2007 Ewan MacColl Bio - Class Act

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,theleveller
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 08:22 AM

Well, well, unsurprisingly, these MacColl threads have brought the 'folk Fascists' or, rather, 'folk Stalinists' out of the woodwork, chanting their totalitarian mantras, shouting and stamping their feet and branding anyone who dares to criticise the Great God MacColl as a liar or an idiot.

It happens every time.

Whilst I admire some of his political aims and ideals, from where I stand, looking back over 45 years as a folk aficionado, I see his 'folk', as opposed to his 'political', legacy as largely a negative one – he and his cronies, with their Critics Committees, insistence on the purity of the genre and attempts to hijack folk music to suit their political agenda, painted it into a corner, marginalising it and rendering it inaccessible to a wider audience than might otherwise have been the case. In their hands, the folk revival failed to make it our of resuss.

Surely, isn't it time we shook off this straitjacket once and for all? After all, there are many others who have, over the years and more recently, had a far greater and more positive influence on the folk genre.

And to weelittledrummer; if you think that folk music today is timid stuff, you need to get out and hear more music. Now, where shall I start……….?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 07:23 AM

Sigh.

Not Ewan. The membership. Pegy Seeger wrote:

The decision to lay down guidelines for what you could sing on stage was not made by Ewan MacColl - it was made by the residents and members of the B&B Club (later known as the Singers Club). If it became hewn in stone - well, that's the way things go.

This policy was meant for OUR club, not for other clubs. The policy was simple: If you were singing from the stage, you sang in a language that you could speak and understand."

Martin C thought this was quite a good idea as it made him (and others) get off their arses and explore English material. That and the other 'rule' about not repeating a song within three months.

Dazzling Stranger, now that's a very strange book. Should have been two separate books really - a Jansch bio and a potted history - but somehow it's all shovelled in together and reads as through it's been finished in a hell of a rush. [Publisher, tearing hair, shrieking 'Oh, FFS, let's get something out'].

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 07:22 AM

The policy was actually that "If you were singing from the stage, you sang in a language that you could speak and understand".

It wasn't MacColl's policy it was that of the club and was decided by the members and singers of that club. It was only meant for the club. First of all Ballad and Blues and later Singers Club.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 07:06 AM

"People got furious with him because he insisted in his club if you were English you sang English songs, if you were Scottish it was Scottish songs."

An 'alleged' quote from Martin Carthy
Colin Harper - Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival, p.31

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 06:48 AM

This is the 'direct quote' allegedly from Frankie Armstrong: " There was this period when he tried to insist that people should only sing songs from their own region".
IF she said this, she knows a great deal better than I do that it is a tortuous bending of the actualité. Hands up all those who still haven't read Peggy Seeger's LT piece?
Thought so.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 06:32 AM

So now 'Guest, Sminky' quotes someone called Britta Sweers author of something called, "Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music".

The book contained a quote from Frankie Armstrong, a member of the Critics Group. Of what relevance is the book's title?

I am a great admirer of Ewan, but if we are to discuss his life/career/personality/beliefs/singing then it has to be 'warts and all'. Otherwise there's no point.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 05:39 AM

but the accent is so strong, half the audience don't know what he's saying in England

I am not so sure they understand him in Scotland either. But his music and his voice are great.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 04:44 AM

A long way from Cecil?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 01:25 AM

Jim keeps saying we ain't talking about his music.

I tell you what I liked about his music - and its not something all these traddy types seem to latch onto. His music had an 'edge' to it. There was a point of view there - a real human quality.

If you took your tory friends to one of their concerts, they would be inchoate with rage at the dismissive attitude to their ideology. People who would hum contentedly along to The Sex Pistols would be ready to physically attack you for taking them to see Peggy and Ewan.

But it wasn't just that political thing - there something of Martin Luther and 'Here I stand' in his attitude to his music.

Since he's gone - folkmusic has been timid stuff. Nothing much to agree with or disagree. It doesn't growl any more. Okay you get bands like The Levellers - but theres so much going on. theres Dick Gaughan - but the accent is so strong, half the audience don't know what he's saying in England

Somehow Ewan got his nose up to yours (in some people's cases he entered the nasal cavity) and he growled!

