Never heard of Alex Campbell

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 06:48 AM

"MacColl was pissed off because he wasn't one of the big names in the great folk scare"
No he cartainly was not Al - unless you know something we don't.
Parhaps he wrote about it somewhere??
Ontherwise, it sounds like yet another MacColl urban myth to me - I'd have thought we have enough of those already shame on you joining that particular flock of sheep!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 06:43 AM

"what a load of crap,"
Take this somewhere else - I raised it in response to your having doneso.
The only relevence to the topic is that Campbell once complained about younger singers earning more than he did.
Other than that, it has no place here - go and start another thread if you want to pursue it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Vic Smith
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 06:40 AM

the real folk take possession of folk music.

Is it just me, or is this a totally meaningless phrase? I know we are in a election campaign with lots of trite phrases being bandied about - 'for the benefit of hard-working families', 'all in this together' etc. but without something more precise and clearly defined, it just sounds like a sloppy slogan to me.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:40 AM

of course you're right Mike. you were a fine journalist - top end though.
i was thinking of Karl and Colin Irwin who wrote for the very influential melody maker folk pages. the phenomenon of those guys making large claims for artists who were inaccessible to general listeners - i have heard one or two of the old stagers remark on. i suppose they thought thet were doing the artists a favour.

like i say, i made my entrance as folk singer, after many years listening to find myself in the middle of this civil war. anywsy the traddies won, but time has proved that they couldn't hold the ground.

sooner or later - the real folk take possession of folk music.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:38 AM

"Never heard of Alex Campbell?" Sounds like an old country song

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:17 AM

Not an answer to my question, Al. I don't care who said what about Martin; I just don't know what you could have meant by "England's two folk journalists", implying that there were only two. If you had said "Two of England's folk journalists", it might have made a bit of sense. But I know full well that I was one at the time, and I said never any such thing about Martin or Dylan or whoever.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:11 AM

Making money a factor in folk song is a nail in its coffin before it even begins feeling a little queasy."
what a load of crap, money is one[not the only but one] of the incentives for most professional musicians, if you want to have professional standards [and you are always banging on about amateurish performance people reading from notes etc] then you have to have professional performers, professional performers have to practise their music,that generally means they need the time to do it, that is facilitated for them if they can work at it full time., OR HAVE A PART TIME JOB THAT ALLOWS THEM TIME TO PRACTICE
I could have earned a lot more money if i had chosen another form of music, but i loved playing this kind of music and accepted that the financial rewards would be less than in the pop world, but that dOes not stop me accepting money for performance, however i do on occasions play for nothing. I ALSO run a festival for nothing.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:05 AM

has it ever occurred to you how many people were drawn into folk music by The Smothers Brothers? MacColl was pissed off because he wasn't one of the big names in the great folk scare. understandable.   vanity, vanity...all is vanity!

Stop being bitter on his behalf. like they say in Jurassic |Park, the dinosaurs had their shot. MacColl had his, and he did what he wanted with it. good for him. he achieved much.

there is no need to slag off fine musicians like Derek and Dick.

but try having some dignity. you are doing the memory of Ewan MacColl no favours by using this site to remember and celebrate his petulance and intolerance. they were small and very occasional failings in a man deserving of our admiration.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 03:20 AM

Should read "mercenary attitude"
Thank you for your character reference BTW - a confirmation that I'm not getting things too wrong, coming from who it did!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 03:11 AM

"one is that young performers are paid to run a guest booking folk club,"
Making money a factor in folk song is a nail in its coffin before it even begins feeling a little queasy
God protect Irish song from such a mercenary (from a professional singer).
Not to say that some people shouldn't make money from their work - just that it should never, ever be a guiding principle.
I really did think this died way back in the folk boom that gave us 'The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 02:09 AM

there are several things that are required now, one is that young performers are paid to run a guest booking folk club, perhaps the EFDSS should be allocating funds for this.
secondly,young performers should be running guest booking folk clubs , where people listen to the music, they should look back at the early days of the uk folk revival and start doing club swap and booking each other at their clubs. young people canotr expect other peop[lew to do all the work, IF they want a scene where there is a network of guest booking clubs , they have to put some work in , if they dont then the network of clubs will be gone

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 12:58 AM

you'd have to ask Martin. i've forgotten where i heard it, but he would remember. i remember he was pissed off about it.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 12:20 AM

Whom do you mean by "England's two folk journalists", Al? I certainly would never have dreamed of calling Martin any such thing. Neither, I am sure, would Karl; or Fred; or Eric -- or any of the other great number of us who had as much right as whoever you mean to be called "England's folk journalists".

