New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Dec 14 - 06:55 PM

'Jeffry Archer at one side of the bed and Barbara Taylor Bradford at the other.'
Too much information, Jim!

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Darby O'Leary
Date: 18 Dec 14 - 07:15 PM

$58 for print edition through the website... fair enough, I guess it's a hard back book on a limited print run.

However, $65 for the eBook is outrageous.

Which is a shame, as this book looks very interesting!

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Dec 14 - 07:32 PM

it was in the 1960's a genuine academic told me how everyone quotes the same paragraph from Godwin's Political Economy - a book that at the time hadn't been available for decades. yet they all pretended that they'd read it, Jim.

Apparently they ALL do it. no one can read EVERYTHING - its common sense really. yet some people pretend they have - they have to. its their job. its like the guy who fixes your plumbing, or who fixes your car or mends your guitar.

confessing ignorance is not a confidence inspiring strategy. when's the last time in PM questions, someone said - fuck me! i didn't know about that!

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Vic Smith
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 12:38 PM

A fascinating read!
Lots to agree with vigorously, lots to disagree with radically. Lots of interesting points that I would like to know more about. Lots to challenge.....

Let's start with this one. MacColl's antipathy to Bob Dylan has been dealt with in books and magazine articles before, but in this book it is dealt with at length. I must say that his critique that Dylan is seriously over-rated is carefully thought out and well argued.

What I'd like to know is whether MacColl had a good opinion of any of the folk scene's songwriters that he would have been likely to have heard of - R. Thompson. C. Tawney, D. Goulder etc. I mean anyone outside his sphere of influence.
Anyone with any knowledge of this? Bob Blair? Jim Carroll?

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 01:48 PM

As far as I'm aware, h never expressed ann opinion on any of those mentioned, though Cyril was a regular guest at the Singers.
Peggy edited a songbook entitled 'New City Songster' which ran into 20 issues (several hundred songs) and was based on contributions from new and relatively unknown songwriters from all over the English-speaking world - of the top of my head I can remember Eric Bogle, Ed Pickford, Graeme Miles, Pete Smith, Helen Fullerton, Trevor Crozier, John Pole, Claudie Gould, Sheila Douglas, Peter Bellamy, Paul Wilson, Don Minifie, Jack Warshaw, Miles Wooton, Don Lange, Don Perrigrove, Hazel Dickson (a load of Australian songwriters following their Australian tour)....
Will happily provide a fuller list once the 'pah, humbug' season is over - been meaning to index them for a long time
Songwriting was one of the major objectives of The Critics Group throughout its existence.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 02:44 PM

Back in the seventies, some poor soul, obviously in need of care and protection, walked into the Singers Club and handed Ewan and Peggy a beautiful, leather-bound, 9 volume set of the first edition of Child's first selection of 'The English and Scottish Ballads'
At the end of the evening, Ewan announced that a jury would be selected and the books would go as a prize for the best song written that year.
John Pole (the bastard) won it with his 'Punch and Judy'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Vic Smith
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 02:58 PM

Thanks, Jim. I'd forgotten the New City Songsters when I was thinking of this.

You have sparked off a memory, though. Miles Wootton once cornered me in a folk club interval and said that he was contributing a song to New City Songsters and he was singing it to what he thought was a tune of a traditional tune. If he hummed it, could I identify it? He started humming and straight away I knew it was the tune of "Nicky Tams".

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Vic Smith
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 03:12 PM

Here is A Short Article on the New City Songster.
I'm sure that I have some of them amongst the vast piles of folk song and music magazines and ephemera that I have in my loft. Memory tells me that I thought that the standard of songwriting in them was pretty high.