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: maeve
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 05:05 PM

Thanks, Jim. Will do.

If there are any elves running about here, perhaps one may have time and the inclination to change my post at 12:17, 09/Oct 07, to read "wish" rather than "widh". Thanks.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 04:34 PM

So now 'Guest, Sminky' quotes someone called Britta Sweers author of something called, "Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music". I think I've vaguely heard of it - but haven't read it. I wonder if the term "Electric Folk" could be significant?

Recall what I said earlier (08 Oct 07) about Ewan's biggest mistake being that he didn't play an electric guitar? Just think, if he'd strummed that Stratocaster he'd be remembered as a hero now - rather than the blackest of (acoustic) villains who had opinions (oh no!!).

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 04:31 PM

Maeve
Have intended for a long time to do a selection of recordings we have of Ewan teaching.
Occasionally I get pissed off and think - who cares, but the two threads running at present make me think enough people do to make the effort worthwhile; so will knuckle down and get something done.
In the meantime, (until I get my membership problem sorted), if you contact Folkiedave I'm sure he will let you have my e-mail address.
Regarding Folk Brittania - as Bryn said, SC's (and Frankie's and others opinions only). Peggy said all that was to be said about the Singers Club policy of singing regional material only in the letter I quoted.
The old guard's attitude to Ewan was summed up by somebody who's work and opinions (on Irish music) I otherwise respect tremendously.
Reg Hall claimed on FB that it was Ewan's and Bert's aim to set up Eastern-European-type 'folk ensembles', and for evidence, produced sleeve notes of an old Folkways record which he said proved it. I knew for a fact that both Ewan and Bert detested these ensembles, so I checked my copy of the notes in question. Sure enough - there it was in black and white. Unfortunately, what Reg had neglected to mention was the fact that neither E or B had had anything to do with the writing of the notes, they were written by an American collector (Sydney Robertson Cowell?)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 12:44 PM


"It is difficult, however, to determine retrospectively why the clubs became so narrow-minded about this [authentic] performance practice, which did not leave much room for innovation and eventually led to a musical dead end. Many observers blame MacColl - and he indeed aliented performers not only by setting up rules but by being extremely dogmatic about them. Stories and comments I heard in my interviews suggest that he must have been a very difficult person. Several performers evidently fell out with him, as Frankie Armstrong, a long-time member of the Critics Group, recalled:

'He did polarize people in a way that Bert [Lloyd] didn't. I think this was partly to do with his politics; Bert was a much more complex political thinker that Ewan. Ewan tended to be much more dogmatic about everything. There was this period when he tried to insist that people should only sing songs from their own region - he put many people's backs up because it was very rigid, very judgemental and prescriptive. There were those who would hold him in great respect and would still be influenced by him but find his dogmatism off-putting.'

"

Britta Sweers - Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: maeve
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 12:17 PM

Jim Carroll- I would be very interested in listening to the tapes you mention. I widh I could contact you to see if this is possible. I listen to my own Lizzie Higgins interview tapes often and always learn something new. I think you realize you have a treasure there. Can it be shared?

maeve... in Maine

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 11:17 AM

Yeah, yeah, Shirley Collins was waffling on about her feud with Ewan in Folk Britannia. I think she's utterly and completely wrong to try and make out that people from generations past were not making political statements about their lives, their working conditions and social inequality through their music. Of course they were, just as their heirs do today.

As for Leadfingers' complaint that Ewan was 'hypocritical' about what was and what was not acceptable as folk song, where's there any evidence for this? I think you'll find that what Ewan was concerned about was performance standards. His own repertoire was extraordinarily varied and supremely well executed and his wish was that others should aim at an equally high standard.

Ewan was above all an actor. What he achieved (with Joan Littlewood) in the Theatre Workshop, with Peggy and Charles Parker with the Radio Ballads and with the Critics in The Festival Of Fools was a magnificent amalgam of agitprop theatre and people's music.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 11:07 AM

Jim Carroll has already posted, whether here or elesewhere, that Ewan McColl

'frequently got it wrong, and jesus some of his ideas were off the wall'.

