Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 06:50 AM

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

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: 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: 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: 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: The Sandman
Date: 29 Nov 11 - 04:45 PM

or all wit and muckle

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: 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: 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: 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: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 10:10 AM

sounds good to me...!

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: 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: 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 - 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: The Sandman
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 02:09 PM

what about De Valera?

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: 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: 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: 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 - 05:33 PM

No ~ I didn't say he was one: I said "your bumhole", in the way that Ricky Tomlinson as Mr Royle used to say "my arse!" i.e = 'your statement was erroneous'. Sorry if that was not clear.

The choice of Barrabas over Jesus was, nevertheless, a democratic choice. It is an matter of much theological dispute as to whether this was the 'right' or 'wrong' choice anyhow; no Crucifixion of Jesus, no Christianity! No doubt such as Duns Scotus & Aquinas will have had much to say of this. A poor analogy IMO, in any event.

~M~

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Dec 11 - 04:17 AM

My apologies I should have known a gentleman like yourself would be in capable of discourtesy.

I suppose you're right. Bad analogy - if Thatcher was Barabas that makes Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock into Jesus. I suppose they both had something of the same self righteous style.

I believe it was George Moore who called Christ 'the pale socialist of Galilee'. Are you into George Moore at all? My lecturer at college (later the best man at my wedding) was doing a PhD on Moore that never got done. he settled for an MPhil in the end, but he introduced me to a lot of those circa 1890 writers. fascinating period! Particularly the Irish of course like moore, Wilde and Yeats, Shaw, and of course up and coming Joyce.

last time i was in Dublin I passed by the National Library and there was a Yeats exhibition on. Spent ages there!

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Vic Smith
Date: 01 Dec 11 - 08:32 AM

Has everyone seen the fine tribute to Ewan MacColl is the first part of this Youtube video?

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Dec 11 - 08:40 AM

Thank you Al. Never too inward with either George Moore or George Meredith, but do like their contemporary George Gissing. Did you have to be called George to find a publisher for your novel in those days, I ask myself?...

~M~

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Dec 11 - 01:22 PM

give us a clue, what about him Dick?deVelera?
well he was crap compared to MacColl, he didnt write any good songs,he rewrote the irish constitution to suck up to the catholic church, his general effect was divisive politically.
THE only thing they have in common is that they both changed their name, i believe Dev was a crap singer, Ewan was good.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 01 Dec 11 - 01:50 PM

I think tis comparison between MacColl and De Valera is like comparing apples with pearls. De Valera was involved In a political movement which established a (semi) free Ireland from British rule .. his singing was immaterial. MacColl wanted to keep the British union at least between Scotland, England and Wales and sang to that effect.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: ollaimh
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 11:32 AM

singer club always polite, well the "nice anglos" always say thAt when they are giving you the bums rush.

the insults jim carrol sent my way are the kind of politness i am used to from his sort. thanks. i know where not to go.

ewan was pretending to be a highlander with the name mccoll. well he wasn't . he was a lowlander. the the lowland scots have borrowed almost all their cultural icons from highlanders and then bretayed their highland countrymen to the tender mercies of the imperial ethnic cleansing. and i see notheing short og cultural ethnic cleansing in the ideology of groups like the singers club. they want our culture but we cab take a hike.

it's show biz. nothing wrong with show biz, but that's what it is. you make up a personality and go on stage are get an audience by haveing folk cred. all the while the actual gaels are not welcome.i had the exact same experience at the vancouver folk ss. who were ewan mccoll ideology followers--at least many of tem quoted his ideas. he had good deas but they get applied by bigoted and ignorant anglos and become just another way for the "nice anglos" to posture righteous and superior. it becoms a church.

ewan was a great song writer but he was deluded in his ideological thinking. he came out of the rediscovery of folk music first by nationalists and then by leftists to prove their link to the masses. those ideologs were entirely self serving.

i still occasionally go to anglo folk scenes. i don't expect to be treated well. they don't like any differences. however occasionally it's fun. if its not i just don't go. however the french and celtic folk scene is always fun and full of traditional music. so that's where i usually go.

i few years ago i sang at the cecil sharpe house . they were a very welcoming crowd. and i didn't even have an instrument so i sand acapella.i did meet a few great celtic musicians. they agreed with me thast you just have to agree with the anglos to get along. they won't listen to outsiders and will attack vehemently if you back sass the empire(in their minds). youse guys should ocassionally think about what you've created where no ethnically diverses can go about openly. itws justbthe empire and it;s just show biz.

i used to think carrol was a decent person--oh well. maybe there really aren't any in folk.i don't call myself folf anymore. i'm a celtic nusician with an interest in balkan tunes and a few native amerindian songs and acadien music.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 01:30 PM

I had a folksinger friend who called himself Gordon Cameron after reading The Flight of the Heron. I remember Ian Campbell said to him when he came off the stage one night at The Jug of Punch, well its a great name...!

ollaimh.....lighten up mate, for your own sake. Whenever these slights occurred at The Singers Club - well it must have been a while back.

As for Jim, well he's not even in this country any more. His cyber rebukes are as the gentle rain from heaven. Be nice to the old chap. he's getting on.

where's the Balkan's. I used used to smoke Balkan Sobranie, way back. I'm sure the people who make such nice fags wouldn't want you upsetting yourself.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 01:33 PM

By the way, have you lot voted for me yet?   I promise you if i go mainstream like val Doonican, I'll pretend I never was a real folksinger, I was just waiting for a break in showbusiness.

I'll stop bothering you all.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 02:08 PM

"the lowland scots have borrowed almost all their cultural icons from highlanders and then bretayed their highland countrymen to the tender mercies of the imperial ethnic cleansing."

More often than not the clearing of Highlanders was done by other Highlnders. The Highland Chiefs may have been anglicised but they were still Highlanders for the most part. Not Lowland Scots and not English. Though of course there were some exceptions. As for icons etc. MacColl was immersed in what were probably mostly Lowland ballads. I don't think he put kilts on and played the Highland pipes that much or sang much in Gaelic etc.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 02:23 PM

Aw Big Al, I'm assuming I am the Jim you're referring to. I don't know where you think I live but listening to your song I think you're from somewhere in North America. Never mind I voted for you out of solidarity.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 02:28 PM

I suspect the reason "oollaimh" was not welcome at the Singer's Club 40 years ago is that he was a hostile paranoid git with a delusional chip on his shoulder back then just as he is now.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 02:51 PM

Of course, Big Al, you could have been talking about Jim Carroll, whom I consider a perfect gentleman with considerable knowledge and insight concerning our Ewan. Be kind and you may even get his vote ... or maybe not.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 03:20 PM

"As for Jim, well he's not even in this country any more. "
Do I spy the 'Little Englander" raising its head.
I'll show you what we've got if you show me yours.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Musket
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 05:38 AM

If my Aunty had balls, she'd be my Uncle.

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 06:44 AM

Yes it was Jim Carroll, I was alluding to.

Little Englander - I wish! i could do with losing a few pounds, or even stones.....

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: frogprince
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 04:39 PM

four years ago

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 05:24 PM

"That was the great thing with Lonnie Donnegan, he never put on a foreign accent to sing a foreign song" Quote from Mr McGrath of Harlow

I'm not sure if his comment is tongue in cheek however, if no....
"My Old man's A Dustman" is definitely not sung in a Glesga accent.:-)

Subject: RE: Gulp! Ewan MacColl - Scottish or Not?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 06:26 PM

"is definitely not sung in a Glesga accent.:-)" Mind he moved to London when he was a toddler. London accent would be his natural accent.