M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: GUEST,CJB
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 01:53 PM

Not sure if there is any mention of The Critics but Genevieve included Martin Carthy last Sunday - two hours left to listen / download.

Genevieve in conversation with Martin Carthy and a preview of Belinda O'Hooley and Heidi Tidow's wonderful new CD, The Fragile.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mfs7x

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim McLean
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 12:29 PM

Jim, I'm not being rude, but I suggest you wait until you hear the program before being further involved in wasteful tit-for-tats.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 11:42 AM

so WHY was his helpfulness NOT given more prominence?simple because the programme maker chose to highlight his flaws, rather than his good points, he gave up hours of his time to try and help others, why is he made to appear like a control freak,
certain of his conversations were used to highlight one side of his character.[eg the extract about Charles Parker and a particular song]. The PROGRAMME was a subtle attempt to portray one side of his character, it was not [imo] a balanced programme, that is why another programme is need to give a different perspective, it was far too simplistic an analysis of a complicated and interesting man, a complicated an interesting woman, and a group of people who were asking for assistance with their performance

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 10:01 AM

"Jim, you really should lighten up."
Sorry Hoot - it's a little difficult to "lighten up" when you are accused of "teaching traditional singers how to sing" and reading descriptions of somebody you respect which bear no relation to reality - will try harder.
Cap'n
Ewan could be arrogant in certain circumstances - quite often defenvely so - I think I told you of the attempts to sabotage 'The Travelling People' Radio Ballad which is now passed around as an anti-MacColl story - or how he 'stole 'Shoals of Herring' from the tradition and claimed it as his own - I'll tell you the story of the hedgehog and the worms sometime.
He could also be somewhat unrealistic on occasion; his tendency to exaggerate was legendary.
Having said that, his generosity and desire to involve others in traditional song dominated everything he did.
When the acting group broke up he had what his son Neil described as a breakdown; for a period he cut himself off from everybody.
One night we were at The Singers and we were discussing the London Singers Workshop, which we had helped set up to work with raw singers around The Singers and The West London Folk Club.
We described what we were doing and, out of the blue he said, "I'll come and give a hand if you want"
He came along on a monthly basis for around a year - great evenings; and eventualy he agreed to be interviewed by us, talking just about his involvment and ideas on song - a project that took six months to complete.
I don't know anybody in his position who would have put that much effort into working with others, certainly none of his detractors.   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 08:52 AM

Sorry, I do think it was a hatchet job , but not on Martins part,on the programme makers part.
it was an edited 30 minutes, that made Ewan look and sound arrogant, it was not[imo] balanced, what is needed is for there to be another programme putting a different perspective on the group,
Jim he did include that quote, but the overall impression was that Ewan was a controller and arrogant, That is the fault of the programme maker who selected certain material to create that impression.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 08:08 AM

Cards on table - technical problems have prevented me from hearing the programme yet, which is why I have refrained from commenting on its contents. A kind Mudcatter is sending me a copy (there's still a lot of that sort of generosity about in the revival, as I have discovered from this forum).
I doubt if Carthy did a hatchet job on MacColl and the group - whatever opinions I might have on his singing, I have always found him fair minded and generous with his praise of others. Personally I would have hated to try and cram six years into a single radio programme; I certainly would have been hard pushed to choose from the mass of recordings available for that time slot.
Rather, I would guess that any attempt to present the area of work that was covered by the group would have to be a superficial dip.
I wonder if he included any of the 'soliloquies' after the work was finished, when MacColl 'took off' and poured out his love, understanding of and committment to traditional song - some of the most inspiring moments I (and others, at the time) have ever experienced - as quoted from me by Ben Harker, "it left you feeling as if you were walking a foot above the pavement".
MacColl's main input into the Group was inspirational; he devised voice and relaxation exercises for us, most of which still come in handy, and he suggested ways of looking at and relating to songs which helped them work and kept them alive, but it was in encouraging us to lift the corner and look underneath that has been the most enduring influence he had on me.
This latter was one of the main influences in our collecting work; getting the singers we met to talk about their songs rather than just sing them - this was particularly true with our recording the Travellers' 'living tradition'.
Why wasn't Carthy asked to join the Group?
From the off, MacColl deliberately limited the numbers in order to make it possible for everybody to participate in the work - any larger and this would not have been possible and it would have become a series of lectures.
Being asked to join, certainly in my case, was an accidental affair, I first met them outside the MSG in Manchester, was invited to visit their home for a week-end and take copies of their recordings (I think son Calum still must curse me for taking over his bedroom and turning it into a temporary recording studio - cum- dossing place).
I was invited to join on the basis of discussions I had with them then and on subsequent visits (including a week of re-wiring their lighting circuit).
And, "reader - I married them"!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 08:05 AM

