the Kilburn / Willesden area (come in Jim Carroll).

At the "Singers" that I remember (chiefly in the Union Tavern & New Merlin's Cave), people were encouraged to investigate their own cultures which, at the time, was sound advice acting as a cull on fake cowboys and cotton pickers. Certainly it was where Martin Carthy first had the notion of delving into his own background while formulating his oft-quoted maxim that music can stand just about anything you try to do with it. Unfortunately, the subsequent corollary that you are much better off knowing what you are doing is too often omitted.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 04:53 AM

From memory, Colin Harper's book Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival mentions that Joe Heaney did indeed perform there.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim McLean
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 04:59 AM

The club I knew was in the Pinder of Wakefield in Grey's Inn Road, London. My wife, Alison Chapman Mclean, took pictures of Joe singing there in 1962/3(not quite sure of the dates).

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 05:06 AM

In his contribution to the brilliant notes to the Double CD, 'Joe Heaney: The Road to Connemara', Topic TSCD518D, 2000, Fred McCormick tells us that,

"The early sixties saw of a partial acceptance of that [Heaney's] talent into the British folk club movement. He began to attract invitations to sing around folk venues and held a resident's chair at the Singers Club in London until his emigration to the USA."

In another section Peggy Seeger gives more detail and her memories of Joe's performance style and personality.

I attended the Singers Club, a couple of times, in the late 60s/early 70s. Joe Heaney was long gone by then but Ewan and Peggy's singing - especially their ballad performances - made a deep impression on me that has never left me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 05:20 AM

The Ballads and Blues Club, which had been preceeded by a handful of concerts at The Theatre Royal, Stratford, East London, opened at The Princess Louise, Holborn in 1957. Joe Heaney and Seamus Ennis were regular performers; whether they were regular enough to be described as 'residents' was debatable.
In 1961 it became The Singers Club and moved to new premises in The Anthony Asquith Room at the premises of the ACTT (Association of Cinema and Theatre Technicians???) in Soho Square.
Despite the difficulty of finding suitable premises (got the flat feet to prove it!), Ewan and Peggy insisted on a central London venue.
The only time I know of the club being held in Kilburn was towards the end of it's life when it made a brief stop at Kilburn Library in the late 80s.
The most disasterous venue (IMO) was the extremely lush Cora Hotel, (crystal chandaliers and all) around the corner from Euston Station. It was there for a couple of months, but pulled out when the hotel management turned their premises over to the Euro-fascists for a convention.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 05:27 AM

Here we go yet again. I attended the skiffle club once at the Princess Louise around 1957/8 and then regularly The Ballads & Blues Association folk club 0rganised by Malcolm Nixon & Pete Turner which followed it. Ewan and Peggy were regulars at the Ballads & Blues club but as has been discussed so often here in the past they both decided that they would prefer to run a club of their own where Ewan could be dictator regarding which material should be sung. It was quite OK for Peggy to take our money from us on a Tuesday night and teach us how to play Freight Train like Elizabeth Cotten but if you wished to sing at the club on Saturday night and you were British then you had to put aside such thoughts and sing songs of your own culture. So for example if you came from Salford you could sing Aberdonian bothy ballads.
Sorry, getting side tracked. Ewan and Peggy departed the Ballads and Blues Club and formed the Singer's Club. 1961 was the year unless my memory is completely shot. They moved around to a few venues and I believe Jim Carrol has stated that they did at one time return to the Princess Louise after the Ballads & Blues Club moved elsewhere.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 05:31 AM

I certainly remember many traditional performers at the P Louise [Sam Larner, Seamus Ennis, Dominic Behan...] when I used to attend in late 50s. But not Joe Heaney, whom I surely would have remembered. I left London in the early-60s, and suspect it must have been after that he joined the regulars. The OP does specify the 50s.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 06:10 AM

Well there you go the Guest Tom!
I said that you would stir old memories. Hope the above information helps. I'm just glad I got the Princess Louise bit roughly right!
As they say "If you can remember the 60's(and 50's) you weren't there!
Cheers Ralphie

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 06:26 AM

Ballad of the Travels - though there are some inaccuracies.
For the Singers club 'sing songs from your own tradition policy' please see Peggy's letter to The Living tradition as indicated by MtheGM - that was how I remember it from the 15 years I served on the organising committeee of the club and the time I spent in the Critics Group.
Jim Carroll

Ballad of the Travels

King Arthur's knichts they socht the grail,
And whiles they'd meet their nemesis;
But we have had oor problems tae
In the search for decent premises.

