Fred,
Isn't it strange how two individuals who have taken it upon themselves to scrutinise other people's work almost to the point of destruction, react so violently when their own work is put under scrutiny. The phrase about glass houses and throwing stones springs to mind. I am curious to know why you always bring up the subject of litigation. Did you know your friend actually threatened to set his solicitor on us for daring to criticise his behaviour – I treasure his e-mail and am thinking of having it framed!
If us mortals don't realise by now how impeccable and important your own efforts are, that is entirely due to our own lack of discernment – haven't you dedicated your last two postings to putting us right on the subject? Any comment from us would be superfluous. I wonder how many people out there will be pleased to learn that you are 'one of the few' singers to base your singing on the tradition'. Virtually every revival singer I have heard makes this claim. All I can say is that there is little evidence of it in your singing. And you suggest that MacColl was self-promoting!
Contrasting the high praise you have for yourself, your arrogance towards the work of others is somewhat breathtaking. A fine example of this was in your criticising us for not identifying the head of the Folklore Department. You took it upon yourself to name him when we had been clearly advised how to acknowledge the help they had given us in producing 'Around The Hills of Clare', but unfortunately you named the wrong person. This must surely have qualified you for a place on 'It'll Be All Right On The Night'! I think even your editor had to admit to this one.
That you need to ask "why should traditional singers be treated differently to anyone else" really does show an unbelievably flawed grasp of the responsibility of revivalists and researchers towards the people who supply us with our raw material. Traditional singers (at least the ones we have recorded) have shown an enormous generosity with their time, patience and hospitality in passing on their songs, stories and information. Anybody who has done field work will tell you that the hardest part of the job is not to get them to part with their material and information, but to persuade them in the first place that what they have is of value and that by singing or speaking into a tape recorder, they are not going to be humiliated. It is our responsibility, not theirs, to make sure that what they have given us is treated with respect. They do not need a jumped-up poison-pen wielding hack who is apparently incapable of reading sleeve notes or album titles accurately, telling them that they "sound like a woman" or "a stage singer" or "stentorian" or sing "garbled lyrics". That neither you nor your friend saw any harm in describing an elderly West Clare farmer the way Wallis chose to shows an unbelievable insensitivity towards a very sensitive field of work. There was a reason why the singer in question sang the way he did but this had no place in our notes. Traditional singers should not be part of the critical process we would apply to each others efforts; their agendas and values are not ours, nor should they be caught up in our reputation building or our petty squabbles. They should receive our gratitude and respect, not our abuse.
Both of you have displayed an enormous arrogance towards the work of others and to the tradition, and the fact that you either don't know or don't care that you have damaged the music that we all claim to value, calls into question your judgment and your motives.
You at least appear to have some knowledge and respect for the tradition; from the evidence on hand, your friend has only a superficial grasp of the subject and his arrogant rejection of the work of people like Breathnach and Ríonach ui ógáin suggests that this will remain the case. His out-of-hand dismissal of Breathnach's researches into the effect of the clergy on Irish dancing is typical of his ignorance and arrogance. He apparently hasn't read Breathnach's work on the subject, where he cites the bishop who exhorted parents to "take a whip to the backs of their errant daughters when they indulged in the sinful practice of dancing". Nor does he appear to be aware of Tom Munnelly's published interview with fiddler player, the late Junior Crehan, where Junior (a very devout man) spoke movingly of the priests breaking up and all-but ending the house dances, often forcibly. Nor has he met the musicians around here who described how they had to watch helplessly while their instruments were smashed by the priest's stick. Or the humiliation experienced by dancers and musicians who had their names read out from the pulpit for taking part in the dances. Or perhaps he would like to be introduced to one of our local singers who lost the use of one of her ears due to a blow received from a priest for attending a house dance.
If this first hand evidence isn't enough for him, perhaps he might like to read the statement issued by the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland at Maynooth in 1925 entitled 'The Evils of Dancing', aimed at 'foreign' dances but used by many of the clergy of Ireland as a go ahead to systematically end the practice of traditional dancing forever.
I said that Wallis's and your behaviour has had no effect on our work; this isn't altogether true. Having completed 'Around The Hills of Clare' we had more-or-less decided to prepare our Walter Pardon interviews for issuing. The natural place for this seemed to be Musical Traditions and we had discussed approaching Stradling with the idea. Now this is out of the question – we wouldn't trust Musical Traditions with the milk money as far as the corner shop. Thanks to your efforts Walter's interviews, his manuscript books containing the texts and listings of all his songs dating back to 1948, the notebooks he filled for us with local lore, place-names, local words, along with his knowledge and opinions of traditional singers and songs; all of this will remain on our shelves, with our unreleased West Clare and Traveller material and will eventually end up in an archive somewhere. This is also the case with interviews of MacColl and the recordings of the Critics Group meetings. Before you suggest it, this is no way based on a 'be nice to me or I'll take my ball home' attitude. People like Walter, Tom Lenihan, Mary Delaney and Mikeen McCarthy, as well as being extremely valuable sources of information, were our friends and we have no intention of putting them within the reach of your grubby, self-serving grasps, to be sneered at and used as career opportunities.
