Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 04:52 PM

My point was that the people spoke and saved Barabas's life instead of jesus's life. The people don't always make the right choice.

As the Book of Job says the sun doesn't always shine on the righteous.

You implied Jim was a bumhole!

'Jim: but I don't for a single second imagine that you are. Doctrinaire, biased, undemocratic ~~ fair-minded, your anus - oh what the hell for once - BUMHOLE!'

That's being disagreeable.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 04:03 PM

Sorry, Al ~ don't follow. What is your point re Barrabas & Christ? Cannot make heads or tails of it, I am afraid.

And in what way was I 'disagreeable'? I disagreed with something you said, sure; but that is not the same as being disagreeable.

~M~

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 02:51 PM

MtheGM, listen to another of Ewans songs ' Looking For A job ' you have to experience the despair of unemployment to understand [ which I don't think you do ] this is why Ewan hated M Thatcher, and quite rightly so.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 02:37 PM

give us a clue, what about him Dick?

And why so disagreeable MGM? The people supported Barabas over Christ - doesn't mean to say they were right.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 02:09 PM

what about De Valera?

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 01:50 PM

What a 'fair-minded' comment, indeed, Jim ... the usual democratically-minded fair·minded person, with his contempt for the thrice [not once, not twice ~~ count them: THRICE] emphatically and firmly expressed will of the unfair-minded people.

Really, you should be very much ashamed of yourself, Jim: but I don't for a single second imagine that you are. Doctrinaire, biased, undemocratic ~~ fair-minded, your anus - oh what the hell for once - BUMHOLE!

Best regards, as ever,

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 12:38 PM

Sorry Al - I would almost certainly have been a member of that "balefully glowering" audience
I took it rather personally - at worst, the Singers Club audience was always polite.
"The Grocer?"
Thatcer doesn't count (nor does her friend Pinochet" - every fair minded person hated them
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 12:38 PM

Sorry Al - I would almost certainly have been a member of that "balefully glowering" audience
I took it rather personally - at worst, the Singers Club audience was always polite.
"The Grocer?"
Thatcer doesn't count (nor does her friend Pinochet" - every fair minded person hated them
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 11:24 AM

Oh? How about The Grocer? ~~ we had a whole long thread about what an ill-natured and unworthy (& FTM mean-spirited & bullying) manifestation of class envy that one was!

~M~

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 10:55 AM

'Yeah "busking, drinking and chasing girls" seems about your level.'

You're at it again Jim Carroll. You're such a nice man. Please don't be so disdainful.

This chap had something to say. His experience of Ewan was different from mine and yours. I never saw anything but kindness and understanding. I'm sure neither he nor Peggy would want all this scrapping. And the achievments well they tell the story well enough. There are no mean spirited or bullying songs in Ewan's catalogue.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 10:10 AM

sounds good to me...!

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 10:10 AM

"well i went to the singer club"
Your description bears no relation whatsoever to the Singers Club I attended for over 20 years - the idea of anybody judging a clun on one visit is beyong me completely - as is why the audience should give you "baleful stares" because they assumed you were "an American" - do you think we gave the same "baleful stares" to Peggy Seeger, Jack Warshaw, Buff Rosenthal, Tom Paley.... and all the other American residents and regular performers at the club.
As an under-educated electrician who has always been quite smitten by Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy and Mozart, and other aspects of culture in the forms of music, theatre and literature, I always found friendliness, inspration and encouragement from Ewan, Peggy and all the residents on my many hundreds of visits to the Singers Club throughout the time I attended.
Perhaps you should have stuck to "busking, drinking and chasing girls"
BTW MacColl never "pretended to be Scots" - he was too well known for what he was - a Salfordian born into a Scots family.
Yeah "busking, drinking and chasing girls" seems about your level.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: GUEST,dude
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 09:46 AM

T have any effect on Peggy, I reckon you'd have to wear a skirt too, Big Al.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 07:04 AM

Be nice to Peggy.

Mid 70's maybe, but she's still a babe.

I'd follow her upstairs if she was wearing a miniskirt!