Jim, you really should lighten up. I understood that you were an electrician and did a very good job of work. I am sorry if I was mis-informed and that description is incorrect, and I should point out that I have no interest in your education or table manners.

Keep smiling

Hoot

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 07:43 AM

Jim Mclean and GSS.

All media programme makers have to attract an audience. That means folk programmes end up using big names such as Billy Bragg or Martin Carthy, rather than people who can claim to be experts in their field. Yes, I don't doubt Martin knows a lot about the folk scene of the sixties. But an expert on the Critics Group he is not.

I don't think hatchet job is quite the word to use here. More a case of picking out the salacious bits, which the producers knew would pull the punters, but which nonetheless gave rise to an unbalanced and unfair programme.

Regarding the question of MacColl's "opinionated bullying". I've mentioned further up this thread that the recordings were too few and too selective to be fair to the man.

However, another thought has just struck me. Could it be that what came across as bullying on the recordings might simply have been commitment.

MacColl was a very passionate man who, rightly or wrongly, believed that the retrieval of the folk song tradition was absolutely essential for "the furtherment of social progress" (his words). In other words he was prepared to work as hard as humanly possibly to raise his own perfomance standards, and those of other people, thereby helping to turn the folk revival into an instrument for improving the lot of the entire human race.

I don't think we need to start to another flame war on the viability of his beliefs, or on his attempts to ally folk music with socialism. But let's at least respect MacColl's memory for the things he did, and for the work he put in, and for the sincerity of his convictions.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Acorn4
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 07:38 AM

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Acorn4
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 07:37 AM

Crib Sheets

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 06:43 AM

Personally, I think the program was a hatchet job on MacColl, damning the man with faint praise, with Martin having his tongue firmly stuck in his cheek."
Absolutely, like everything that appears in the media , the programme was edited or censored[ same thing], 30 minutes of material was used out of a much larger availablity of material, only certain members of the critics group gave their opinions, we did not hear from Donal Maguire, John Faulkner, Terry Yarnell or any of the other members.
the programme was unbalanced and it has had its desired effect even affecting people like Brian Peters.
what is needed is another programme of 30 minutes, perhaps even interviewing Jim Carroll, to get another perspective .
The BBC likes to give the impression it is even handed, ha ha.
unfortunately all media programme makers have a remit to make a contoversial programme, to get people to listen, it is the same with newspapers we always hear about the sensational aspects of life, we never hear about the millions of people who are decent kind and respectful to each other.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim McLean
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 06:21 AM

I listened to the program with a couple of non 'folkie' friends, deliberately, to get an unbiased response. The consensus was that Ewan came across as an arrogant, opinionated bully but they loved his 'pop' song sang by Roberta Flack.
Personally, I think the program was a hatchet job on MacColl, damning the man with faint praise, with Martin having his tongue firmly stuck in his cheek. A couple of questions: why was a man with the stature of Martin Carthy not invited to join the Critics Group? Did his friendship with Bob Dylan exclude him? Or maybe he had no time for the CG which would make him a peculiar choice as presenter.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 04:00 AM