Regards

≈Michael≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 06:16 PM

i said - no more to say. but looking back - i love that bit about most of us just didn;t want to be paid - like as if being as talented as Alex or Derek was just a matter of choice, but of course real folksingers would disdain such shallowness.

I can see why he was pissed off at the young upstarts . people were turning up at folk clubs expecting the folk stuff they heard on the radio in the 1960's. exciting though it must have been to dig up some fusty old unmemorable folksong that had died out for bloody good reasons - it was /is frequently tough going on the poor sods listening. England's two folk journalists were calling Carthy England's Bob Dylan - so where was blowing in the wind?

Brimstone told me through that period, he would turn up after a melody maker folk page had built up a young upstart - to find a club that had been there for ten years had been decimated. i guess alex was having the same sort of experiences.

and as for facile - Derek could piss rings round most people as a guitarist and banjo player. i knew none of your gang who came anywhere near. you don't get that good as a diletante semi pro. you WORK to get that good.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 06:03 PM

funny old game as Jimmy Greaves used to say, but I find the disciple of MacColl now resident in County Clare, boring facile and frequently unfunny. I know who i would rather pay money to see perform and its Derek Brimstone,but thats just me.. a talentless moron

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 04:11 PM

no more to be said - really - boring, facile, frequently unfunny.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 04:00 PM

"I've always found folk music "fun" (and a great deal more) to be involved in - if I wanted to socilaise, I'd go down to The Old Sergeant or The Eagle, where my wanting to socialise didn't nause up anybody elses enjoyment or concentration - the same with Shakespeare, or watching films, which I also find "fun""
as usual an interesting comment, there is an assumption that wanting to socialise is going to mess up someone elses enjoyment, we obviously have different viewpoints on socialisation, for me it was going to the les cousins folk club listening to good folk music even if some of it was american, and maybe quietly chatting up an attractive young woman in between the music no ones enjoyment was spoiled.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: breezy
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 03:41 PM

Couldnt get away from the bugger in the late 60s early 70s in the SE London and N kent

He adjudicated a folk singing competition at Whitelands college Wimbledon about 1971

There were a handful of performers

After announcing the winner he reintroduced the artiste to conclude the evening

The sod

He was a folk entertainer and thats what drew in the crowds

Derek Brimo was of the same style but sober and a great deliverer of jokes

The warning to folk club organisers was 'watch out for the traddies,' !!!!

I see him now in my mind's eye, in the mid 70s, sitting in the lounge bar of the Ivanhoe Hotel in Bloomsbury, dressed to the nines. I had to do a double take.

Yes he was a legend in his own lifetime

Hell Yeah

The black cat piddled.... and the white cat sighed....
And the white cat said'cor blimey'
And the black cat said 'You silly sod, you shouldnae stand behind me'


any more memories

So long

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Gurney
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 03:21 PM

I think that people saying "I saw Alex at...." is typical of the man. He was on tour for much of the time!
He charged less than most professionals, and he worked a lot more, and he was often available in your locality, wherever that locality was.

I booked him several times when I ran clubs, and he never let me down, unlike some who would accept a booking and then cry off later (and late!) because they got no other booking in the area.

And could he drink whisky!
He came to our wedding ceildh. We had a day when there was nothing folky on, so he had no gigs to go to. Ah, yes. If he didn't have a gig, he would go to some local club anyway.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 03:06 PM

"derek never exercised his right to bore you with his erudition"
Constant references to boredom are very reminiscent of those tiresome bt#rats who constantly whine "mammy, I'm bored".
I know people who are bored out of their skull by Dylan, Shakespeare, Jazz folk song of any type, blues, dickins, Coronation Street......!!!
Boredom is the domain of the bored, not the boring - most subjects have their adherents.
(I always found Derek Brimstone facile, boring and not infrequently unfunny - but then again, that's me
I wouldn't dream in telling people what they should or should not be interested in a million years
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Tradsinger
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 01:31 PM

i saw Alex perform several times around Portsmouth in the 60s. What I remember is a performer of tremendous charisma who always had the audience hanging onto every word of the song. His singing of tender songs could bring the audience near to tears. He had another side, however, and could quickly switch to coarseness, almost offending the audience.

