BS: Who the hell is MacColl?

Subject: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Raptor
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:09 AM

I'd never heard of him.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:13 AM

Some guy from England. Dead now.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:24 AM

Folky troublemaker from the 60s.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Raptor
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:25 AM

Why is there so many threads about some dead guy from england?

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:40 AM

Could it be because there are not enough live ones of any merit?

Or maybe one has to be dead to be appropriately praised or reviled?

I'm not feeling very well today myself. That should get me some much needed attention!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:52 AM

James Henry Miller

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 10:26 AM

Something a bit pathetic about this pretence of pig-ignorance, isn't there?

Oh, well. Play your games.

〠☺〠☺〠

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 10:48 AM

Finn MacColl -- great Irish hero, also claimed by Scotland.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: GUEST,Dylan for president
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 11:02 AM

A Stalinist, cowardly wartime deserter, a hypocritical, control freak of no real musical importance to anybody but a few up their own butts twisted bigots that post on this site!

----------PLEASE USE A CONSISTENT GUEST NAME (even when trolling...). JoeClone------------------

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 12:24 PM

MtheGM - I know Raptor. I think it's very likely that he never knew who Ewan MacColl was, never heard of him, and is just now becoming aware of MacColl for the first time. He can tell you a lot about birds and American football teams, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 02:26 PM

Ewan MacColl was born in 1915, in the city of Salford, in industrial Lancashire, of Scottish parents. He was a playwright, actor, singer of British traditional songs and a song-writer. Along with people like A.L.Lloyd he founded the British Folk Revival which starting in the late 1950s/1960s and is still going today.

In the early 1960s the Pop Industry invented a form of light, rather fluffy, mainly guitar-based, acoustic music which they called 'folk music'. A bit later some (mainly American) singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, and others, moved this fluff a bit closer to American traditional music.

Many people went to British Folk Clubs hoping to hear such fluff - and in some clubs they got it. But in other clubs they encountered something completely different in the form of the sort of real traditional songs favoured by Ewan MacColl and his followers; they also occasionally encountered his rather fierce brand of Left Wing politics. Some of those people, like me, for example, realised that MacColl's ballads and songs were what they had been looking for all their lives. But others, whose limited imaginations couldn't take them beyond the fluff, hated him - and they still hate today, nearly 23 years after his death.

But he was a giant and a genius (the only one that I ever met) and the mental pygmies who couldn't cope with that genius, when they first encountered him, still can't cope with it today, nearly 23 years after his death. They still try to blacken his name on threads like this - but they won't succeeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 02:49 PM

This thread is not an attempt to blacken Ewan MacColl's name, it's simply a bit of light humour which I posted as a spinoff from several other recent threads about Ewan MacColl.

In any case, I am a fan of Ewan MacColl's recordings, I love the songs he did on the records I've heard, so why would I want to blacken his name?

The American folk revival really got started with performers like Jimmy Rodgers, Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, Cisco Houston, Leadbelly, the Weavers, Odetta, and various others whose music I would hardly characterize as "fluff". I'd say it was built firmly on the cultural working people's heritage of both North America and the UK. When that music began to receive wide popularity with a really large number of people, there was a flurry of mainstream industry interest in it, and I'd say it was that which led to some of the "fluff" you refer to...that is, quasi-folk music that was performed in a preppy, collegiate style on TV and records by little groups of men in striped shirts and ties...and sometimes by waif-life females in bogus "folk" costume.

The Kingston Trio were, I think, part of that fluffy wave (although I think they did do some worthwhile material too), and so were legions of others who copied the Kingston Trio. Peter, Paul, and Mary were an act that seemed a bit contrived to me (invented by Albert Grossman), although again, they did some material with real merit.

By the time Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and others in the early 60s came along, they had successfully wedded the old folk traditions to modern songwriting that spoke to our own times as well as the past. In doing so, I think they enriched the folk tradition and were anything but "fluffy", as you put it.

And I also think MacColl did great stuff. But what I was looking for all my life was what Dylan, Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie and the others in their peer group did. It's not fluff. Neither is it traditional UK folk music. It just depends on what you want, you see. We all tend to love the music we first encountered in our youth. That's just natural. That's why my Dad, for instance, loved Swing and Big Band music, whereas I have little interest in it. It's mostly built around brass instruments, and it's a sound I'm simply not much attracted to. I prefer piano and guitar-based music....with good lyrics.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 02:54 PM

Oh, excuse me....I did not post this thread. Raptor did. I started thinking this was the "Did MacColl like anyone???" thread while I was typing.