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: ollaimh
Date: 29 Nov 11 - 11:38 PM

well i went to the singer club as a callow teen fresh off the turnip truck. i've told the story elsewhere. it was an experience, but one i didn't understand at all untill years later. i sang a ditty in nova scotia galic--the gaelic i heard when very young. i sang along with a guy doing it in english. when he hit the chorus i switched to gaelic as that's how it was sung where i grew up.

they all must have assumed i was american because the balefull stares were intense, and the guy i tried to sing along with(along with everybody else) had a english accent. i think he was an englishman pretending to be scottish--and he may have been maccoll!! all i know was it waqsn't much like a kitchen party at home and i hit the road soon after.

if this doesn't highlight the wierdness thast urban over educated and under cultured folkies get into i don't know what does.

one of the few people they ever heard who was singing a childhood song in his childhood language was given the bum's rush. at that age i didn't care. i was much more interested in busking, drinking and chasing girls,

years late a remember the same shit in vancouver. a politically correct vancouver folk song society(the vancouver folk ss--bourgeois folkies never seem to have any self awareness)--told me the sing canadian songs here when i wanted to sing a gaelic song--and struck me off the list of singers

there are real roots issues that are not addressed by a facile quote from martin carty that folk has never been pure. what folk has rarely been is rescpectfull of the imperialized cultures.

moreover the scions of the middle class need to lighten up and hold off a lot. at the time i went to the singers i had worked on a fish boat and at a carpet factory--didn't get educated untill a decade later. i had no idea the twisted application of their ideas. my experience was that in the uk and canada the working class get pushed asside by bourgeois singers who usually claim to represent the working class(are you listening jon bartlett and rika ruebsaat?)

at least in the united states they love to new songs from rootsy traditions without much question

now on many political issues i agree with maccoll and he was a great song writer . i thought he was part of the lallans movement. but maybe not

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Nov 11 - 04:45 PM

or all wit and muckle

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 29 Nov 11 - 03:06 AM

You could try calling yourself ' Muckle Al Whittle '

Dave H

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 06:47 PM

I'm English, but not alas an English folksinger (or so say some!).

Sometimes I think I would like to be Scottish... the kilt, the shortbread, the whisky, the socialist government - I'd like all that. A tam o' shanter hat, one of those knobbly walking sticks. I could drop 'och' into the odd conversation, pretend an interest in sliding big marble things across the ice.....

I could have one of those names where everyone says   .....how do you pronounce that:-

Hamish Auchterader

People would say, Och! I was in a sessioun with Hamish Auchterader last night! he plays Soldiers Jors Joy in G. D'ye nae think he might be muckle Sassenach....?

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: GUEST,Gealt
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 04:57 PM

Patrick Pearse was born in Dublin to an Irish mother but his father was English and sadly the rest is history.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 01:20 PM

DeValera
De Valera was born in New York City in 1882 to an Irish mother; his parents, Catherine Coll (subsequently Mrs Wheelwright), an immigrant from Bruree, County Limerick, and Juan Vivion de Valera, a Cuban settler and sculptor of Spanish descent.
He was not born in Ireland, Some have even suggested he was a British Spy

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 06:50 AM

Still making a nuisance of herself I see, amongst the layabouts!!!

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Baz Bowdidge
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 05:29 AM

I guess there's a fine line between interesting and boring.
(depends which side of the fence you're on)
St Pauls 2 weeks ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKffKdMDBg

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 03:52 AM

Just listened to it again, she sang Occupation is on, You don't know how lucky you are and Once Again - very floor spot.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 03:27 AM

I found her performance on In Tune to be quite boring.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 03:24 AM

"Struck me as a real miserable git"
Went to the Singers Club virtually every week from 1969 to the end.
Most nights it was pretty near impossible to get near Ewan because he was constantly surrounded by people, all discussing the music he/they loved. Ewan could, and did talk to anybody who was interested enough to approach him - though he was reticent and preferred to be a listener on subjects he was not familiar with.
I was invited to become a member of the Critics Group after meeting him and Peggy after their performance at the MSG in Manchester
Are you sure it isn't you who's the "miserable git"?
"All these years later I see she is still relentlessly touring."
Saw Peggy perform her in the West of Ireland a few months ago - superb night - had an audience, most of whom had never heard her live before, eating out of her hand - not bad for someone in her mid-seventies.
She's now living back in the UK, in Oxford.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 12:34 PM

that's exactly the point

James Connolly born in Scotland
Bily the Kid born New York.
Cliff Richard born in Lucknow, India.
Django was born in Belgium.
Eamon Devalera - born in Ireland.

The accident of where you are born is nothing to do with which nation is closest to our heart, or where we base our field of endeavour.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Baz Bowdidge
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 11:05 AM

I was present at the final meeting of the Singers Club (upstairs Lincoln's Inn pub 1993).
At the conclusion Peggy said 'All good things must come to an end including the Singers Club'.
Appropriately she then sang 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' to finish duetting with Irene Scott on 'Black Velvet Band'.
Afterwards she told me it was early days and her future plans were uncertain as her family are in the UK.
All these years later I see she is still relentlessly touring.
http://www.peggyseeger.com/

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Brian May
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 10:43 AM

When I met him donkey's years ago he barely said a word - Peggy did all the talking (trying to snaffle the lyrics of a song).

