I developed an interest in British Trad. song in my late teens. And it was around that time that I first heard recordings of MacColl. I thought then that he was the best and most exciting singer that I had ever heard - far more authorative and authentic than the whiny, pseudo-American (and American!) pop singers of the time. I had only a vague inkling that MacColl might be, in any way, controversial, although I did, subsequently, become aware of his politics (but I also became aware of where those politics came from).

I seized as many opportunities as possible to hear MacColl and Seeger sing live - both in London, at the Singers' Club, and in other parts of the country. I also attended one of their weekend workshops. To me each of these encounters was like being shown the contents of a treasure trove of riches - exactly the sort of riches that I was hungry for and hoping to find.

Of course the Singers' Club was serious! MacColl and Seeger had a serious mission - and it came as a great relief after the trivial, frivolous crap that was increasingly taking hold in the folk clubs and popular culture generally. Sadly those 'serious', and tremendously important days, are now buried under an avalanche, a veritable landslide, of crap - and all the crap artists can do is to besmirch the memory of a great man with handfuls of it!