"It appeared to me that Ewan was telling people how it should be done."
MacColl did no more or less than any other tutor, lecturer, teacher, writer, group leader.... on any subject you would care to name - he passed on his opinion based on his experience in order to help a bunch of people who VOLUNTARILY went each week to hear him do so - no bars on the windows, no electronic tags - we were there because we wanted to be. His efforts were solely for those of us who turned up, not for the revival in general (my main criticism of the work was that it didn't get a wider airing)
I was a member of the Critics Group for a couple of years; (Pat for three years longer). I was a friend of Ewan and recipient of his generosity from 1968 to his death - around 20 years in all - we still count Peggy among our friends.
In both of them we found two people who were top of their particular tree, yet who were prepared to spend time and effort with newer and less experienced singers like us, open their home once a week to work with us, share their field recordings, library and record collection and result of their skills, experience and researches - all while singers on the scene in similar positions got on with their careers.
The end result of their generosity appears to be that, whenever MacColl's name is mentioned - now a dozen years after his death - he becomes a target for any ill-informed (and usually tailor-made) shit that can be dug up - here, for example, people would rather discuss Alex Campbell's and Peggy's sex life rather than the subject in hand The Critics Group.
I suggesst that if you are genuinely interested in MacColl's work and ideas, and how he put them across (which I doubt), you dig out some of the (around 300 hours in all) recordings of the Critics meetings housed at Birmingham Central Library, The National Sound Archive in London or at Ruskin College, rather than basing your somewhat unpleasantly snide analysis of his work on a few selected sound clips (sorry - reducing Ewan's method of work to telling people "how it should be done" is about as snide as it gets).
Jim Carroll
By the way - I was intrigued by your "successful electrician" description of me - I spent my working life as a jobbing domestic maintenance and installation electrician - state educated (Secondary Modern) and retired on a state pension; my only "success" was to be regularly empoyed through most of my working life.
The only thing that made me any different from any other worker on this planet was that, for a time, at the end of a days work I washed, bolted down my meal and went off to record traditional singers - now there's "success" for you.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Acorn4
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 05:04 PM

I've really spent far too long on these two threads - must get some work done this week!

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 04:36 PM

Jim,
I did say that judging by the few clips I heard in the programme. It appeared to me that Ewan was telling people how it should be done. I think at one time he said that singers are actors or should be actors(?).
You are not alone in having met and recorded veterans who had been singing all of their lives. I too among many others have done the same including Walter Pardon on three or four occasions, and some of us for more than thirty years. I first met Peggy in 1957 and 1958 until she had to go to France and heard her and Ewan regularly until about 1961. I always enjoyed listening to her and learning from her. Ewan I did not enjoy very much but agree that he wrote some very good songs and made some good radio programmes. I didn't particularly like his attitude but that is not a snide remark it is purely the way I felt about the man. I don't remember making snide remarks about Peggy either.
Perhaps there are some singers who will tell us if their singing benefitted from Ewan's/the group's advice.

