Cap'n,
You once reprimanded me for bringing up something that happened 'a long time ago'; I believe that on that occasion it was about a dozen years previously.
I don't know when your 'incident' with MacColl happened (I'm not even sure I understand how he managed to earn your disapproval), but I would guess it was at least twice that length of time - seems a long time to be carrying a grudge - especially against a man who has been dead for nearly twenty years!
I always found MacColl extremely approachable, generous, polite, and very helpful when his assistance and advice was sought - but that's me.
Who knows, perhaps you caught him on a bad day - on the other hand it is not inconceivable that you managed to get up his nose, as you do mine (and I suspect others) on a regular basis.
Strange as it may seem, MacColl did not often take part in public polemic. From the mid-sixties onward, around the time of the John Snow debacle, he set up The Critics Group, and confined his work to that and to The Singers Club.
He gave a few interviews, but he wrote little on the folk scene, at least I have been hard-pushed to find anything of any great significance.
Personally, I believe that his failure to engage in public debate was a fatal mistake - but again, that's me.
He was always forthcoming and honest when an opinion was sought, which quite often didn't go down too well with many of the sycophantic 'lovies' of the revival, but he usually confined his comments to that level.
Despite this, he remains the target of constant vituperative abuse and slander nearly twenty years after his death, all of which proves to me that he must have done something right.
Jim Carroll