Apart from Shirley Colins's statement (which is her opinion to which she is perfectly entitled)posted by Sminky, where, Leadfingers is your evidence of hypocrisy ?

I thank FolkieDave for hisa posting to the effect that many people who never met Ewan McColl labelled him arrogant.

Suggest you take a look at the thread started by redmax - I think you'll find that people who met Ewan McColl, like me, accepted him for what he was - a courteous encourager of talent great and small.

Dis it ever occur to the begrudgers (see my earlier post) that Ewan McColl was never comfortable with being lionised ?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Leadfingers
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 10:45 AM

Jim - You cant deny that Ewan was somewhat hypocritical about what was and was not acceptable as a folk song - A definate case of "Do as I say , Not as I do !"

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 10:05 AM

Shirley Collins (SC) in an interview by Johan Kugelberg (JK):


JK: And I know how central Ewan MacColl is to the history of British folk music but as far as him as a performer and a singer, he is an exclusivist.

SC: Absolutely. I'm so grateful to find somebody who is on the same wavelength as me here. I've always been slightly on the edge of all this. Because MacColl and Seeger and Peggy Seeger, they're such proselytizers. They've got an agenda and everything is going to fit that, and I mind that terribly. They're usurping all these songs to make their own point and that's not what these songs are about. What you're doing is representing generations back. The minds and the hearts and the work of all those people, and you haven't got the right to take it over and make it a political statement.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,theleveller
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 08:23 AM

Ah, happy days!

Being used to the friendly, laisser-faire atmosphere of Yorkshire folk clubs I couldn't stand the bitchy, proscriptive atmosphere I found in most London venues so i stopped playing for years (sighs of relief all round)until I eventually drifted back to Yorkshire in a round about way. Anyway, the beer's better, so I'll be drinking a toast to Alex Campbell - drunk or sober I thought he was a nice guy and he certainly had more influence on me than Mr MacColl, but probably not in a good way.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 07:54 AM

"Frankly Jim, I don't give a stuff what you believe -"
Pleased to hear it.
"Ewan wanted everyone to do things his way and you got short shrift if you didn't."
No he didn't.
Around 1965 MacColl and Lloyd attempted to draw together some of the dispirit section of the revival, so they called a meeting in a pub in Soho, The John Snow. I have a recording of it.
The three speakers were Lloyd, Campbell and Bob Davenport, MacColl was the chairman.
Lloyd spent his 20 minutes being nice to everybody; Davenport told them that art was middle class and 'not for the likes of us workers' and Campell (somewhat 'tired and emotional') said 'ah love the auld folk' then whined incessantly about 'young performers getting the same fees as me'.
Davenport shouted down every speaker from the audience who disagreed with him and brought the proceedings to an explosive conclusion by declaring the Jeannie Robertson was a crap singer.
Personally I'd prefer a bit of friendly advice offered by Ewan.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 07:48 AM

Time after time the members of the club I helped to run asked us to book Alex Campbell and time after time the committee refused.

The local university booked him and he was appalling, drunken, boorish behaviour with long boring anecdotes about nothing in particular and about three songs in an hour. At least we never had the question of booking him raised again.

I seem to remember he apologised after that as well. He certainly had a drink.

There were in the past a number of folk performers with alcohol problems. One or two of them were could still perform drunk and some of them couldn't. He was one of those that couldn't.

And I do have every sympathy with people with alcohol problems. An awful disease.

I have seen Ewan in a blazing temper and Peggy in tears immediately after a concert, but he was still courteous.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,theleveller
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 07:16 AM

Jim Carrol said:
"Sorry - I don't believe you. It was never the policy of The Singers Club to demand that singers from the floor sang only songs from their region, or from anywhere, and to make such a demand would have been insane"

Frankly Jim, I don't give a stuff what you believe - that's what happened. I don't think anyone has the right to tell you how a folk song should be sung. That's the whole point of folk music - it's comes out differently with every performer and changes over time. Ewan wanted everyone to do things his way and you got short shrift if you didn't.