Hoot

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 03:43 PM

"apart from Jim Carroll that is."
Just after the acting group broke up Karl Dallas organised a symposium to mark MacColl's 70th birthday at County Hall in London.
I was asked to speak on the Critics Group, which I (extremely reluctantly, given the prevailing atmosphere) agreed to, but only on the understanding that I could speak to and record as many ex members of the Critics as was practically possible and include what they had to say in my presentation.
Despite the bad taste that the break-up had left behind, I was staggered at the positive response I got.
While a number expressed some reservations about the overall achievements of the Group, virtually all I spoke to said they felt that they had got a great deal from their being members an working in the way we did.
I am still in regular contact with two members of the group, both friends, excellent singers and unstinting in their praise of the work we did.
"how it should be done before turning on the mic"
I assume you haven't bothered to read what I have written above - why bother with facts when you can write your own script. It was never a case of "how it should be done" - it was a self-help group run on the lines of singers working in a workshop situation from suggestions and ideas from every single member of the group
The first thing that was suggested to me when I joined was that I should get hold of as many traditional singers as I could and listen to them - no instructions, no rule book, no "right way to do it".
The last workshop I attended - a few months ago, I, along with a whole roomful of people was handed song texts (of some songs I had heard before, but mainly not) and asked to sing them - that appears to be what passes for singing classes nowadays. I am in no way knocking that, but to be honest, I got far more from our group criticism work than I ever got from the 'singing-by-rote' method that appears to be used now.
I still have all the recordings I made for the symposium, and I also have all the recordings made of Critics Group meetings (around 200 cassettes worth) so I'm not relying on a fading memory, Chinese whispers or malicious rumours when I describe what was said and done by the group - it's all on the shelf behind me..
As Janet Topp Fargion pointed out, there are some of the Group meetings on the British Library web, and hopefully Birmingham Central Library will one day make all of these generally available from The Charles Parker Archive which is housed there.
Did I attempt to tell the Travellers, the West Clare veterans who had been singing all their lives, Walter Pardon.... and all the other source singers we were priveleged to have met, "how it should be done"? I am not sure whether to regard that question as extremely crass or just the old usual snide I have long come to know and love.
It has never been a case of telling people how it should be done, not for MacColl, not for the Group members, and certainly not for me - the last thirty odd years my life has been a learning curve and the generosity of the people who I came into contact with still leaves me both moved and grateful.
Can I assume that you regard all workshops, schools, learning sessions.... as "telling people how it should be done", or do you reserve your snide just for MacColl and Seeger.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 02:22 PM

I listened to the repeat of this programme today and I am prompted to ask. Are there any singers who honestly believe that they benefitted from belonging to this group? apart from Jim Carroll that is. I must admit that I never knew Jim Carroll as a singer or that he was a singer. I always thought that he was a successful electrician who collected/made recordings of traditional singers most of whom I guess had not had the benefit of Ewan's teachings. Did he pass on his knowledge to them of how it should be done before turning on the mic?

It is probably unfair to make a judgement on the brief clips used in this programme but if they were typical of the meetings I am surprised that anyone attended more than a couple of sessions. I am not surprised that it all fell apart, but equally surprised that it lasted as long as it did was it six years?

Hoot

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Baz Bowdidge
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 02:11 PM

>What relevance to this thread is someones sexuality.<
The driving force that brought them all together and continued throughout these peoples' creative lives.
If things had been different, this thread wouldn't exist - funny that.
(the thread hasn't stuck to topic anyway)

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 01:16 PM

What relevance to this thread is someones sexuality.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 01:04 PM

"As I said, the songs of Ewan, and of Peggy,"
I didn't suggest the disdcussion should be about "As I said, the songs of Ewan, and of Peggy," - their work was what I wrote, and the Critics Group (the subject of this thread) was very much a part of that.
But if you feel it more valuable to discuss the sex lives of well-known singers, who am I to interfere with life's litle pleasures?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 12:56 PM

Any thread with Jim Eldon and Michael Hurley is worth the admission. Along with Sub Ashtray's admiration for Clarence Asley and Roscoe Holcomble (or was that someone else?), it's possible to believe we were separated at birth.
Of Ewan MacColl I have no opinion, except his daughter was a considerable songwriter, so there must have been something in the genes. Like so many of his generation he seems to have been defined by what he disliked as much as the stuff he loved, which is unfortunate, but that's the folk revival for yer.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 12:23 PM

The thread purports to be about the radio programme, which told about the work of the Critics group. Ewan was their mentor.
As I said, the songs of Ewan, and of Peggy, have been done to death on Mudcat already. That was all I was pointing out. As has been said, this thread has been remarkably cool headed thus far, and I wouldn't want to change that.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Baz Bowdidge
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 12:12 PM

>The Critics Group doesn't have anything to do with the work of Ewan and Peggy - but Alex Campbell's love life has?<
As I see it they would say to sings songs about being a lover you have to be one.
Isn't that the philosophy?