However, as an interpreter of folksongs, I have seldom heard anyone better.

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 01:29 PM

well lets see

i've heard him sing songs of the Copper family, Frank Proffit, Leadbelly, Broonzy, Josh White, Mance Lipscomb, Rev Gary Davis, Jean Bosco M'wende, Jean Ritchie. just off the top of my head.

you probably didn't notice. derek never exercised his right to bore you with his erudition.

if theres no room for people like derek in your version of the tradition - you're throwing away one of your best cards. well they did throw him away - more fool them.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 01:20 PM

Yes indeed. Thanks for correction, Vic.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Vic Smith
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 01:16 PM

A contribution from a pedant:-
[First Prize: Lee Nicolson; No Prize At All: MGM]

He was Lea Nicholson with an "h" and he took his first name by shortening his middle name "Leatham".

I ran a weekly club with him in Brighton from 1968 - 1970 and though he had a good reputation as a singer and musician, I reckon that he was seriously underrated in both departments. He was a truly original inventive concertina player.
Moved away from folk song into electronica. Last spotted playing bass guitar in a band in the Derby area.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 12:47 PM

Derek Brimstone was a very gifted musician, an excellent performer, and a most likeable man. But as to his having "thought carefully how to convey traditional songs to contemporary audiences", as asserted by Al above -- when would that have been? I certainly never heard him sing a traditional song: EVER; from the time I first heard him at the competition of the 1st Cambridge FF 1965, in which he won Second Prize [First Prize: Lee Nicolson; No Prize At All: MGM] onwards. Was he ever a performer of traditional songs in any shape, manner or form whatsoever? I suspect not.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 12:42 PM

" it was actually the professional disseminators of folk music like Alex and my own favourite Derek Brimstone that i saw being the real victims"
I've got a recording of Alex Campbell complaining bitterly about young upstarts (that wold be tCarthy, he Watersons, Peter Bellamy, and many others of that ilk) earning the same as he did.
I came onto the scene when payment wasn't an issue - not to say there was anything wrong with being paid for singing - just that the vast majority of us didn't, and didn't particularly want to.
The revival was basically the child of the BBC's mopping up campaign in the early 1950s, Colyer, Donegan, et al, were doing something else - they certainly weren't promoting their music as 'folk'.
Lomax was the one who kicked Ewan and Bert up the arses for singing America stuff.
I've always found folk music "fun" (and a great deal more) to be involved in - if I wanted to socilaise, I'd go down to The Old Sergeant or The Eagle, where my wanting to socialise didn't nause up anybody elses enjoyment or concentration - the same with Shakespeare, or watching films, which I also find "fun"
Jim Carroll.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 12:20 PM

don't lets get into all that. there were certainly faults on both sides. ironically it was actually the professional disseminators of folk music like Alex and my own favourite Derek Brimstone that i saw being the real victims of that polarisation.

and i got so much out of them.... i saw alex more than a few times at Barrie Roberts club in Walsall. also at Andy Dwyers club in Tamworth. neither were really well attended. in both cases they weren't source singers in the way that Jim puts so much value on. but in both cases - they had known the source singers and absorbed, and thought carefully how to convey traditional songs to contemporary audiences - there was no 'take it or leave it' about those guys. they had a passion to communicate.

it was sad to see it misunderstood so profoundly. distrusted by the traddies.   misunderstood by the folk comedian crowd who expected a laugh every 45 seconds.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 11:47 AM

The folk revival was not started by Jim Carroll,what killed the tree were people like Jim Carroll laying down rules in their club and being so serious that they forgot that some people who like folk music also liked to have fun and were there not just because they liked folk music but to socialise get to know with a similiar taste in music girls. much as i respected Ewan as a songwriter and a performer, the idea of spending an evening with such a pompous overbearing patronising old git was not my idea of fun

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 11:06 AM

I disagree that (Y)"our lot" actually got the revival started.

