At the same time as his item in "Sing Out", MacColl also set out to slaughter Dylan in particular and the U.S.songwriting scene in general in a Melody Maker intervieiw with Karl Dallas. He dismissed the work of Dylan and Paxton as "saying nothing that LBJ could disagree with" and calling Dyla's poetry "punk and terribly old hat".
I remember being saddened by this at the time as I held both Dylan and MacColl (and still do)in the highest esteem both as performers and songwriters.
However as I recall MacColl received very little support for these attacks from the music scene and I certainly didn't see it as a catylist to destroy our contemporary songwriting movement. Alternativly, although I favoured traditionally based folk clubs, I and plenty others were quite comfortable in clubs where traditional and contemporary songs lived side by side. In fact for ten years I helped run a folk and blues club at which we booked MacColl three times!