Jim Carroll

"....start laying into someone else."
Is this anywhere near an accurate description of what happens in these arguments Brian?

Yes. (It's Bryan by the way.)

I have been witnessing atacks on MacColl - both as an individual and as an artist - for the 50 years I have been listening to his singing.

So why do people attack him? I'd be interested to find out. As I have said, I never met him or heard him perform but I know several people who did and I have to say that they are not entirely unstinting with their praise (I think that made sense). For instance, one chap I know said that he found him, to say the least, "difficult" but that to sit across a kitchen table from him while he sang was a wonderful experience.

Any arguments I have taken part in have usually centered on misrepresentation, deliberate or otherwise, of what he said and what he believed about folk music; attempts to contradict and correct these usually culminating in such predictable crassness as "takes the name of the Blessed Ewan in vain".

I'm sorry, but that's the way it comes over. His supporters seem to regard him with a sort of reverence; his detractors, as the Devil Incarnate. I'd like to know the truth. I suspect he may have aspects of both. I'd like to find out about the real man.

Here I have responded as best I can to the question in hand "Why didn't MacColl like Dylan?"

No you haven't. You have simply denied any evidence put before you. You brush aside Derek Schofield's comments and completely ignore what Frankie Armstrong said in the programme while placing heavy emphasis on the trolls "scratch" and "folknob" (probably the same person) because they provide easy targets. Nobody has supported what they say.

if I have not managed to match your level of cutting-edge debate, my apologies; we do what we can with what the good lord gave us.

Who's being snide now?

Any opinion I have offered about Dylan's music, here or elsewhere, have been based on how I feel about him as a performer and nothing whatever about how I feel about MacColl;

So what is it's relevance to this thread? How does what you think about Dylan have any bearing on what MacColl thought about him?

I don't belive I have ever sunk to the level that some of the postings on any of these threads - correct me if I have.

No, you haven't, but several people have and you've added your thrupence worth. My original post wasn't particularly aimed at you. On the other hand, you can be pretty vicious when it suits you. Alex Campbell had his problems. The only time I saw him he announced during the second half "You may think I'm inebriated. I'm not. I'm as pissed as a fart in a bottle." and he was. Be that as it may and passing over the motives and emotions that we will probably never know, he made an extraordinarily generous act in marrying Peggy Seeger. If it were not for that, she would have been sent back to the USA or possibly rendered stateless and the whole history of the Critics Group and the revival might have been very different. Despite that, you seem to have nothing but contempt for the man. Look to your own prejudices.