It was mainly skiffle that got "the revival" started, Ken Colyer, Tony Donegan etc.
Alan Lomax was in the UK at the time and formed Alan Lomax and The Ramblers featuring skiffle and folk songs. Group members included Lomax, Brian Daly (I think), Shirley Collins, Clarinettist Bruce Turner and Bassist Jim Bray from the Humphrey Lyttelton band and Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl. I believe this group was only a recording group. I don't think they performed live.
The popular appeal of skiffle increased the interest in the UK of American blues and folk music. From this interest a few people discovered British folk and decided that they preferred that. Unfortunately some of them also lost their sense of humour and started taking themselves too seriously.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,Warwick Slade
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 11:05 AM

Sadly I never heard him sing live but I did sell him a set of strings for his 'old Gibson guitar' I had most of his records though (some digitised on my Mac)

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 10:17 AM

"Our lot" actually got the revival started, 'twas the mistletoe killed the tree.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 09:34 AM

point taken Jim. it was a good time for your lot they got set their stall out.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 09:14 AM

"Jim Carroll thinks were the bees knees singing real folk music and boring the arse of everyone."
Why do you insist on doing this Al?
The singers Club was boring full houses right up to the death of MacColl
The 1970s/80s was e of the best times for folk music - it was more or less guaranteed that if you turned up to a folk club you'd hear folk songs - the crash came when that ceased to be the case.
Throughout that time Folk had a fair selection of its own magazines and even its own shops - can't say that - very different from the anything goes/and you don't need to know the words or tune to sing at a a folk club ethos that pervails nowadays.
If you find folk song boring, why not try hip-hop and stop knocking those of us who do?
Didn't intend to take part in this - I've said what I have to say on Alex.
Give your arse a chance Al, as we used to say in Liverpool!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 08:48 AM

My recollection of Alex is as a charismatic performer with a nevertheless questionable technique. I remember once asking rhetorically, reviewing one of his albums in Folk Review, something to the effect of "how can he hold an audience so expertly and effortlessly when he can't hold a melody line?". I recall Peter Bellamy laughing heartily and approvingly. Alex himself, tho I am sure he was aware of this notice of mine, greeted me with perfectly cordial affability when we met a few weeks later at Cambridge FF.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 08:33 AM

interesting guy. he had something of the Tony Hancock's 1950's aspirational bohemian about him. i liked him.

but the folkscene was on its arse in the 70's. much worse than now. due to pure civil war between the factions on the English scene.

the jasper carrot lot on one side - all trying to replicate Billy Connolly's success. the ones Jim Carroll thinks were the bees knees singing real folk music and boring the arse of everyone.

entertainer/minstrel folksingers - my ownparticular favourites - Campbell, Brimstone, Murphy, |Lockran. for the most part they supplemented the dog rough English venues with work in Europe.

people are more tolerant nowadays. just because you find youself attracted to a certain kind of folkmusic - it doesn't preclude you from playing and enjoying another. nothing excuses or necessitates rudeness or unpleasantness.

it was that ferret pit of the English folkscene in the mid to late 1970's where i started off as an entertainer. i saw my heroes abused and treated roughly, struggling to make a living, they weren't at home in either venue. the crowd at Jasper's Boggery quickly grew restive if someone sang a sad folksong. i recall Noel Murphy trying to sing Freeborn Man - by the second verse half the audience were talking about something else;

i recall shit for brains traddies thinking they were so superior to Gerry Lockran at a club in Sutton Coldfield - they weren't fit to lick his boots.

However if Elijah Wood's biography of Dave Van Ronk is to believed - Van Ronk in his later years suffered the same sort of smart arse audiences over in the states.

ignorance and rudeness are truly international.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 07:48 AM

I heard [ or read ] a story that Alex once went on stage with Derroll Adams somewhere in Holland, both so drunk they couldn't remember the words of the first song., now thats style.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 06:27 AM

Didn't Allan Taylor write a PhD thesis on Alex?

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 05:38 AM

Alex Campbell was funnier than Ewan MacColl, but not such a good songwriter.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,Iain
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 05:01 AM

I vaguely remember back in days of yore seeing Alex Campbell perform at the Surbiton Assembly rooms, then being run by Derek Serjeant. This would have been somewhere around the early-mid sixties

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 08:15 PM

"CRM" (Alex Campbell, Alan Roberts, Dougie Maclean) on CD at Amazon UK & US

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dougie-Maclean-Alex-Campbell-Roberts/dp/B0002CH982/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1323040816&sr=1-1

Track Listings
1. Trooper And The Maid
2. I Lo'e Nae Lassie But Ane
3. Jute Mill Song
4. Her Fa La La Lo
5. John Anderson My Jo
6. What Wouldna' Fecht For Charlie
7. Leis A Lurighan
8. Bonnie Mary
9. Rattlin' Roarin' Willie
10. Little Song
11. Miss Elisabeth Campbell
12. Alick C. MacGregor
13. Jock Stewart

