"Jim, please answer my question what did you think of the 2 biographies"
Why should I Dick, you haven't answered any of mine?
I think it is a rather meaningless question anyway - like "what do you prefer, a Madras Curry or a sticky-toffee pudding - I like both, they both give me different sensations and satisfy different cravings
Ewan and Peggy came from different backgrounds and both brought different experiences to the music scene - one is no more or less valuable than the other
Peggy introduced me to a totally different aspect of traditional song than Ewan could possibly have done - and vise versa
I became totality hooked on her ballad singing, just as I did with Ewans
I got masses of new information from Ben Harker's book that I didn't know, but I half filled a notebook with critical comments on some of his conclusions.
Harker's problem was that he never knew MacColl so he had to rely on the often contradictory opinions of others, many who also didn't know MacColl
Harker interviewed us and he told us that everybody he had interviewed who had worked with him were incredibly defensive and guarded in what they said even though the acting group had broken up acrimoniously
That was the way it was with MacColl - you took what he had to offer and, if you had any sense, you filtered out that which you were not sure about or didn't agree with - isn't that what you do with every genius (like him or not, that was what Ewan was as far as passing on his analytical approach to performing - I've heard both his enemies and his friends describe him as such).
What made Ewan unique was his desire to share ideas and pass on opinions, information and material.
Of all the things I got from Ewan, it was the desire to pass on anything we have to anybody who would make good use of it that has stuck with me.
Before I moved to London I spent half a dozen week-ends staying with them, copying their recordings - fieldwork, lectures - anything they had was there for the taking
Peggy had a filing cabinet draw of song texts she had assembled from various places, all in multi copies - she told me to help myself as long as I didn't take the last copy of a song so she could make more duplicates for the next person - that's the way they organised their lives
I remember feeling sorry for their youngest son Calum, whose small bedroom had been rigged out with two linked tape recorders so that visitors could use it as a copying studio and a spare bed - every time a visitor turned up he would be turfed out to share a bed with his brother Neil so we could work away for a couple of days
Say what you want about MacColl and Seeger - I never knew another person on the scene who did that (Charlie Parker did to some extent, but he was away from home a lot)
Both Ewan and Peggy have two books on their lives - Ewan has his own 'Journeyman' and Ben Harker's biography
A roughly accurate picture of his life, in my opinion, would be got by reading the two and sorting the wheat from the chaff in both
The same with Peggy - her own book is basically an outpouring of her life, full of personal information without too much analysis - a pleasure to read
Jean Freedman's book is analytical and well researched. with masses of information from others
Jean told us when she interviews us on line that she got the same guarded defensiveness about Ewan from everybody she interviewed
Like Ewan, the two Peggy books work hand-in-hand
Peter Cox's 'Set into Song' is a brilliant analysis of the work that went into the Radio Ballads - a must.
I've yet to read Alan Moore's and Giovanni Vacca's 'The Legacy of Ewan MacColl' - only just got it
It's a waste of time if you read these books uncritically, but it's equally pointless to read them with some of the preconceptions and misinformation that has always surrounded the work of Ewan and Peggy.
They really did have a lot to offer, and they offered it far more readily than anybody I ever met - on the folk scene or anywhare else in my life
They deserve more than the garbage that has been built up around their work - usually by people who offered to share nothing
Jim Carroll
Sorry if this is a mess - a stream of semi-consciousness from somebody who hasn't woken up yet