Struck me as a real miserable git, so I reckon he might be Scottish ;o)

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 09:52 AM

His wife Peggy MacColl was on BBC Radio 3 In Tune earlier this month!!!

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 09:36 AM

Big Al's point is well made!
"Hitler is a German villain"
History under such narrow rules should have called him an Austrian villan! Arguments can be made that Austria was mostly Germanic as Scotland would be British. The point is that he is remembered as a villan while MacColl is remembered a great singer/songwriter.
I believe that Shoals of Herring could be considered a Spanish song since they stole all of the fish!

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 27 Nov 11 - 08:57 AM

Norwegian then! :-)

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: RTim
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 11:10 PM

But North Sea Holes again by MacColl - from the same programme as Shoals of Herring, - mentions Scotland!!

North Sea Holes
(Ewan MacColl)

Come all you gallant fishermen that plough the stormy sea,
The whole year round on the fishing grounds
On the Northern Minch and the Norway Deeps,
On the banks and knolls of the North Sea Holes
Where the herring shoals are found.

It's there you'll find the Norfolk boys and the lads from Peterhead,
There's Buckie chiels and men from Shields,
On the Northern Minch and the Norway Deeps,
On the banks and knolls of the North Sea Holes
Where the herring shoals are found.

From Fraserborough and Aberdeen, from Whitby, Yarmouth Town,
The fleet's away at the break of day
To the Northern Minch and the Norway Deeps,
To the banks and knolls of the North Sea Holes
Where the herring shoals are found.

It's off with a boiler full of steam and your engine spic and span
To fish the grounds the North Sea round
And fish and knolls and the North Sea Holes
And try your luck at the North Shields Gut
With a catch of a hundred cran.

No need to wait for the wind and tide, you're the master of the sea,
Come calm or squall, just shoot and haul
And fill the hold with the fish to be sold
And steam ahead for the curing shed
And the buyers on the Yarmouth quay.

Come all you gallant fishermen that plough the stormy sea,
The whole year round on the fishing grounds
On the Northern Minch and the Norway Deeps,
On the banks and knolls of the North Sea Holes
Where the herring shoals are found.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 10:51 PM

..throughout the 1940's to the 1980's British character actors were praised for
and awarded for their abilities to 'do' accents and 'black up' if needs be...

..that is until we all grew up under a momentarily improved progressive education system and it became all too embarrassing......

Perhaps we should fondly remember those days as the "Sir Alec Guinness" years...???

in historical cultural context.. maybe we can understand
and try to forgive folk singers with misguided intentions
to sing in the 'correct' accent..

errmm.. has Meryl Streep blacked up yet...????

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 10:29 PM

no its Scottish because Ewan wanted to be a Scot. And adopted a Scottish persona.

Just like James Connolly is an Irish hero.

Cliff Richard is an English popstar.

Django Rheinhardt is a French icon summoning up images of the left bank etc.

Hitler is a German villain.

Billy the Kid is a western outlaw.

Its not what life hands you, its what you do with it.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 06:49 PM

Can't see how "Shoals of Herring" could be called a Scottish song, (even tho' the Corries recorded it) when the locations are YARMOUTH, CROMER, etc!

Because North Sea fisherfolk didn't stay within national boundaries any more than their work did.

Would you call "Twa Recruitin Sairgents" a Spanish song because it mentions Gibraltar?

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 06:04 PM

And remember that the programme was supposed to be about sea SHANTIES - that Gareth whatsisname - choirmaster - trying to find out about them: neither "Shoals of Herring" nor "Fisher Lassies" fit that description, although they are both very good songs about the fishing industry and come out of the original series of The Radio Ballads. Can't see how "Shoals of Herring" could be called a Scottish song, (even tho' the Corries recorded it) when the locations are YARMOUTH, CROMER, etc! "Fisher Lassies" does mention a lot of N-East Scotland fishing villages, although even the Lassies all end up on Yarmouth quay!
I know Irene and love her singing and Graeme's, but I'd agree it's the producers who kind of steered the ship away from the shanties, or did not make it clear that they were digressing from shanties in that part of the programme

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Tootler
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 02:51 PM

"so it must have been an understandable mistake" I suspect we are all thinking about the same programme - though I can't remember exactly what it was. A section of the programme went to the north-east for songs of that area (as it had done in other areas) and Shoals of Herring was the song featured. So it was the serving up of the said song as an example of local songs which struck me rather than anything the singer said about it. That may of course have had more to do with the programmes editors etc than it did with the singer herself. However in this wee group we have three people now who remember it that way!

