Subject: RE: New Ewan MacColl Biography
From:
GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 03:01 AM
Ah, that's better - amazing what a few days surrounded by lakes, mountains and beautiful weather does for the soul.
Regarding MacColl a being a source singer. It is true that he got songs from his mother , Betsy. There is an album 'Garland For Betsy' on which they both sing songs from her repertoire.
There is also this from 'Prospero and Ariel, (The Rise And Fall Of Radio) by D.G.Bridson, Victor Gollancz Ltd.1971.
"MacColl had been out busking for pennies by the Manchester theatres and cinemas. The songs he sang were unusual, Scots songs, Gaelic songs he had learnt from his mother, border ballads and folk-songs. One night while queueing up for the three-and-sixpennies, Kenneth Adam had heard him singing outside the Manchester Paramount. He was suitably impressed" (can't lay my hands of the date of the incident, but I think it was around 1936).
However, MacColl always rejected the label 'traditional'; I think Folkiedave's point is an accurate one.
Regarding his output as a songwriter, while looking for above I came across this gem of misrepresentation from a radio programme on the history of Topic Records, 'Little Red Label'.
".....but ultimately, in the sixties, when he formed The Critics Group, he was very anti songwriting, which led to kind of bizarre situations, kind of Bob Dylan coming down at the infancy of his career, and MacColl kind of feeling ambivalent about it, which is bizarre. I mean, to a lot of people Bob Dylan couldn't sing properly, he also wrote his own songs or updated old songs, and all those things were a bit of a no-no in the philosophy of The Critics Group who thought they were just purely there to kind of dust down old songs".
Is it really any wonder we get pissed off sometimes?
When Karl Dallas organised a symposium in honour of Ewan on his 70th birthday, I was asked to speak on the work of the Critics Group. I have been trying to cut this down to a manageable size, but, like Topsy, it just growed. I'll keep slogging at it, but I may have to leave it as it is and send it out to whoever is interested-if anybody. This is what I've got so far.
"In the early sixties a group of people not happy with what was happening in the revival, approached Ewan and asked him to take singing classes, these included Bob Davenport, Eric Winter and Enoch Kent. He refused, but agreed to organise self-help workshops to work on singing.
In preparation for this he devised a number of technical exercises, on voice production, pitch and tone control and relaxation along with a series of singing exercises for coping with articulation, diction and managing difficult intervals. A number of these were ones which had been used by him in Theatre Workshop.
Early members included Gordon McCullough, Bobby and Helen Campbell, John Faulkner, Sandra Kerr, Alasdair Clayre and Luke Kelly. The first meetings concentrated on technique, but also included the listening to and discussion of recordings of traditional singers.
Once the technical exercises had been established a format was devised where a singer was asked to perform a number of varying types of songs and perform them to the group, who would then discuss them and, if appropriate, make suggestions on how they might be improved. Ewan took no active part in the discussion, but acted as a chairman and, where necessary, made sure that all the suggestions that were made were fully understood. After the discussion had reached some sort of a conclusion the singer was asked to comment on his/her performance and on the ideas thrown up in the course of the evening. A song, or maybe two, was selected and worked on by the entire group, including Ewan.
The singer was then asked to bring back one of the songs a couple of weeks later.
The whole process was entirely voluntary; it was never demanded that singers must take up suggestions made during the criticism; the only obligation members were under was to turn up regularly, and that there should be some indication that the members were working on their singing. If singers were having problems, other members stepped in to help with private sessions; I was assisted by John Faulkner, Sandra Kerr and Dick Snell.
Quite often Ewan would assist privately and Peggy ran regular instrumental classes.
Other work included research on specific areas of repertoire (The Critics were the first to open up the London Repertoire with the two Argo albums); group song-writing sessions (resulting in Grey October and The Hull Trawler Disaster, among others), and numerous other ongoing projects.
The hardest part of the work was the initial act of singing in front of a group of people who you knew were going to subject your performance to close (if friendly) scrutiny, but once you had got over this idea, it was plain sailing (and incidentally, once you could sing in those circumstances, you could sing anywhere - I can honestly say that, whatever problems I now have with my singing, I never feel nervous in front of an audience).
Jim Carroll
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