In any case, my point stands. Raptor is just screwing around and being funny, he's not trying to blacken anyone's name, and I think he probably genuinely has little or no idea who Ewan MacColl is. There's no reason he would know about Ewan MacColl. It's not the music he grew up on.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Raptor
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 03:31 PM

I honestly never heard of the guy. I guess he's only a big deal in the UK. But you folks that got so upset about the fact that this guy does't seem to be that important to be played on any North American Radio station should contact your doctor and have the pickle removed.

Get a Helmet.

Have a nice day!

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Megan L
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 03:38 PM

It wid be a poor world if we were aw alike.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 05:54 PM

He might be considered more in the USA if we remind you that he was the guy that wrote ' The first time ever I saw your face'.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 07:07 PM

Yes, a great many North American singers have covered that song.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Elmore
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 08:44 PM

Attn:Raptor. He's the late Mike Seeger's brother- in- law. Ever hear of him? Mike that is.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 08:53 PM

I'm betting Raptor hasn't heard of Mike Seeger either. His favorite performers are people such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, John Prine, Steve Earle, Tom Waits...that sort of thing. He wouldn't know the classic folk performers all that well except for Dylan.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:27 PM

A folk singer who was somewhat overshadowed in his time by Lonnie Donnegan.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:31 PM

Just like to say that I have been involved in UK folk music since about 1969 and I recognise nothing in Shimrod's description of what happened. MacColl was there somewhere in the background but not a major figure and the "fluff" was something I never encountered.

For Raptor, it might help put things in context if you knew that MacColl was Pete Seeger's brother in law and a close friend of Alan Lomax. If you don't know who either of them were, contact your doctor.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:37 PM

LOL!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 09:41 PM

...MacColl was there somewhere in the background but not a major figure ... You are right TheSnail.

I started learning English folk songs in 1946 and I never heard of MacColl until I got to the States in 1980.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Gurney
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 10:10 PM

I was around, in England, in the period that Shimrod speaks of, and he is quite right about the 'fluff.' I thought it was fluffy then, and a good deal of it is still far from my taste now. Some is fine, though, as LH said, but I had my mind poisoned against them by their more popular fluff.

I never met Ewan, but friends who did were not impressed by his personality, his attitude, or his politics.
You can't argue with his songbook, though. He was one of the great promoters and songwriters in this idiom, and his songs had, for me, that extra touch that made them feel 'authentic.'
Which, of course, they have now become, some being adopted by the people he wrote them about.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 10:17 PM

I have hesitated to write as to MacColl's songs. I am likely the only person on Earth who thinks TFTEISYF is not a great song. I do not like it at all.

His 'Shoals of Herring', 'Travelling People' and 'Manchester Rambler' are songs of lasting value and worth. 'Dirty Old Town' has a place in the legacy of music, as does 'Freeborn Man' and 'Sweet Thames Flow Softly'.

People who do not write songs will laud him for his fame. People who do write songs will recognize his genius.

I do NOT care that he was a dip-shit politically, or that he had a view of himself that does not fit MY view of him. I liked and like what he wrote and what I thought and think is of value.

I am tired of UKers assuming that he is necessarily theirs to do with as they choose. The songs I mentioned above now belong to the world. And thus, so does MacColl (Miller), and that's that, imo.

PS 'The Manchester Rambler' is one of the better songs I've heard in my life. It causes a person to WANT to sing. The fact my grandfather came from Lancashire has nothing to do with it--although he was a tough sonuvabitch and a MU supporter. (If you dcn't know what the difference between MU and MC is, you shouldn't be reading this!)

Anyway, while I will not sanctify MacColl, neither will I put him down. He wrote good songs that we remember today, and if that ain't good enough for ya, write one that's better.

Jack Walsh's grandson, and proud to be so.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Neil D
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 10:44 PM

"Go Down Ye Murderers" is also a meaningful song.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 11:05 PM

999 - "I am likely the only person on Earth who thinks TFTEISYF is not a great song. I do not like it at all."

You're not the only one, Bruce. I've never cared much for that song either.

However, I love the album of Robert Burns songs that MacColl recorded. He was a very fine singer.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:29 AM

MtheGM - I know Raptor. I think it's very likely that he never knew who Ewan MacColl was, never heard of him, and is just now becoming aware of MacColl for the first time----------------
.,,.,..,

Oh, really, LH? Just turn to one of earlier above-line MacColl threads and count the Related Threads list at the top. What stretch of sand has Raptor been burying his head in, then? In Mudcat terms it's a bit like saying he's never heard of Shakespeare or Lincoln or Pete Seeger, I should say.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:56 AM

... and, just for the record, there are four [4] threads on the immediately accessible list at this precise moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Joe_F
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 01:10 AM

Ewan MacColl is important to me because he sang songs I liked in ways that I liked. I do not care in the least whether he, or anybody, gets played on North American radio stations, altho I have in fact heard that happen a couple of times over the years.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 01:33 AM

He also was a friend of William Shatner because they both called their dicks "Timmy Toad."   Later Tim Tebow got his name from Shatner's dick so you can see the poetry in the whole thing.......