There was Peggy, Fitzroy, Bert and me
And piper Seamus Ennis;
When he was sober he was great,
But Christ, he liked his Guinness!

The Princess Louise was oor first hamc
And a' oor needs it suited;
But the landlord moaned, "You lower the tone."
So oot o't we were booted.

We moved abode to Tottenham Court Road
Hard by the auld Dominion;
But the landlord's son, said, "Dad, they're bums,
Beatniks," was his opinion.

From Paddington Green to Bloomsbury
From the Plough to Covent Garden,
Lamb's Conduit Street tae Soho Square'
We bore oor heavy burden.

The Pindar it became oor hame
For twa lang years we kept it;
Till the landlord there gave us the air
And then, by Christ, we left it.

Week aifter week, ye followed us
And brocht your lasses wi' ye;
And rallied tae the clarion ca'
Of "Tak' your glasses wi' ye!"

Oor next stop was at Warren Street
At the Prince o' Wales's Feathers,
Whaur wide-boys went and city gents
And suchlike folk foregaithers.

The place it was owre sma' for us,
More traivels were afore us;
There wasnae room tae swing a cat
Or get a decent chorus.

So tae a Watney's pub we gaed
Near Berwick Street located;
A wee red lights and chandeliers.
And noise! Christ, we were fated.

The bloke that kept the place wi' us
Soon broke off good relations;
He said oor clientele was rough
And spoiled the decorations.

So like Ulysses we gaed
To see what fate would bring us;
It brought us tae New Merlin's Cave
The next hame o' the Singers'.

We settled doon in that big room
But alas, we were nae able
To be heard abune the jukebox tunes
And the clatter o' pin-tables.

And whit was worse, the beer was bad,
For the maist part quite undrinkable.
To stay there and be deafened
(al¬so poisoned) was unthinkable.

The shabbiest room in London toon
Next became oor haven,
Ten years o' Saturdays we spent
In that auld Union Taivern.

We sweated there and gasped for air
Mair times than I remember.
Folks used to queue for drinks in March
And get served in September.

At times auld Dennis staggered doon
Just wearin' his wee doin's:
At ither times he lay supine,
And slept while folk were queuin'.

For ten lang years we pleaded for
Some form o' ventilation,
Folks couldnae breathe and often needed
Artificial respiration.

At last we couldnae stand it mair
Frae Dennis then we pairted;
And we went back tae the auld Louise
The place frae which we started.

Twa weeks were scarcely past and gane
When builders and shopfitters
Cam' in and occupied the place
We didnac ken whit hit us.

Week aifter week the wark went on,
The room got wee'er and wce'er,
Till at the end you scarce could bend
Your arm to drink your beer.

So once again we were cast oot,
Rejected and forlorn,
Condemned to face cauld winter's blast.
The orphans o' the storm.

We traivelled east, we traivelled west,
To find a new location,
And found a howff. the Bull and Mouth,
No far frae Holborn Station.

The landlord raised and raised the rent
Beyond oor expectation.
He turned us oot, gave us the boot,
The victims o' inflation.

The wheel o' fortune gaed full turn;
At last in desperation
We gaed back to oor haven, the Union Taive
No far from Kings Cross Station.

Ae nicht a ghost, that's rarely seen,
As rare as Halley's Comet,
Cam' in and sat doon at the back.
"By Christ!" says I, "that's ."Dunnett".

"You're richt," he said. "My name is Bruce,
Why should I no' admit it?"
He said, "This place is a damned disgrace,
I think it's time ye flitted."