Someone asked why Alex Campbell doesn't get flack. Probably because he was a nice guy and thought folk music was fun. Having burst loudly into the room when I was singing at a pub in Bayswater, he came up after and apologised and told me that the first song I'd sung (Robin Hood as it happens) was OK but the second one was s**t. We had a good laugh and he bought me a drink - or was it the other way round?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 05:07 AM

I am a Lawyer - whose advice would you like me to seek ?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 05:01 AM

Steady Bryn, seek legal advice first. Must go have to walk the Irwell Valley way, for obvious reasons

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 04:51 AM

Thank you, FolkieDave, for this.

Thanks to Peggy Seeger's candour and not least her humility, the "ethnic" canard can now be consigned to the dustbin of history.

That said, here is a warning to the next person to trot it out -

If you are in my hearing, and within my reach, I shall do you a bad and a woeful.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 03:50 AM

And here is a link to the article that Jim mentions.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 03:10 AM

theleveller
Sorry - I don't believe you. It was never the policy of The Singers Club to demand that singers from the floor sang only songs from their region, or from anywhere, and to make such a demand would have been insane.
The idea that a singer from Yorkshire shouldn't sing a song from Nottingham is, frankly b******* (or bollocks, as we say in Lancashire).
The Club policy was outlined in a letter from Peggy Seeger in the correspondence pages of The Living Tradition, No 39. July-August 2000, (in the good old days when that magazine had a correspondence page).
Every club had a policy (even if it was a policy not to have a policy).
There were those that forbade instruments, or those where you only sang English songs, no matter where you came from, there were American based clubs where, if you sang something else, it was made quite clear you would not be welcome back.
Our policy was decided by an audience committee, was aimed solely towards the residents and, of course, those we booked.
It was originally suggested by Alan Lomax and was aimed at opening up and establishing the British repertoire, and you know what-it worked!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 03:22 PM

Jim,

I understand the points you make about the Marxists and the war. But after Stalingrad and the Yalta the CP put all that behind them and were able to feel that the Nazis had been defeated by the Soviet Union and so their version of history gave them rising membership at least until 1956 and Hungary.

Perhaps that is the climate which created McColl's reluctance to talk about what he did in WW2?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 02:54 PM

Jim,

If you get the chance to get some of MacColl's work on singing into the public domain, please do. As I've said before I attended one of Ewan and Peggy's weekend workshops in the late 60s (in a schoolroom in Huntingdon, if I remember correctly). It was elecrifying stuff!

Admittedly, I was an impressionable lad - but nothing has made such a big impression before or since - a complete revelation. Obviously (and regrettably) the details have faded over the years but I like to think that the basic principles that I learned in the course of that weekend have stayed with me.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 02:20 PM

"The Marxist left, particularly the Communist Party of Great Britain, was strong and influential in the 50's because of the success of the Soviet Union in the war. How comfortable was McColl in that climate?"
Les,
The Marxist left was in total disarray over the war. At the outset it was condemned as an Imperialist adventure by the Communist Party of Great Britain - then the Soviet Union was invaded and they did a somersault. The Gen. Sec. of the C.P, Harry Pollitt, resigned over the change of policy.
My father had 3 brothers, one joined the tank regiment and was decorated as a war hero, two refused (as Irishmen) to have anything to do with it.
It was an academic argument as far as my father was concerned as he had been wounded in Spain and came home to find himself with a police record as a 'premature anti-fascist' - work that into the general run of things if you can; I can't!
I hope to select some of the important bits of our recordings of Ewan's work and offer them to whoever is interested (if anybody).
"Well Jim - of course the problem is that you can't see its an insult when you tell someone what they're doing isn't folk music - when that's exactly what they've put considerable effort and commitment into trying to create. But it is an insult"
WLD; I didn't say what he is doing isn't folk music - I said he wasn't a traditional singer, which is different.
Sorry, getting confused - doesn't this belong to another thread?
Jim Carroll
PS I will get my membership sorted as soon as I get the time (when the bloody grass stops growing in the acre we euphemistically refer to as a garden).

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 11:11 AM

I could be wrong, and I am prepared to be, but I had the privilege of hosting Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger on more than one occasion at MSG.

