Mr Red - which book would that be? There are a number of songs attributed to his father, William Miller who, according to one of his contemporaries, the historian, Eddie Frow "had a lot of queer old Scots songs". Goldstein and others released LPs which contained songs attributed to MacColl, but Ewan (correct spelling) never at any time attributed songs to himself except the ones he'd written. He didn't consider himself a traditional singer, and was quick enough to correct anybody who said he was.
He was pleased to have his songs taken up by others and claimed as traditional, but he never did so himself. We recorded Freeborn Man and Thirty Foot Trailer from Travellers who claimed the songs belonged to the Travelling community, and have collected Shoals of Herring from Irish singers who believed it to be a Traditional Irish song. Several folkie clowns have suggested that MacColl stole the songs from traditional singers ( a sort of backhanded compliment, I suppose).
I don't need to do the research, I knew MacColl for over 20 years and worked with him for a great deal of that time (even lived with them for a short period) so I don't have to rely on malicious gossip for my information.
Now what is it that you know what you know?
Jim Carroll