He said, "I'll swear by my grey hair
And Rabbie Burns's bonnet,
I'll find a room unlike this tomb,
Or my name is no' Bruce Dunnet!"

He found a room fit for tycoons
In a howff they ca'd the Cora;
We thought we'd stay until doomsday
Or at least till ninety-four-a.

There was mirrors braw and fancy drapes
And bonny chandelier-us.
And though some did groan aboot microphon
At least ye a' could hear us.

But O my friends, ye let us doon!
Ye werenae good at boozin';
The bar receipts when doon and doon
And the Cora sent us cruisin'.

Then, due to superhuman toil
BY Ian, Bruce and Tony,
The Singers' Club and the Marquis pub
Were entering matrimony.

Every week a new landlord,
And chairs kept disappearing;
And the marriage wi' the Marquis
Soon upon the rocks was steerin'.

Landlords came and stayed a week
Then departed - banished.
Receptacles for beer were scarce
And more and more chairs vanished.

Ae week the room had vanished tae
And we were maist emphatic,
Protesting when we had to move
Upstairs intae the attic.

St. Paul's trip tae Damascus toon
Provoked a' kinds o' heresies;
But Trevor Smith gaed just as far
Lookin' for new premisies.

Haunting pubs and boozing kens
Became his sole activity,
Orpheus was nae mair resolved
When searching for Euridice.

He lookit east, he lookit west,
While drinking quarts o' beer-O,
And then Tom Paley nipped in smart
And found the Belvedere-O.

It was a dump, an awiu' dump.
That dark and drearv boozer.
We'd reached rock-bottom in that hole
But beggars can't be choosers.

The walls were diarrhoelic brown.
The ceilings were the same, O;
The floor was dirty spinach soup
But at least we'd found a hame-O.

The second week that we were there
A wall it went a-missin';
We'd have had mair comfort doon the road
In a cell in Holloway Prison.

So Trevor's on the road again.
Frae Battersea to Highbury,
And a room he found deep underground
Beneath the Finsbury Library.

This place was camouflaged, weel-hid
Frae the prying eyes of strangers;
And the road to that wee iron door
Was sair beset wi' dangers.

Many a ballad buff was lost—
For weeks on end they wandered,
Roond and roond that library
Till strength and youth were squandered.

When Theseus trod the labyrinth
He didnae dae sae badly;
But folks couldnae find the Singers' Club
They hadnae Ariadne.

London toon is fu' o' rooms
Some guid and some richt stinkers;
But if we want to keep this place
We need some heavy drinkers.

So for God's sake, keep your glasses filled
Spend a' that's in your purses;
Let's settle doon and keep this room
And write nae mair daft verses.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 01:12 PM

Jim-

What a splendid ballad!

We had one, but not quite so long, about the shifting venues of the Portland Folk Club music swaps in the 1980's here in Maine.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 01:28 PM

Charlie,
I know it was edited down to go into MacColl's songbook - I would guess there are at least another 10 verses lying around somewhere.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim McLean
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 01:48 PM

It was in the Pinder of Wakefield that Dylan sang.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 02:30 PM

It was in the Pinder of Wakefield that Dylan sang.

Does anybody know the rest of this song?

L in C

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim McLean
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 05:07 PM

It was in the Pinder of Wakefield that Dylan sang.
And Ewan looked on in disdain.
Peggy looked fraught,
While Bert Lloyd said naught,
It's the truth that I tell,
Jim McLean

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:35 AM

It was me that linked to the Peggy Seeger statement to Living Tradition, not MGM. I keep it on my browser bar to repost whenever someone chooses to distort Ballads & Blues policy on the subject of matters which Ewan MacColl had little to do with. He was, first and foremost, an actor whose ":rule" (if he had one) was to convey whatever was being portrayed convincingly with accuracy, and to constantly reinvent himself.

Ewan's parents had migrated in search of work ro Salford, where he was born and brought up within a close émigré Scottish community. To claim that there was something false about his performance of Aberdonian bothy ballads is as erroneous as saying Edward II and Corner Shop should confine themselves to indigenous Northern Soul because England is where they all now live.