I suppose you may add another scalp to your belts; well done fellers, I hope you feel all your work has not been wasted
MacColl certainly would not have objected to the free use of Joe Heaney's interview, though he might well have objected to your behaviour which left me with the impression that you regarded it as your own property. When Dave Harker published his 'Big Red Songbook', some of us commented on the fact that he had not asked permission, or even bothered to inform Ewan and Peggy that he had include five of their songs, despite the fact that he had thanked them for their support in his preface. There was correspondence about it in Folk Review at the time. Their attitude was that the sharing of songs and field recordings could only be of benefit to the revival and was far more important than gaining their permission. Apparently you don't agree.
Your interpretation of the singers from the floor policy was typical of the anti-MacColl garbage still circulating in the revival some 16 years after his death. The practice was applied because The Singers was a policy club, aiming at presenting traditional or traditionally based performers. I, and others got extremely fed up with performers turning up, giving their names to the doorkeeper as singers, sitting in the bar until it was their time to go on, doing their piece, which might have been traditional, but was just as likely to be C&W, music hall, early pop songs, or introspective, navel-gazing self penned stuff that had nothing to do with the aims of the club, then disappearing, never to be seen again. The club policy was not to restrict the number to three (I have recordings of up to seven performers on some evenings), but to make a judgment on the spot of what we were likely to be given and so maintain some control on what was presented. It was an approach which was raised and re-confirmed regularly by the audience committee on which both Pat and I served; we certainly never complained of the policy though we may have joked about it occasionally. The phrase 'singers from the floor race' was coined by Brian Pearson and referred to the numbers of singers who turned up every week expecting to be given at least three songs. The club was not, and never pretended to be a sing-around club.
We in The Critics Group were well aware of MacColl's war record; which makes you revelatory footnotes somewhat old hat. The editor of Dance And Song, Derek Schofield was recently gleefully circulating such information, so you appear to be in good company. Did you know MacColl wrote 'The Lags Song' based on his experiences in prison at the time. He was extremely proud of his MI5 record, as was my father who was similarly honoured as a 'Premature Anti-fascist' for fighting in Spain. My objection was not that the matter was raised but that once again it was taking the place of discussion of his ideas on singing. Next year there will be a biography of MacColl published. The author will certainly cover his army record, his politics, his theatre work etc.; hopefully he will also cover his ideas on singing. If he does it will be a first.
I really have no idea what you are referring to when you talk about Pat refusing to speak to you – sorry Fred – it never happened and it sounds extremely "Miss, Johnny won't talk to me", but there you go, it takes all sorts…... Neither she nor I have ever met Geoff Wallis (to our knowledge) and should we have done so, the last thing we would discuss with him is your sartorial tastes. I'm sure you are able to supply us with the relevant details so we can give this important subject the attention you obviously believe it deserves; E-mails or letters would help, or is it another of these mysterious 'conversations' we had with you? I really don't know when we had time to do any work on singing; we were all so busy slagging people off!!! You know, what with tee-shirts and demoniac Martin Carthys I sometimes find myself looking over my shoulder for a white rabbit with a pocket watch or a dormouse in a teapot when I am in contact with you.
No Fred; both Tom and I have read your Cronin review in full. I erroneously based my calculations on the amount you had written on an abridged version that was circulated here some time ago which selected the offensive bits for comment – mind you, the circulator probably hadn't read it either!
Who is Peter Merriman and why is his writing significant in judging what is correct and incorrect? Bad grammar is bad grammar (or are you saying it was correct – we really need to know!!!) and those who wish to make an issue of such things really must expect to be treated similarly – glass houses and all that! The point is of course, a very insignificant one; it only became important when Geoff Wallis chose to make it so in his campaign to "correct the sloppiness" of Irish writing!
Well, this has been fun – (I'll let you get back to your piranha pool, as Tom Munnelly so beautifully put it). And please, please stop whining about being persecuted; it makes you appear very undignified.
Best,
Jim Carroll
PS isn't it interesting that a comment on the disappearance of a thread brings the brain-dead to life again. Still haven't had your opinion on this particular style of intellectual discussion.