Also listed on CD are "Alex Campbell at the Tivoli Gardens"

Track Listings
1. Cindy's Crying
2. Candy Man
3. Needle Of Death
4. Tom Thumb's Blues
5. First Time Ever
6. The Time Has Come
7. Where I'm Bound
8. Champion At Keeping Them Rolling
9. Long Gone From Home
10. Strolling Down The High Way
11. He Was A Most Peculiar Man
12. Sally Free And Easy

and "Alex Campbell in Copenhagen"

Track Listings
1. Colors
2. Rambling Boy
3. The Oggie Man
4. 1913 Massacre
5. Been On The Road
6. Verdant Braes O'Skreen
7. John Riley
8. Lang A' Growing
9. Whistling Rufus - Double Eagle
10. Roll Down The Line
11. Leaving Of Liverpool

Amazon's Alex Campbell Store lists 53 tracks available as MP3 downloads. Some of these are duplicates from different albums (but might still have been recorded on separate occasions).

MusicStack lists about thirty different titles available, mostly LPs, from £5 to over £100.

I saw Alex a couple of times at Blackpool Folk Club at the King's Arms, early seventies. After the second time, when he managed to consume a whole bottle of whisky during his set, I swore I would never go to see him again. A few years after, a gigging singer friend who had "discovered" Alex persuaded me that, straightened out, he was still a performer to be reckoned with. At the Raikes Hotel (about 1980?), he was certainly on form and produced a great night. He and local residents the Taverners had a running competition to try to remember how many folk clubs each had helped to start (and sometimes to close down!)

There was a copy of Folk Review magazine mid-seventies that included a breakdown by Alex Campbell of his year's income and expenditure (total about £3000 as I recall). That's turnover, not profit! Not a lot, even back then.

Ross (no relation)

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 07:45 PM

"Names that once we held so dear
Are unknown to the young ones here"
"Fading voices" Harvey Andrews

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,Gealt
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 05:15 PM

I remember going to a concert in the Gate Theatre, Dublin late '63 or early '64. The line up included The Dubliners & Luke Kelly, Deirdre O'Connell (Luke's wife), Dominic Behan and Alex. Alex brought the house down & upstaged the rest of them
I heard after that Alex had difficulty getting into the Gate, in those days one did not go to the theatre dressed in denim jacket & jeans.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Tunesmith
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 04:41 PM

I remember my brother, and a mate, going to see Alex Campbell in folk club in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, many years ago.
Well, this mate of my brother was really taken with Alex's performance, and cornered Alex after the show.
He asked Alex what he did for a living, but no mater how Alex explained it, this chap couldn't get it in to his head that Alex made a living out of singing.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Bettynh
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 04:18 PM

Amazon has two albums for download or press-on-demand. Itunes has the downloads of the same albums for a dollar more each. This is USA, folks, maybe someone can look into the UK situation.

Youtube has lots of tunes, with enough searching:

This channel has several uploads. Search the righthand column for more.

This channel contains the entire "Alex Campbell 'Live" (1968) album.

This channel has several tunes, with a black screen.

This channel has several tunes, with attached stories. Search the right column for Alex Campbell.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 03:12 PM

I saw Alex Campbell live many times ~ always a great night.

This is Alex Campbell's son's YouTube channel. He said that he will be posting lots of his father's work on to YouTube and that he intends to get some of the out of print stuff out there again.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 02:30 PM

Blast from the past Ian. I have the Best Loved Songs and Way Out West right here. Did you get to meet the legendary Dave Laibman?

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 02:23 PM

He always played to packed houses in Walsall in the 70's ... unless that's just happy memories speaking!

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 11:20 AM

I think Denmark may be a better source of TV material, as has been already said, Alex was unfashionable in the 70's in Britain"
ha ha, I saw Alex playing to a full house at Dartford in 1974, he was a great entertainer, and was playing to a packed club

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,Ian McCann
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 11:07 AM

I was part of Alex's backing band in the early sixties along with Johnny Orange aka John Affleck. He paid us 7/6 a gig. I played on Way out West, Best Loved Songs of bonnie Scotland and several other albums. He was like a father figure, a kind and sensitive human being.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: fat B****rd
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 03:49 AM

Thankyou, Mariner. I stand (or sit) corrected. Are you one of the Grimsby Mariners by any chance ?? all the best fB