I don't like all the non-traditional material they were responsible for ; I wouldn't go out of my way to buy any one of the Radio Ballads. That said : -

I couldn't give a flying fuck about name change, Ewan's politics, or any of the other canards that people trot out whenever his name is mentioned - and I would bet a month's salary (and I am a qualified Lawyer !) that those who trot out said canards got it fourth or fifth hand, and never met Peggy, Ewan, Jim Carroll or me.

What I remember is their unfailing courtesy, that Ewan drank brown over bitter and Peggy drank cider. The only time Ewan ever marked my card was when I announced 'Jowl and Listen, Lads' as traditional.

Why doesn't Alex Campbell, equally as dead, and who couldn't sing two consecutive verses towards the end, get the shit that's thrown at Ewan McColl ?

My comment in an earlier thread, that he damaged the Folk Scene, was based on a misunderstanding of the 'ethnic' jibe, and I apologise to Ewan's shade for this.

Jim C - I think we're (you, in particular) flogging a dead horse, old son ; as someone once wrote (paraphrasing, cos I can't remember the exact quotation) the good men do is interred with their bones ; the evil lives after them.

I never understood the Irishism "begrudgers".

I do now.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,theleveller
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:31 AM

Personally, I thought he was an arrogant pain in the arse. He applied rules to everyone else but not to himself. I went to the Singers' Club once in the 60s, sang a very old trad. song called Robin Hood and the Fifteen Foresters which starts 'Robin he would to fair Nottingham'. However, as I come from Yorkshire he said afterwards thatI shouldn't be singing it - even though there's far more evidence that Robin Hood originally came from Yorkshire than Nottighamshire. I think I told him to f**k off and walked out (I believe that Bert Jansch did pretty much the same thing). Loved Peggy Seeger, though.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:59 AM

that should read
'However i really liked and respected him and Peggy.'

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:56 AM

Well Jim - of course the problem is that you can't see its an insult when you tell someone what they're doing isn't folk music - when that's exactly what they've put considerable effort and commitment into trying to create.

But it is an insult.

However i really liked and respected him and Ewan.

As for his work going to waste - I don't think so. and if it does - join the club - none of us are getting any younger. I imagine a greater proportion of Ewan's work will be remembered than most peoples.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: curmudgeon
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 06:59 AM

"What I would like to see discussed is his ideas on singing..." - Jim Carrol

I'm in complete agreement with your sentiment, Jim. However, you seem to be the only person on Mudcat who really knows a lot about this. Please expand and elucidate, probably on a new separate thread .

Thanks - Tom Hall

BTW, my copy of the book was shipped yesterday.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 05:23 AM

It seems to me that the revival as it stands today has largely run out of steam

Jim all of what you say I would agree with - except that bit.

There is a big resurgence of interest in folk music at the moment in England and Scotland as far as I can see, and I do go to a lot of around festivals.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,redmax
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 05:17 AM

I'm looking forward to this, it's been a while coming. Having spoken to Ben a few times about it I'm sure he was the right choice for this work. As has been mentioned above, he's a good, clever guy who's really done his homework on this.

Sad to see the sledgehammers coming out. Perhaps it's a backhanded compliment to the scale of MacColl's achievements that his faults are magnified so. Who can look back on each and every chapter of his/her life and be proud of all of them? Perhaps his complete omission of WWII years in Journeyman was a little craven, but on the whole when I read it I didn't feel his ego seeping through the pages!

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Llanfair
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 05:07 AM

Have you never thought of getting those sessions published, Jim? I for one would be delighted to hear them and learn from them.

I sing some of Ewan McColl's songs, learning them before I knew they were written by him. I have most of the "Radio Ballads", which I love, and I have huge respect for the man, even though I haven't always agreed with his politics.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 04:06 AM

Jim,

I would PM but you are a guest. It is difficult for most of us to recognise the influence of Ewan and Peggy. They were probably the biggest influence on the revival. Perhaps they were simply much more influential than anybody else. They sang, they recoded, they collected they wrote,they organised clubs, they toured, they supported other people on a greater scale than anybody else.