As someone has mentioned Dazzling Stranger, I am halfway certain that this is where I read a reference to Joe Heaney playing to three blokes and a dog somewhere in North-West London. Colin Harper (if it were he) describes it in the first person, thus dating it 1980s (as Jim Carroll says) rather than 1950s.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 05:50 AM

In which case one of the three blokes was Ewan, as the book quotes Ewan speaking to Joe after the performance. I will extract the relevant passage when I get chance.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 06:09 AM

"
It was in the Pinder of Wakefield that Dylan sang.
And Ewan looked on in disdain.
Peggy looked fraught,
While Bert Lloyd said naught,
It's the truth that I tell,
Jim McLean "

Brilliant Jim lets have more

L in C

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Tom
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 07:30 AM

Goodness, and I had begun to think that nobody else was interested !!!

Thanks to all who have shared their memories, especially Jim Carroll for that marvellous Poem/Ballad.
An acquaintenance suggests that a pub on Kilburn High Road called "The Rifle Volunteer" may have been one venue in 50/60s ??
I met Seamus Ennis once myself and can vouch for the veracity of Jim's verse 2 above about Seamus' love of "the black stuff" I don't remember leaving him !!!!
I met Joe Heaney twice and each time he started a row with others and I was obliged to leave !!! He was a marvellous storyteller though, as well as singer of "Sean Nos" well,, both were , weren't they ?

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:13 AM

Re the comment above by the Borchester Echo about people distorting Ballads & Blues Policy. May I respectfully ask during which years did Ms Borchester Echo attend the Ballads & Blues Club and what was our policy? I was involved from 1958/9 until 1965. Perhaps she could tell me what our policy was.

Ewan and Peggy departed the Ballads & Blues club and formed the Singer's Club I believe that it was their Singer's Club policy which a few people tended to get upset about.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 10:46 AM

is it true that Ewan reprimanded Lisa Turner for singing Single Girl,or is this untrue.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 10:53 AM

I don't know anyone who was "upset" at the Singers. I did come across some (predecessors of the types who come on here and whinge that politics and music don't mix) who thought the Critics style of mutual support and style discussion a bit bonkers. These were the ones who tended to gravitate to the "Fine Girl & Bash the Bodhrán" opposition at The Peelers on Saturday nights instead. Their choice.

As for Ballads & Blues policy, it was as set out in Peggy Seeger's statement to Living Tradition, already linked to. As it was formulated by the membership who decided that performers should sing in a language they could understand and speak without any repeats for three montha, it's surprising that "Hootenanny" is unaware of what it was. Me? I floated around all three, if not at the Troubadour or the Cousins.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:17 PM

Re above posting, I looked at Peggy's "confession" that she started the debate. She states that The Ballads and Blues club had been in operation since 1953(?) Peggy says she arrived in 1956. As she states it was not until about 1960 (Seven years after the club started by her reckoning) when the cockney Leadbelly occasion arose it could hardly have been Ballads & Blues Policy that non americans for instance should not sing American songs. It never was our policy. That is why we continued the club and continued booking people such as Alexis Korner, Cyril Davis, Steve Benbow, Red Sullivan, Alex Cambell, Pete Stanley, Dorothy & Peter Sensier, Malcolm Price, John Baldry, Wally Whyton, Lisa Turner etc etc as well as American artists.

Peggy & Ewan went off to start the Singers Club and the Ballads & Blues club continued booking peole that our members found entertaining.

Regarding the question about Lisa Turner. I cannot remember the song in question but I was there when it happened. He did not reprimand her just suggested that she should sing an English song instead of the one she announced. Lisa refused and stepped down.

PS Can I ask again during which years you "floated around all three",
you mention two and I assume that the third was the Singers Club, so when were you among our happy band at the Ballads and Blues?

Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 07:50 PM

Whatever the date (I'm pretty sure Peggy has the date wrong) - it was never a 'rule' that people should sing only from their own traditions (any more than it was practice to 'audition' visiting singers from the floor, ashas been suggested) - it was policy for the Singers club residents only (how could it be anything else - Ewan was never in a position to make 'rules' for any club even if he had wanted to).
In the end, the proof of the pudding....... as they say.
It was this policy, in the Singers Club and elsewhere, that threw open the English, Scots and Irish repertoires, for which I, for one, will be eternally grateful.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Fidjit
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:28 PM

Troubadour was where I did some floor singing, around '66 or before.

Martin and Red kept order there. Entertaining it was.

Cousins was always too late for me and full of those funky guitar players. My 3 chords had no chance.

Chas

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 12:07 AM

Yes, Jim, I agree Peggy had misremembered the date in that passage the Borchester Echo [which you misattributed to me] linked to above. It was well before the 60s, as Peggy claims {after Ballads & Blues had mutated into Singers} that I remember the rule about singing only from one's own tradition — definitely from back in Princess Louise days; I left London in early 60s and never attended a Singers Club session in another venue. (And I think Peggy misrecalled other details too - I missed very few sessions, & I certainly never heard Ewan sing 'Sam Bass': the only person who did was Alan Lomax.) I referred to the rule in my inlay note to a cassette record I made for Brewhouse 20 years ago: 'RED APPLE JUICE - Sung in memory of Isla Cameron. She used to insist on singing it at the old Ballads & Blues club in teasing defiance of Ewan MacColl's rule that English singers sing English songs, Americans sing American ones - this poignant lament for a broken marriage being obviously American'. That was certainly in the 1957-8 period, before B&B became Singers & moved venues - by which time, I repeat, I was no longer around the London clubs.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 12:30 AM

In fact - another clear recollection - I remember, in very early days when B&B was only just getting established at P Louise, Ewan once being extremely reluctant and apologetic in agreeing to a request from the floor to sing 'Venezuela', as he wasn't sure it a song ever current among British seamen, but would do so as he had once heard a vague reference to a Scottish sailor singing it. When he had finished, Dean Gitter, a visiting American singer who was resident in early days, informed us that John Jacob Niles had recently admitted authorship of that then much-sung song: whereupon Ewan declared that, had he known that, he would not have sung it, and certainly would not accede to a request for it again.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:10 AM

By the way,
I hope nobody is under the impression that I composed the Ballad of the Travels - I didn't.
MacColl wrote it and added verses each time the club changed premises. It was a tradition of the club that he would sing it on the opening night in the new venue - eventually it became so long that he only sang an cut-down version.
Regarding the singing of American songs; I see that the new Topic set of re-issues includes MacColl singing Sixteen Tons. I cannot fathom for the life of me why the editors should do this; it certainly isn't representative of his singing and was recorded early in his career when singers on the folk scene were singing a mixture of material - would have loved to hear Bert Lloyd singing American songs, which apparently he did. I seem to remember owning an Topic album of Paul Robeson singing in Chinese, German, Polish and Yiddish.
Whatever the logic of including Sixteen Tons, I have no doubt that it will be used as a stick to beat the long-dead MacColl. The only review I have seen so far hones in on it with gleeful Pavlovian predictability.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:33 AM

I certainly don't recall his singing 16 Tons, any more than Sam Bass, at Ballads&Blues at the Princess Louise. I wonder when he would have done: it was not all that long since he had given up the theatre to concentrate on the Folk Revival; to the contempt, as he mentions in Journeyman, of such literary luminaries as Louis MacNeice and Hugh McDiarmid. He made early 78 records, on HMV I think, of Van Diemans Land, Lord Randall, Eppie Morrie, Sir Patrick Spens; & started off an embryonic B&B with Joan Littlewood at Theatre Royal Stratford; but by the time he started occasional guesting at Nancy Whiskey Club at the Louise, with Peggy as accompanist & sometimes with Bert, in the months before taking over the venue with B&B, he was very insistent that, tho it was a skiffle&folk club, he knew nothing about skiffle but was a Scots/English folksinger. Did he sing 16 Tons at Stratford E? Can't think what other stage of his career it might have come from.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:48 AM