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 01:53 AM

"Anyway, while I will not sanctify MacColl, neither will I put him down. He wrote good songs that we remember today, and if that ain't good enough for ya, write one that's better."

Well put, 999. Sums up my feelings about him exactly (and many others', I'd venture to suggest).

And 'Go Down Ye Murderers' is indeed a fine song, Neil D but, in view of the UK-specific subject of the song, probably wouldn't reverberate with US-ers?

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:00 AM

"probably wouldn't reverberate with US-ers? "
Certainly not in Texas
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:14 AM

It's interesting, isn't it, that some people, who have been conditioned by commercial pop music, can't see beyond the 'singer-songwriter' label. There's no doubt that MacColl was a great songwriter ('First time ever ...' was probably the closest he got to writing a pop song and, well, look what happened to that!). To me, though, his greatest achievement was his interpretations of traditional songs and ballads. I doubt that any of that output would have been of interest to American commercial radio stations or their audiences. But popularity isn't the only criterion for judging quality. Having said that Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger concert and club appearances in the UK, at least, were usually packed.

Some of MacColl's vast output of performances of traditional material are available as commercial recordings (see, for example, 'Ballads', Topic TSCD576D, 2009) but others are no longer available. I would particularly welcome a re-issue of MacColl and Peggy Seeger's brilliant ballad projects, 'The Long Harvest' and 'Blood and Roses' - but I doubt whether this will happen in my life-time.

I am very aware that in our celebrity saturated culture the act of writing stuff like this takes me very close to hagiography. Nevertheless, so much facile, mean-spirited rubbish has been written about MacColl that I feel moved to set the record straight. I believe that the proper perspective on his life and achievements is that he was a self-made man, from humble circumstances, who had an artistic vision which he pursued all of his life, and that he succeeded brilliantly. He also had a positive effect on my life - an effect that some remote 'pop celebrity' could never have had.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:59 AM

Even some massive commercial popular acts on the worldwide stage are not very well known, or virtually unknown, in the States. So it will be no surprise that people from the British folk world aren't automatically names in the States. Likewise I am sure there are some big American names who are pretty obscure figures here in the UK. Thinking that something is only worth discussing if it is really relevant to whatever country one happens to live in surely says more about the poster than anything else?

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: David C. Carter
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 06:28 AM

I liked,and still do,his album of Jacobite Songs.

"Will Ye No Come Back Again".That song is often floating around in my head.

I met him once briefly,he was ok.He didn't punch me out!




Boxcar Wally

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Raptor
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 07:36 AM

Just because some people idolize some guy doesn't make him popular. And the number of threads about you doesn't mean you mean anything. I want to know why these people care so much about some nobody. He was somebody's brother-in-law? I have heard the first time ever I saw your face but it was not that great a song. "I've also heard "My Sharona" Does that mean the the Knack are the greatest band ever? I don't think so.

Lets face it you like the guy good for you but he wasn't that big a deal to anybody who didn't live on a small island full of people who think that they are the only ones on the planet that know anything?

Have a great day.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 08:52 AM

"And the number of threads about you doesn't mean you mean anything."
.,,.,.

Yes it does ~ except to a fool.

What I want to know is ~~

WHO THE HELL IS RAPTOR?

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 09:04 AM

"It's interesting, isn't it, that some people, who have been conditioned by commercial pop music, can't see beyond the 'singer-songwriter' label."

For me, it's not a case of 'conditioning', Shimrod - I just didn't, and still don't, like his voice and singing-style. Nothing to do with American pop, all to do with something in the timbre of his voice, and in his delivery, that jarrs with me, but that doesn't mean I can't recognise him as a giant in the world of British Folk Song. In exactly the same way, I don't like Dylan's and Neil Young's voices and singing-styles, they also jarr with me. But I'm very happy to allow that there are a great many who do like MacColl, or Dylan, or Neil Young, and that they are entitled, and very welcome to, their preferences, just as those of us who aren't enamoured of those artists are entitled to ours.

However, I do like his songs, and if MacColl's only contribution to our Folk Music heritage had been to write those songs, he would still be a giant IMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 09:59 AM

Fair enough, 'Backwoodsman', I can't argue with that.

"Just because some people idolize some guy doesn't make him popular."

No, 'Raptor', it doesn't - perfectly true ... and your point is?

Greetings, by the way, from a small islander who knows something!

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Raptor
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 10:30 AM

Now there's logic, if enough threads are written about someone that makes him important. And he calls me a fool. Great.