That is why people want to know what they were like and what made them tick. And that's why I think it is reasonable to ask questions like:

What was the longer term effect of going AWOL from a war that most people, including those on the left, would say had a good outcome?

The Marxist left, particularly the Communist Party of Great Britain, was strong and influential in the 50's because of the success of the Soviet Union in the war. How comfortable was McColl in that climate?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 03:46 AM

I have no real interest in talking about MacColl as an individual; I knew him long enough to be able to make an assessment of what kind of an individual he was, and that's enough for me.
What I would like to see discussed is his ideas on singing - have been persistently disappointed in this over the last thirty by side tracks and cul-de-sacs such as above.
No Winger, I am not talking to you specifically, it was a general comment.
What is a Folk Luvvie - well; as I was just saying to Martin the other day................
In the early sixties MacColl, a reasonable successful professional singer, took the decision to work with less experienced 'wannabe' singers. While others in his profession (most of whom queued up to get the boot in on him) were happily getting on with their careers, he and Peggy devoted an evening a week to greenhorns like me who were struggling to become reasonable singers of traditional songs and songwriters using traditional forms. They did this for nearly ten years. The end result was around 300 tapes of workshops of ideas, excercises, experiments, performances.... a decade of work on traditional singing absolutely unique.
Those tapes now lay in Birmingham Central Library largely unused (with another set on the shelves behind me as I write).
Because of the mantra that usually follows the mention of MacColl's name, the ideas that were tossed around, tried out, succeeded and became established with those involved, or failed and were discarded, will probably never see the light of the folk club, which I believe to be an awful shame.
The same goes for the 6 month long interview Pat and I did with him on his ideas on singing after The Critics Group broke up.
It seems to me that the revival as it stands today has largely run out of steam, yet there is this reservoir of energy and ideas lying dormant: daft I call it.
I confess I get prickly when I see the same old usual dragged out about MacColl; call it my sense of fair play.
Ewan and Peggy devoted the time and energy they did to the music they loved unstintingly, without expecting any return. Nobody else in the revival other than those who were influenced by them spent anything like the time they did helping other performers.
No, they certainly weren't/aren't saints. Working with MacColl could be difficult; he often got it wrong and jesus, some of his ideas were off-the-wall. But he cared enough about the music to put the hours in and he shared what he had and what he believed. They threw their home open, and made available their library and the result of their researches to anybody who asked.
I don't know many others in the revival I can say that of.
Jim Carroll
WLD' you didn't respond to my comment about MacColl not knocking other singers, but there again, it was a rhetorical one.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 03:15 AM

I saw him and Peggy once and have some records. For what it's worth I think they were as good as it gets. They wrote some great songs and they were a massive influence on the second revival.

I suppose a reasonable question to ask is something like:

What was the longer term effect of going AWOL from a war that most people, including those on the left, would say had a good outcome? I guess Jim would have a view?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 05:09 PM

well the badmouthing was in the form of interviews - there were always people who wanted to interview him. and journalists love a Oasis bashes Blur type face off - without seeing that there could be implications.

I think the thing is - you can be laudatory about an artist's purple patches - but its not really what interests people in biographies and autobiographies of this type.

what people want to know is - how did he become what he was? What was it about how he lived and where he came from that made him a great creative artist, as a opposed to me - who became a nobody.

and if you shroud periods of your life in mystery and mythologise your past - you're not really playing the game. after all - you're taking the people's money.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Winger
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 04:14 PM

"you have to climb the shit mountain of name change, Scottishness, politics, war-record, and his refusal to be a member of the folk Luvvies"

You talking to me, Jim?

Whatever relationship with Ewan MacColl, it appears to have taken you to a place where you can only suffer those of a like mind who wish to worship at the shrine of St. Ewan.

Maybe this is a good time, Jim, to put aside those personal memories and take a considered look back at those wonderful songs he wrote, his superb recordings and the many other activies he was involved in. Your paranoid response to questions about his WWII days is akin to a pubescent girl's adoration of a pop star.

