I got the book for xmas and just finished it. I enjoyed it very much as a fact finding mission but it added little to my understanding of his music. I don't think the author is a musician so it's down to us to dig into the music on places like this. I've had a good read through the old threads and there's a lot of good reading there. This site is a great resource now.

Reading the book sent me running to Spotify, Folkways, Topic and here to be a bit of research.

I was pretty well familiar with his written songs but not so much his own recorded versions. I have to say I like his own versions of his own songs.

What I didn't realise was just how many trad ballads he seems to have been the first to record. There must be as many national repertoire ballads to come via MacColl as there are his written material.

The Clancys, Dubliners, Ian Campbell, and lots more have a large amount of 'trad' MacColl in their songbooks. For their 3rd album, and the first to have songs from outside of Ireland, The Clancys blagged a good few songs from a just-issued Folkways MacColl & Seeger LP.

And it's a shame that efforts to discuss his music always resort to bickering about his other stuff. I *am* interested in reading about the Singers Club and the rights or wrongs of the Critics Group. But don't you think it's more important that the only recording of him singing Jamie Foyers has been out of print for years? And that most of his Topic 10" 78s have languished unheard for years.? That is a huge whole in the culture of these islands.