"Probably most people these days would far prefer Jeannie Robertson's version of any song to MacColl's" A presumption hardly backed up by fact Jack - not sure who "most people" refers too anyway The decline in the popularity of folk song gives us no picture of who is listening to who or what anyway I did a quick search to find what MacColl albums I didn't have recently and was surprised to find how many were still available and how many had been re-issued - staggering I don't know of another folk artist who has remained as popular and still remembered - and still available as he is Here in Ireland, where the tradition is experiencing a renaissance, MacColl is highly respected by oldies and youngsters alike - his songs are sung by Traveller kids busking on the street and around the pubs and in sessions - most interesting, you can hold a conversation about him without having to clamber up the 'name change, war-record, accent, 80 year old politics' mountain of garbage - people want to discuss his singing and politically, they regard him as a humanist and righter of wrongs rather than 'a Commie' I have always found it far easier to discuss Ewan with youngsters than with 'people of a certain age' - they don't carry the baggage we do - hopefully, it the irrelevant nonsense will disappear when we do and people will be allowed to discuss artists for their artistry As far as this song is concerned - Dick's example was recorded in 1957 on one of the albums Ewan would have cringed to hear played again I had just left school at the time, some here wouldn't have been born - hardly a fair example of a singer who was still finding his feet in a music scene he and Bert and all the other targets abuse were beginning to create that was to give so many of us so much enjoyment, and continued to enthrall audiences for another three decades If I remember right, Ewan sang four versions of this ballad - he often did this in his explorations of what he described as "The high-watermark of our singing tradition" We have them all here somewhere, but this is the one I find MOST TYPICAL Jim
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