I think it was taken from the sound-track of a film made for the National Union of Mineworkers.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 06:08 AM

Jim,
I don't see any problem with Topic issuing a track by Ewan doing Sixteen Tons. I am sure that you are as aware as any "collector" that many highly respected "traditional" singers - probably most, also sang a variety of other material including music hall and "pop" songs. Walter Pardon for instance? Sixteen Tons was a pretty good song written by a Kentuckian about slaving your guts out to dig coal and always finishng up in debt to the coal owners, surely the subject matter would appeal to Ewan. The fact that most people then only knew the Tennessee Ernie Ford popular version may have put some "folkies" off.
I heard tell by a collector in Suffolk once who had been recording a box player. The musician played a tune which the collector thought he had not heard previously. When told that it was an unusual tune and asked the title back came the reply "Well around here we call it 'I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts'".

I have to agree with you that the Singers Club policy opened up the doors to British traditions and it was a good thing but don't forget that Harry Cox, Sam Larner, Bob and Ron Copper, Dominic Behan, the McPeakes, Seamus Ennis etc all appeared at the Ballads & Blues so we we weren't only exposed to fake cowboys and cotton pickers like Rambling Jack, Derrol Adams, Dean Gitter, Fred Gerlach.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 06:29 AM

A bit of thread-wobble which nevertheless seems appropriate here in view of above post. One of most influential songs of the Revival was Margaret Barry's wonderful, heartbreaking rendition of She Moved Thru The Fair, which everyone, but everyone, was singing in fine traditional style in the late50s-early60s [despite its traditionality being disputed, whatever Wiki sez]. When ultimately asked in an interview [by Karl Dallas if memory serves, but if not I beg his pardon] where she had learned it - on the road? from parents? from other travellers? - she replied cheerfully, "Oh no, I learned it from a gramophone record by Count John McCormack".

Incidentally - more relevantly perhaps - re above post: isn't it a bit over-dismissive to call Rambling Jack & his buddy Derroll Adams, or even Dean Gitter &c, who were indeed Americans and so singing from their own tradition, fake cowboys and cottonpickers - Rambling J had after all travelled with Woody in his early days?

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,John from "Elsie`s Band"
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 06:52 AM

I recall attending the "Hootenanny" evenings with Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger but for the life of me I cannot identify the pub. It cannot have been too far from Charing Cross. What I do remember though is the excellent contribution to the occasions given by Fitzroy Coleman.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:09 AM

To MtheGM,

Sorry if I gave the wrong impression. I was not knocking Jack, Derrol, Dean or Fred, far from it.I greatly appreciated what they did very much so and of course they have a right to sing whatever they like from wherever they like and fortunately they did and in Jack's case still do. I remember several occasions when Jack would sing "I belong to Glasgow"

Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:50 AM

I think the time is ripe for a compilation CD of Ewan singing songs "not from his own culture" (whatever that may have been). I know he recorded John Henry and Sixteen Tons. Are there any other tracks knocking about like those?

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 09:42 AM

There was an EP I seem to remember from the fifties of an Alan Lomax Skiffle group The Ramblers which included Ewan and Peggy, Bruce Turner plus I believe Brian Daly, Shirley Collins and Jim Bray. Titles included Oh Lula and Railroad Man both of course "words and music arranged by Alan Lomax" plus one of McColl's own songs Hard Case. So, two there for starters.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 10:22 AM

Hoot: I have a rare Decca 45 single of that line-up, doing "Dirty Old Town" and "Hard Case". A very treasured possession. But those tracks are very definitely from Ewan's "own culture", couldn't be closer to home.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 11:57 AM

To answer the OP's original question - Joe Heaney appeared with Robin Williamson(!) at the Singers Club sometime between March '63 and the end of '64. I forget the venue (?Twickenham).