What the frig is a "folk Luvvie" anyway?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 03:54 PM

"If he was merely a "singer", Jim, I'd agree with you, but he wasn't."
No, he wasn't; he was somebody who evolved a unique approach to the singing of traditional songs; but in order to discuss this you have to climb the shit mountain of name change, Scottishness, politics, war-record, and his refusal to be a member of the folk Luvvies.
Describing his decision to opt out of the war as "sit-out (if that's what he did)the greatest conflict in human history", is somewhat simplistic, as I know personally coming from a left-wing family background.
"No. his 'sin' was that he bad mouthed people who were in the folk club movement, who may not have conformed to his vision "
Where? the problem was he hardly wrote anything and what he did write was concentrated in putting forward his own ideas, rather than pulling down those of others (would that the same could be said of his critics (with a small c). Any badmouthing he was said to have done was in Chinese whispers form, and about as accurate.
Is anybody going to take odds on how many column inches are going to be spent on this thread on MacColl as a creative artist?
I agree with 'im (Shimrod).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 02:21 PM

no. his 'sin' was that he bad mouthed people who were in the folk club movement, who may not have conformed to his vision - but they were still on the side of the angels - and he did have some very dim followers who took it upom themselves to be rude to the young Donovan/Dylan clones who were flooding the folk clubs - and that was no way to treat young would be converts. His dullard friends emptied the folk clubs, but that wasn't his fault.

However his virtues far outweighed his faults. he was a great man, and I am glad I met him. he was intellectual without being superior in attitude - he wore his knowledge very lightly. he was passionate about his desire to be an artist. he worked damned hard to put a good show on, and he really did encourage you to do 'your' thing - if he didn't feel it was some homogenised crap you had picked up off the radio.

In short, one of the good guys.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 02:02 PM

I've got this sneaking suspicion that if Ewan MacColl had played an electric guitar (perish the thought - but let's just imagine!) no-one would have given a toss about his politics, his name change, his war record etc., etc. After all 'guitar heroes' and rock stars are expected to behave badly and can drink to excess, take drugs, have sex with hundreds of groupies, smash up hotel rooms, adopt obscure religions or political philosophies and are idolised for such behaviour. Was Ewan's real sin that he didn't bow down before the 'Great God Rock'? And then did he compound that sin by having strong beliefs and by being a highly original artist who followed his own vision - rather than being a slave to fashion?

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Winger
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 12:27 PM

Thank you, Jim, for shedding at least a little light on MacColl's WWII life. I'd like to learn more, and maybe Harker's book will do that.

Whilst many will prefer to stick to discussing MacColl's singing and his ideas on that subject, others (myself included) see his influence as much wider. His songwriting was undoubtedly politically inspired (both locally and globally)and therefore I find it interesting that he decided to sit-out (if that's what he did)the greatest conflict in human history and completely ignores it in his autobiography (self-incriminating risk acknowledged).

If he was merely a "singer", Jim, I'd agree with you, but he wasn't. Inquiring into his beliefs, his actions, his influence doesn't mean that we're anti-Ewan, just as it doesn't mean that we believe in St. Ewan.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 04:20 AM

Don't get so het up Jim. At least people are talking about him - they haven't forgotten him.

Most of us will make as much lasting impression as wee in the River Thames. Keats said something to that effect.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: stallion
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 04:10 AM

Knowing Ben, he wouldn't let sentimentality get in the way of scholarship, he has probably dealt with his sources sensitively, coaxing rather than bullying, I don't think one will find any journalism in it, he is a very thoughtful academic. Having said all that I am sure there will be detractors cos they can. I haven't read it yet but I shall look forward to it.

Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 02:44 AM

MacColl deserted from the army, was on the run for a period (don't know where but it doesn't matter), then returned to the North of England and joined Joan Littlewood working with Theatre Workshop.
I'm pretty sure Ben Harker has all this period covered.
We were all aware of this in The Critics Group, and he was not averse to discussing it with us.
Would you include in your autobiography that you had broken the law and were technically still a criminal?
It has been an issue, along with his name change, his Scottishness and his singing with his hand over his ear while sitting back-to-front on his chair, that has prevented a serious discussion on his singing and his ideas on that subject.
I hope it will not be the case this time, but I won't put money on it.
Jim Carroll