I saw the programme and came away with the same impression. Irene's comment above makes it clear how it happened. The media seem incapable of getting it right - or perhaps they like to create a different impression because it makes a "more interesting" story and sod the facts.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 12:32 PM

I understood that a friend of reg hall, was it lucy farrs husband?said that he thought either the song or the tune was traditional.
i think the song is a macColl composition and that reg halls friend was incorrect.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 12:20 PM

There was an eejit who claimed that MacColl "stole" 'Shoals' from traditional singers - MacColl (he changed his name you know - just like Robert Zimmermann) was always rather proud of that accusation.

One of the standard pipe tune books (Cabar Feidh/Queens Own) prints the tune (slightly adapted to be a 3/4 march) as "Sgaoth Sgadan (Shoals of Herring". With no composer credited. So one such eejit is the British Army.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 12:02 PM

I contacted Irene.

This is what she writes:

Och that old argument again - don't they know that I never claimed it was Scottish or Traditional for that matter - the point was that when Gareth was interviewing me - all of which of course you don't see so the whole thing is taken out of context - we were talking about songs about fishing and fishing lassies. I sang Shoals of Herring cos it was my dad's favourite and I sang the Fisher Lassies song because was about the work that all my women ancestors did when they travelled to Yarmouth to gut the herring - and of course Gamrie aka Gardenstown - is mentioned in the song - that is where I come from originally and where all my ancestors came from.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 08:08 AM

"on more than one occaision I've heard Colin Irwin repeat the myth that MacColl was born in Auchterader"
In farness to Colin Irwin Dave, the misinformation appeared on at least one set of sleeve-notes - written by Ken Goldstein - I have no idea whether Ewan gave him tht information or whether it was an assumption.
His mother told me once "Oor Jimmy was born in England, but he's every bit as Scots as I am - and prood of it"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 07:55 AM

MacColl : Scottish parents, born and brought up in England
Blair: Scottish Father, Irish mother, born and educated in Scotland (up to a cerrtain age)

When it comes down to, nationality is a state of mind unless you want to play football for a National side.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 07:15 AM

Ewan MacColl wrote ' The shoals Of Herring ' utilising Labans theory of efforts, we all have characteristic efforts and patterns in our everyday speech, MacColl and Charles Parker analysed Sam Larners speech patterns, and MacColl wrote ' Shoals Of Herrings ' based on these results, a short while later he sang the song to Sam Larner, who said to Ewan ' I've known that song all my life ' MacColl later reported that Sam thought he knew it because there were no barriers, he was listening to his own speech patterns and efforts.

By the way, I don't really know what this thread is all about, anyone with any interest in Ewan MacColl and more the one brain cell [ except Colin Irwin apparently ] knows that Ewan was born in Salford and was christened Jimmy Miller.

Dave H

[on more than one occaision I've heard Colin Irwin repeat the myth that MacColl was born in Auchterader ]

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 05:30 AM

"so it must have been an understandable mistake" I suspect we are all thinking about the same programme - though I can't remember exactly what it was. A section of the programme went to the north-east for songs of that area (as it had done in other areas) and Shoals of Herring was the song featured. So it was the serving up of the said song as an example of local songs which struck me rather than anything the singer said about it. That may of course have had more to do with the programmes editors etc than it did with the singer herself. However in this wee group we have three people now who remember it that way! It was certainly enough for me to comment at the time and my wife to say "calm down dear it's only a ......etc"

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 08:37 PM

You'd lose an awful lot of good music, BTNG...

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 08:29 PM

BTNG too weird mate.

Celtic culture isn't going to disappear. Orange and red aren't going to disappear. Nothing disappears.

you're not being racist, just a bit strange.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: BTNG
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 07:37 PM

Harris I'll be perfectly honest with you, I never "got" the whole Celtic/Gaekic thing, nor do I understand other people's fascination with it.Don't understand the languages, and, if it came right down to it, if the celtic heritages disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't care, it simply wouldn't phase me at all. That's where and a good many others stand, and if that's racist or whatever, too bad.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 06:54 PM

Ewan was about English as Tony Blair was Scottish.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 06:44 PM

Strangely enough that was the impression I got, when I watched the programme Dave - so it must have been an understandable mistake. Can't remember exactly what she said. But I suppose if Ewan thought of himself as a Scot - then it was a Scottish song.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 06:11 PM

I rarely post on Mudcat now but factual errors need to be corrected.

The buxom Scottish lass you refer to was Irene Watt. She did not refer to the song in the terms you suggest. She is well aware of the origins of the song.

I checked it at the time because someone else told me that. It wasn't true then that she thought it was traditional and it isn't true now.

Type Irene Watt into Google - she is the Aberdeen one that comes up. Also Tide of Change.