Greatings Shimrod Good to make your aqaintence.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Peter the Squeezer
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 10:51 AM

Does the thread title refer to Ewan or Kirsty?

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: ollaimh
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 11:20 AM

the british folk revival was anything but traditional. again read douglass harkness' book "fake song". they werre revivalists but they were twisting the songs to match their adgenda. the left did it to create a "volkish kulture" to spur their tevolution and the right did it to fan popular nationalism in the lower classes. in the english speaking world there were no traditional linege singers. it was all "fluff" and mostly music free.

on the other hand aside from the fake song tradition and his stealing scottish galeic culture, maccoll wrote a lot of very good songs. ni would much rather listen tom his songs than the fake music you usually hear from traditional uk folk club singers. there are exceptions but most of it is "fluff" with fake pedigtee and poor musicallity.

my objections to maccolls cultural appropriation of scotts gealis tradition is separate from my take on his songs. a lot of folkies in the sixtiers to the present fake a celtic connection. they are back handledly acknowledging that celts have an un broken tradition. however if you want to be part of it you have learn from the reall celtic musicians not come to civilize them--as maccolls tribe did. back then they easily exculded anyone who protsted their hypocracy, but now the internet makes it almost impossible to silence the truth.

maccoll was a great song writer who was part of the british imperial tradition of marginalizing and destroying gaelic people and culture and tyaking ehaty ever he liked for his own with no regard for ethics or honesty

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 11:32 AM

Shimmy, it seems that the Long Harvest is available on CD from Peggy Seeger's website. Lookee here: http://www.peggyseeger.com/listen-buy/the-long-harvest/the-long-harvest

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Elmore
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:10 PM

I just don't get it. Granted the folk music community is relatively small, but why would somebody go to Mudcat, a site devoted to folk music, get on here just to denigrate one of the most important folk artists ever? Oh yeah, we're in the b.s. section. Sorry, I forgot. Never mind. Good night and good luck. See ya. Cheers. Adios. Bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:16 PM

Ollaimh ~ Fakesong was written by Dave Harker.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Megan L
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:37 PM

The attitudes in this and other recent threads remind me of this I guess the world doesn't change.
I look down on him

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 01:01 PM

LOL!!!! Marvelous, Megan!

MtheGM - You probably have no idea how much amusement you are unintentionally providing to my friend, Raptor. ;-) Seriously! You ask who he is? Well, he's a man from the Barrie, Ontario area, a musician...but not one with a whole lot of grounding in what could be termed "the folk tradition", although he does like acoustic music along the general lines of what most "folkies" tend to play. Like me, he plays acoustic guitar and sings, and now and then he plays other instruments. I met him about 20 years ago, going to a local open stage, and we've been friends ever since. He's 20 years younger than me. I grew up during the folk revival of the 50s and 60s. He wasn't even born until the late 60s. It's no surprise to me that he wouldn't know anything about Ewan MacColl...I'd not have expected him to know anything about MacColl. I would expect him to know about people like the Beatles, the Stones, Jim Hendrix, Bob Dylan, the Doors, Springsteen, etc...and he does.

I'll tell you how I figure he got into this conversation in the first place. I bet it happened just like this:

1. He was idly cruising around on the Mudcat page, looking for whatever might catch his curiosity.

2. He noticed a large proliferation of threads about someone named "MacColl" or McColl", and thought, "Who the f*ck is this guy? And why are people fighting about him?"

3. He decided it was a good chance to stir up a little rumpus over nothing and started the thread which is titled "Who the hell is MacColl?" for no other reason than that it provided him with some momentary amusement.

4. And it went from there.

Yes, MtheGM, I realize it may be hard for you to imagine that Raptor, a member of this folk & blues forum, could be utterly ignorant of Ewan MacColl...but I assure you, it is not only possible, it's extremely probable...and what is he doing here in posting about MacColl? He's, as you Brits say, "taking the piss". And that is really all there is to it. He's having you on. There is nothing you can possibly say to him which will make him feel contrite about doing so, so save your energy.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 01:03 PM

Hi Raptor.

Thanks, Spleen. I'll check that link.

Subject: RE: BS: Who the hell is MacColl?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 03:18 PM

Yes, OK, LH ~~ as I said, he's a fool. An ignorant fool. A transatlantic chip-on-shoulder ignorant fool. And a young fool, which is really intolerable.

He should be ashamed to admit to such ignorance. Why "Who the hell...?" How rude! If he really wanted to know, he has a computer. Can't it google wikipedia?

Ignorant little booby. & shame on you for defending his ill-mannered juvenile loutishness.

Of course he won't feel contrite. I don't expect he knows what the word means. because he is ignorant.

And a fool.

His nickname v like yours, for that matter. Any relation?