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 12:15 PM

Yes, now I come to think of it, I still have somewhere a beat-up softback booklet called 'The Skiffle Album - Alan Lomax And The Ramblers', with pic on cover of Alan & Ewan & Peggy & Shirley et·al -- which wasn't really a skiffle album at all, any more than the group was; but both represented a worthy attempt to persuade the then-popular skifflers to perform British material, rather then the ubiquitous Broonzy and Leadbelly & ElizabethCotten which was their staple. Contained such songs as The Day We Went To Rothesay-o, as well as ones mentioned above. In fact, the skiffle-boom died out before the idea could really catch on; & THAT was the point at which Ballads&Blues took over the Princess Louise from Nancy Whiskey, & other British-style folk clubs began gradually to proliferate — nationwide, as well as in London: Roy Harris's Traditional Music Club in Nottingham, High Level Ranters in Newcastle, &c.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 02:43 PM

"I think the time is ripe for a compilation CD of Ewan singing songs "not from his own culture"
No - no - no.
It seems to me ludicrous to suggest such an idea - isn't it time we let him RIP? There are enough ghouls still more than happy to give his corpse a kicking (if he hadn't been cremated).
He would have hated the idea, just as he would have been desperately unhappy at the lastest Topic venture of releasing selections from his and Bert's Riverside series of ballads, albums he couldn't bear to listen to.
To me, the use of Sixteen Tons on the Topic series is reminiscent of those dreadful'Before They Were Famous' series.
I only hope that when I pop my clogs people don't start digging up things I said and did thirty years ago.
If anybody wants to get Ewan at his best, try digging out his research on singing and putting them to use. There are loads of seminars he and Peggy did and 250 plus tapes of Critics Group workshops (housed in Birmingham Central Library) which, I have no doubt whatever, would give the present-day folk scene a much needed transfusion of life and ability.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 02:46 PM

Jim, I have an admiration for Ewan M's work bordering on adulation. But he was pretty silly at times. And he and Peggy were prepared to sneer at lesser mortals derisively and hurtfully sometimes, so I don't think a mild snigger at his expense is totally out of order.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 03:30 PM

"And he and Peggy were prepared to sneer at lesser mortals derisively and hurtfully sometimes,"
When - perhaps you can provide some examples
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: GUEST,Winger
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 04:19 PM

I'm baffled as to why Topic's re-release of early MacColl material should generate so much such wringing of hands.

MacColl (or Lloyd or anyone else for that matter) wasn't born a fully developed ballad singer. They went through various stages of development and that development has been preserved on record. Granted, some of that early stuff doesn't actually make for great listening but it serves to illustrate how the early folk revival found its way by trial and error. For instance, the Topic compilation BOLD SPORTSMEN ALL: GAMBLERS & SPORTING BLADES has MacColl singing "Football Crazy" and "Galway Races" in a most embarrassing Oirish accent, so perhaps, on reflection, we can see why he later became such an avid advocate of the infamous Singers' Club policy of singing songs from your own tradition.

I would imagine that any serious student of the folk revival would be anxious to hear these early recordings. Topic is possibly the only company with the will and knowledge to let younger generations hear how influential performers evolved over the years. Equally, I'm sure that the likes of Martin Carthy and Christy Moore wouldn't like to be judged solely on their earliest recordings but that's what happens when you embark on a career as a professional singer, musician or entertainer. At a given time you offer your wares to the public in the knowledge that this reflects what you were doing at that time.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 04:19 PM

Been thinking about what you wrote Greg - I have to say the idea of putting out an album to have a mild snigger at somebody who is 20 years dead as an act of revenge is one of the most groteque ideas I have come across - sorry - with friends like these..... as the saying goes
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:23 PM

I only hope that when I pop my clogs people don't start digging up things I said and did thirty years ago.quote Jim Carroll.
no dont worry ,Jim,We wouldnt do that to you,we are far too kind,last weeks remarks will suffice.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Fidjit
Date: 29 Aug 09 - 02:39 AM

Greg, Jim, Mthe GM and all.

Know what you all mean.

I'm compiling my own, "Best of" album right now. Fortunately I can't come up with anything..

Jimmy was a goodly man. Crap voice.

Chas

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'The Singer's Club'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 09 - 05:19 AM

Chas
"Crap voice."
M.O.O. Chacun á son goút
Jim Carroll