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 03:16 PM

the new city songster, one of the contributors was Jon Macnamara who runs bishops stortford folk club

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Dec 14 - 03:40 AM

Great series of books with loads of good songs.
There were 20 in the series (Number one was issued twice in different formats) and when Peggy stopped doing them she circulated an unbound 20A of the residue of the songs she had left on file, which included 2 from Malvina Reynolds and one from Ian Campbell I had entirely forgotten about
In 1968, a supplement of the songs for that year's Festival of Fools was issued and had to be withdrawn because one of the the songs (based on the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby) might have infringed copyright, and the club couldn't afford to take on the might of the music industry.
Dave Scott's idiosyncratic art work made them collectors pieces.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Dec 14 - 04:16 AM

A bit large, but this is an index of totles up to volume 15
Jim Carroll

A Plea to the Undeserving 38
A-30 (15)
A-83 (7)
Acceptable Risks 6
Advice to the Lovelorn (4/5)
Age in Between (7)
Agent Orange Song        34
All Used Up        10
Allende's Song (10)
Alvediston Shepherd (9)
Angel in Black (9)
Anti-Carol (7)
Apathy Joe        22
Asbestos Song(12)
At the Centrepoint(4/5)
At the Raleigh(9)
Automobile Song(12)
Backs Against the Wall(3)
Bad Beer(15)
Ballad of Accounting(3)
Ballad of Alison Kraus(11)
Ballad of Ho Chi Minh(6)
Ballad of Jack Lynch(4/5)
Ballad of Real Ale(13)
Ballad of Rosie (3)
Ballad of the Big Cigars(l)
Bampton Fair(12)
Band Played Waltzing Matilda(13)
Banks of the Tees(7)
Barney Hughes ' Bakery Van(4/5)
Belfast Song(12)
Bermondsey Ballad(8)
Big Man(10)
Big Mansion House(12)
Big Pneumatical Drill(3)
Big Stockbroker Country(9)
Bill From Exskineville(15)
Black and White (13)
Black Boy Ballad(2)
Black Lung(6)
Blair Peach        18
Blast Against Blackguards(14)
Bloody Wakes Week(11)
Bogside Doodle-bug(7)
Bogside Men(3)
Bold Enoch Powell(3)
Bold Librarian(13)
Boots and Laces (4/5)
Brass Band Song(15)
Breadmakin' (15)
Bridget and the PILL(3)
Brother(4/5)
Brother,Did You Weep?(l)
Buffalo Holler(7)
Building Speculator(10)
Bum Again(14)
Caged Bird(14)
Canine Eneuretic(12)
Canteen Tea(12)
Captain Reynolds(7)
Car Mechanics Song(12)
Cargo of Dread        14
Caviar on the Rent Book (7)
Che Guevara (2)
China Rag (2)
Clayton Aniline Song (3)
Coal Hole Cavalry (11)
Coldbath Fields (14)
Come Tae Your Dad (10)
Crazy Mixed-up Bull (9)
Cut-Price Hero (4/5)
Darling Annie (7)
Day I Took the Vow (7)
Deep-Sea Fishermen (10)
Different Therefore Equal(15)
Do You Wanna Come Clean? (6)
Doing Time (15)
Down at Our Canteen (11)
Dryin' Green (10)
Economy Game (14)
Emily (14)
Empires of Plenty        24
Exile Song (14)
Exploration (7)
Factory Lads (12)
Farewell to Ireland (8)
Father's Song (14) Fields of Vietnam (4/5)
Four Minute Warning        8
Fred the Computer (6)
G.M.H. Song (15)
Generations of Change (12)
Giant Leek (9)
Girls in Our Town (11)
Grape-Pickers' Tragedy(4/5)
Graveyard Shift (10)
Grey October (1)
Happy Pappy and the Funny un-People (9)
Hard Times (11)
Hello, Friend (2)
Henry Kissinger (11)
Herring Grounds o' Forth(8)
High Claylands (13)
High St. Motorway (15)
Hippies and the Beatniks (4/5)
Hollow Hill (7)
Home,Soldier,Home (13)
Homeless Man        3
Housewife's Alphabet (13)
Hull Trawler Disaster (2)
I am Homeless (14)
I Support the Boycott (1)
I Want to Lie Here in the Sun (9)
I'm Gonna be an Engineer(7)
In Canning Town (4/5)