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 11:47 AM

Sorry John - don't understand.
The Critics Group doesn't have anything to do with the work of Ewan and Peggy - but Alex Campbell's love life has?
I'm off - I'll leave play school to get on with its finger painting
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 11:30 AM

Well Jim, as it's nothing to do with the title of this thread. Then perhaps you'd like to start one.
However I reccommend a good search first, as you may find it's been mentioned before :)

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 10:58 AM

Wouldn't it be wonderful if - just for once one of these discussions actually included a mention of the work of two singers whose contribution to folk song over the last half century has been inestimable.
Nah - that would be silly, wouldn't it?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 10:57 AM

Phil Colclough a member of the group, later wrote song for Ireland, so perhaps It helped his song writing?

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 10:51 AM

Do you just want to check out what you have just written?

Best wishes

L in C#

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Baz Bowdidge
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 10:42 AM

'Washing dirty linen in public'?
These guys do that themselves don't they?
eg. Peggy's self-documented bisexuality.
I'm sure her relationship is wonderful.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 09:05 AM

"This portion of the thread is getting to look rather like washing somebody else's dirty linen in public,"
Or the pages of Hello Magazine; - almost a shame to spoil it with a few facts.
Jim Carroll

"To get back to Britain and MacColl, in Paris Peggy Seeger married the laid-back Glaswegian folk singer Alex Campbell, who'd agreed to help her out of an impossible fix. For years rumours would circulate that Campbell was actually in love with Seeger and took the ceremony seriously, a story that can be traced back to the reminiscences of Campbell himself. Seeger insists that it has no basis in fact. 'We should have paid him something,' she recalled. 'I offered him money later and he turned it down.... Alex did it out of sheer goodness of heart. He did it light-heartedly. He was not in love with me. He never made any advances.'"
Class Act p 139

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 08:37 AM

This portion of the thread is getting to look rather like washing somebody else's dirty linen in public, and I'm sorry now that I interjected.

The details aren't of very much interest, except to historians of folk music. Anyone who wants to know who was married to who and why will find a good part of the story in Ben Harker's book on Ewan MacColl.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 07:52 AM

Yes, Ewan was still married to his second wife at the time. As I understand it from the people involved it was not Theatre Workshop that paid Alex. The sum wasn't large and I would have thought that Ewan could have afforded to pay it himself.

Hoot

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 06:57 AM

I think he was married to someone else, anyway Alex enabled Peggy to come to England.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Acorn4
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 06:54 AM

Was he still married to his second wife (mum of Kirsty) at that time?

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 06:32 AM

As I heard the story from Alex - albeit many years later - he married her because he loved her, whether pregnant or not, and was upset when she left him for Ewan. I clearly recall him making a rather bitter joke backstage at a gig, talking about himself being down a mine "hewin' ma coal! hewin' ma coal!" Who will ever know now, except Peggy...

But - if she needed to marry an English person to return to Britain, why not Ewan himself? Could he not travel to Paris for some reason?

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 05:48 AM

Just before Peggy left England for America, she did a biographical Radio 2 series with Jim Lloyd. I can't remember the details too clearly, but I recall Peggy saying she'd been deported from Britain and left stranded in Paris, at the same time being pregnant by Ewan.

The upshot was that she couldn't get back into this country without becoming a British citizen, and the only way she could do that was by marrying someone British. AC was also in Paris at the time and agreed to do the job so that she could get back into Britain.

I've never known what Campbell's motives were, although I've heard it said that Theatre Workshop paid him to do it. Personally I prefer to think it was just a humane gesture on his part.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 05:04 AM

I was told that the Alex marrying Peggy thing wasn't true, having believed the story myself for many years. Can't remember who said it isn't true though.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 04:44 AM

Back on topic (briefly, no doubt!) and here's my link to the archived downloadable version of the programme on Soundcloud:

How Folk Songs Should Be Sung

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 03:51 AM

Is nobody familiar with:

