The ethics of affecting singing accents was a matter of considerable interest to me until I heard field recordings of some of the old lumbermen made by Helen Hartness Flanders. Most had learned their songs in lumbercamp shanties, which, like the bothies of Scotland or the bunkhouses of the Golden West, were isolated meeting places where people of a few cultures gathered and entertained each other, exchanging songs in the process. Some of the lumbermen assimilated the songs, i.e. sang them in their normal speaking voices, while others affected the accents and/or mannerisms (ornamentation, ending a song with a few spoken words, etc.) of the men from whom they learned the song. This was probably a form of respect either for the original singer or the song or both. So, in the tradition, there was flexibility in performance. In New York City in 1860, 25% of the population was born in Ireland. Their children made up another 8% I'm sure. Those kids all heard Irish accents at home and on the street, and certainly most could do some kind of Irish accent without any trouble. Working class performers on the vaudeville stage, where ethnic characterisations were very commonplace in the 19th century, sang real life songs which later passed into tradition. "Drill, Ye Tarriers Drill" and "When McGuinness Gets a Job" would be a good examples. So, in the city as well as the country, affecting an accent was normal, not weird. Few of us speak the same way on a job interview as we do when we are out for drinks with our mates or angry with other motorists. Most of us vary our way of speaking to greater or lesser degrees. Getting back to Ewan MacColl, he was someone who existed on a number of different levels. Did he have working class Scottish origins? Did he grow up around Manchester? Was he an actor? Did he work for the BBC? Was he deeply interested in the plight of working class people? Did he want to sing as many great folk songs as he could? Was he opinionated? Did he ever contradict himself? Did he ever make a mistake? The answer to all, I believe, is "Yes." No mystery about Jimmy Miller. He was a complex person trying to excel at a number of different things, some of which were difficult to reconcile. He was very talented and very human too.
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