Instant Food (6)
Internment (10)
Invader (14)
Iron-Moulder's Wedding(4/5)
Isle of May (12)
It's Really Me to Blame(15)
Jack the Lad (3)
Jack Wilson (10)        .
Jeelie-Piece Song (4/5)
Jenny Bell (6)
Jimmy Gray (7)
Jobs (12)
Juggernaut (10)
Kent Massacre (6)
King Kong (13)
Kingaroy King (13)
Labouring Man (13)
Ladybird (12)
Lairds field Disaster (8)
Lament for the Death of a Nobody (1)
Layabouts (10)
Legal Illegal (14)
Let Us Praise Famous Men and Women
Let's Pretend (9)
Lily (4/5)
Little Girl Child (15)
Little Sashes (2)
Live Wire (9)
Look at You (9)
Looking for Work (15)
Lullabye for a Very New Baby (9)
Maggie Mary        32
Manner of the World Nowadays (9)
Mary and Me (13)
McCoy Hotel (6)
McFadyen's Motor Car(10)
Men o' the North (10)
Migrant Labourer (9)
Miss Heroin (14)
Modern Army Can't Fight Song (11)
Moor o* Hograh (8)
Mr. Fox (6)
Multigrab and Unibrew (11)
My Old Man        4
My Son (4/5)
My Wedding Day (9)
Mysterious Lover (3)
Nation of Animal Lovers (8)
New Boys (6)
New Song on the City of Belfast (10)
Night Rider (9)
Nightmare (4/5)
Nightshift (6)
Night-Visiting Song (6)
Nine-Month Blues (12)
Now I'm Easy (12)
Nowhere Now (8)
O Mither, Mither (12)
Old Glasgow Town (10)
Old Grey London (12)
On the Assembly Line (14)
One Miner's Life (12)
Ones That Got Away (13)
Orange and the Green (7)
O'Reilly and the Big MacNeill (4/5)
Orient Company (4/5)
Out of My Pocket (11)
Parliamentary Polka (11)
Piddlethwaite Jug Band Hits the Charts(9)
Pit Away Your Fancy Dress(15)
Pitside is Quiet (12)
Prime Minister Cut Down in His Prime (2)
Prince Philip's Lament (4/5)
Propeller Song (11)
Punch and Judy (7)
Queensland Whalers (13)
Rambling Boy (9)
Reclaim the Night (15)
Regular Randy Dandy (10)
Requiem for a Steel Town(ll)
Roving Fifer (11)
Royalty Royalty Shock        12
Rubber Bullets (7)
Sea-Coal (7)
Sheik of Araby (10)
Shellback Song (7)
Shift-Worker's Lament (14)
Shira Dam (8)
Sick Note (12)
Simple Life (13 & 14)
Sludge-Boat Song (7)
Smuggling Men (7)
Someone Up There (8)
Song for an Irish Colleen (14)
Song for Calum (11)
Song of Choice (1)
Song of the Immigrant (13)
Song of the Sheet-metal Worker (15)
South Stratford Lady (9)
Soweto Song (14)
Stan (8)
Still He Slumbered (10)
Student Edward (1)
Swallow and Trout (11)
Sweet Thames,Flow Softly(6)
Talking Exam Blues (9)
Talking Want Ad (10)
Tall and Proud (6)
Tam Bridie (S)
Tankerman's Song (13)
Taxing Pleasures (15)
Teachers Need to do Homework (3)
Tea-Leaf Song (6)
Tees-side British (8)
Tenant Farmer (14)
Testimonial (9)
The Androids 16        
The Casuals(13)
The Channels (13)
The Children (3)
The Companeros <2)
The Dead Men (2)
The F-One-Double-One
The Harvest Home (11)
The Southern English labourer        2
The Word (10)
They All Do It        30
They'll be the Lads (7)
Three Quid a Week (9)
Tidbits for Tenants (3)
Today is his Signing Day(14)
Too Much of a Good Thing (6)
Transport Cowboy (10)
Travellers Came to Red- Bridge (4/5)
Trico Strike (13)
Trouble in Coal Country 28
Tunnel Tigers (4/5)
Uncle Sam (6)
Unknown Soldier (4/5)
Up in Wisconsin (11)
Voices from the Mountain (14)
Wasteland Lullabye (4/5)
Watergate (9)
We Are the Engineers (6)
We Are the Young Ones (6)
We Don't Want to Live Like That (3)
We'll All be Home & Dry(15)
Western Trader (6)
Westgate Bridge (8)
What Care I? (15)
When the Bells Ring (15)
Where is Your Daddy,Son?(15)
White Tornado (3)
Wild Colonial Boy (13)
Winnie and Sam (14)
Winter Song (11)
Winter Song (12)
With Love to Angela(7)
Wolviston Rook Shoot (7)
Workers' Christmas Carol(ll)
Workers' Song(13)
Work-Study Song (11)
Yankee Doodle (6)
You and I (14)

