Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From:
Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 02:43 AM
Thanks Stephen - my feelings exactly - you said what need saying
That incident took place when the fledgling revival was still basking in the glow of the 1950s BBC recording campaign which had opened up the treasure box of British traditional song yet enthusiastic singers with basically good voices and instrumental skills where still herding cattle and slaving away on chain gangs in a mythical America that they knew nothing about.
Peggy's reaction to the wannabe Leadbelly was only one in that period; there was 'The John Snow' meeting; I don't think that's dealt with in either Peggy's biography or autobiography, (Freedmans bio is ecxcellent, if you haven't read it).
Ewan, Bert and others were concerned with the way the scene was beginning to dissipate so they called a meeting in Central London to see if anything could be done - Bert introduced it, MacColl was in the chair, and they along with Bob Davenport and Alex Campbell gave short summing ups of what they thought was happening and where things should go, then it was thrown open to everybody; it ended up in a shouting match, basically because of the behaviour of one person.
We have a recording of it - it is a fascinating peep at what was good and bad at the time.
Bert went off and continued to plough his furrow and Ewan set up The Critics Group to examine the techniques and relevance of folk song and produced 'The Song Carriers', ten (well-twelve really) programmes on British traditional singing that have, in my opinion, not been surpassed in over half a century
A few years later, I became involved with the work of Ewan and Peggy, and that lucky break put enough petrol in my engine to keep me going till now.
I don't care if people like Ewan or his singing - I like both, but that's not why I stand up for a man who has been dead for nearly three decades
What Ewan had to say, his ideas, his arguments, his suck-it-and-see approach to folksong represents over ten years of concentrated work on the social and technical aspects of the performance of folk song - much of it was recorded and still exists
We have around 200 tapes of Critics Group meetings on our shelves which I hope to sort out and pass on one day.
Shortly after the Critics Group ended Pat and I embarked on a six-month long interview of Ewan concentrating on his work and ideas rather than his personal history - twenty tapes of fluent outpourings.
There are stacks more examples of his work here, seminars, talks, interviews, by him, Peggy Charles Parker and others, all on the subject that has entertained and inspired me for most of my life.
I believe it needs to be accepted or rejected on the basis of people having listened to so they can decide whether MacColl said or stood for anything worth listening to.
Instead, we get this facile and often disturbingly nasty cat-'n-dog fights that seldom get beyond accents or name change or war-records, based largely on Chinese whispers and spiteful rumours - more than a little frustrating.
MacColl wasn't perfect by any means, but his knowledge and his and Peggy's generosity in being prepared to share what they had, well made up for any physical flaws
Sometimes I think all of this is not unlike rejecting The Theory of Relativity because someone told you that Einstein had halitosis or picked his none
Taking the man and his work into consideration, none of this nonsense is worth a fiddler's fart.
Jim Carroll
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sj