Burglar Bill

I cant help feeling this is where the nick name came from

L in C#

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 06:18 PM

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 03:16 PM

Vic, he told me he was a burglar , [present tense ..at that time] the next time he told me had problems with his nerves, he never told me he was a reformed burglar.I did not know what he told you.
I only know what he told me which I found at the time extraordinary.
   Back to thread,Martin is a fine singer of traditional songs, he clearly realises what he does best.
at the same time he has helped to lead the uk revival in a certain direction, that direction has been the appreciation of traditional songs and guitar playing.
Ewan attempted to improve standards, he brought out along with others songbooks , he attempted to encourage song writers and published their songs in the new city songster, some of these songs were political some were social comment songs some were not.
I was puzzled by Martins statement regarding the revival and political songs, does he feel that he should have sung more political songs, or that other people should have done so, or both.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 02:37 PM

Money is never wasted on charm or elocution is it?

Les

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 02:15 PM

Vic, if Fred Baxter thought fit to tell people he had been a burglar,including me, a relative stranger who was booked several times by him at his club he clearly did not have problems about people knowing about it, so for gods sake stop boring everyone

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 02:09 PM

"its alex campbells fault", he genorously offered to marry peggy seeger, enabling her to come and live in this country, the rest is history.
if alex hadnt married peggy, i doubt if the critics group would have been formed, peggy wouldnt be here to have helped form it., and this thread wouldnt exist., of course it was meant as a joke, but I am not surprised that you didnt realise that.
and clear off with this crap about bad taste, its only bad taste in your opinion, you may be dictator in your folk club, but thats where it ends, give it a break

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 02:03 PM

None of my business claerly but did Fred Baxter become "Burglar Bill" after that famous children's book Burglar Bill? A true classic if children's books?

Les

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Vic Smith
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 02:00 PM

Oh - a final word about Fred. His open assertions were that he had been a burglar, but with the assistance of his wonderful supportive friend and landlady, Molly Gilbert, his life had been turned around. Rather like a reforming alcoholic, he was stating his previous life difficulties and stating proudly that he had got on top of them. Previous posts could be interpreted as though Fred was boasting about previous crimes.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Vic Smith
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 01:46 PM

My final post on this thread because I will not enter into protracted arguments which have no chance of being resolved:-

VicSmith, Fred Baxter told me THAT he was a burglar,
He told the same to me and to other people including some who have contributed to this thread. No-one is doubting the truth of the matter. I am stating that to say so now on a public forum long after his death is in bad taste. There was no need to pit that word in front of his name

I saw Alex Campbell about 1974, he was superb, absolutely hilarious.
I doubt if he was booked Very often by Vic Smith.
My records show that I booked this fascinating, enigmatic and unpredictable character on four occasions. I received a printed circular from him - probably other folk club organisers who had booked him got the same circular - saying that he was moving to Denmark but he wanted to thank those who has supported his folk club career.

Vic Smith would not have got on his high horse and started tilting at wind mills its all Alex Campbells fault.
Please try to clarify this confusing statement.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 01:42 PM

I have to say I really was mezmorised with out knowing much of that, but I can believe it

Les

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 01:31 PM

He was extraordinary but I can't really say why.

Let me tell you why - because like Peter Bellamy & Seamus Ennis before him, Jim Eldon is one of the few true masters of the Traditional Craft; like them he is idiosyncratic, single-minded and a taste worth acquiring because once acquired it leads to untold treasures of which he is a veritable font. In Jim Eldon once senses the true essence of Traditional Popular Song and the artistic genius, mastery & self-effacing humility that gives it substance. Storyteller, fiddler, entertainer, singer of Traditional Songs, collector of Traditional songs, song writer, unique interpreter of Popular Song and one of our nations last remaining truly unique Treasures with a record legacy of staggering variety and consistency. Jim Eldon is, quite simply, the pure drop. I've been in awe of the man forever really - 30 years - though rarely have our paths crossed. One time they did was after a storytelling gig in Newcastle about 15 years ago. We sat eating pizza in someone's front room and he asked me if I knew the words to Born to Be Wild.

Along with Michael Hurley he keeps my folk fires burning. If you don't like Jim Eldon, you don't like life, it really is that simple.

Subject: RE: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 01:04 PM

God I love Marmite! Aarghhh...