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 21 Dec 14 - 04:56 AM

just got tickets for a celtic connections gig -'Blood and Roses:the songs of ewan MacColl' with kate st john, dick gaughan, eliza and martin carthy, karine polwart and...... jarvis cocker. 25 jan at the royal concert hall -see you there, comrades!

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 09:47 AM

The latest issue of English Dance and Song contains a perspicacious and thought provoking review article by Vic Gammon.

It also contains details of an offer whereby EDS readers can buy the book from Ashgate at 50% discount. IE., £32.50. That is:-

a. One hell of a reduction, which brings it into line with the RRPs' of many other hardbacks.

b. One hell of a handy reason for joining EFDSS, and thereby enjoying all the benefits of membership. What's more, if you're an old time old age pensioner like me, it means you can join EFDSS at the reduced rate of £31-00, buy the book, and still be £1-50 up on the original Ashgate purchase price.

Congratulations to Derek Schofield (if it was he) for negotiating the deal. May it be the first of many.

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 26 Feb 15 - 04:29 AM

Thanks Fred. Glad you enjoyed the review article and, when it arrives, hope you enjoy the book. Hopefully enough people will buy the book and so encourage ashgate to do deals on some of their other books.... Derek

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Feb 15 - 04:40 AM

Ewan was very nice to me. and i am very proud to have had a song in NCS.

still - i don't want to seem ungrateful, but the books still a bit on the pricey side - especially for someone with guitar strings to buy and other staples.

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Feb 15 - 04:57 AM

Were the legacies of Ewan MacColl covered by the trouseracies of Ewa...

Oh, never mind.

:D (tG)

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 06:06 AM

The book arrived yesterday, si Haven't had time to delve into it. However, I was glad to see Doc Rowe listed as a contributor for the use of some of his photographs. Also that there is a chapter in there about MacColl's singing style. Considering the importance he placed on style and interpretation, it is surprising that we have had to wait until now for a detailed analysis.

However, photograph No 1, which seems not to be one of Doc's own, has the tagline "Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger collecting in the early 1960s". It shows Ewan and Peggy in a pub, talking to an old bloke in a cloth cap and muffler. Unfortunately his face is obscured and I can't for the life of me think who he could be.

Does anyone know?

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Vic Smith
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 06:21 AM

Well, you could try asking Doc himself, Fred. I'll send you his email address - and if he can't remember. I'll scan it and put up a link here to it.

My money would be that the photo is taken in a pub in East Anglia.

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 08:42 AM

someone out of the shot is holding the microphone... I'm guessing that could have been Charles Parker and that it was during the Radio Ballads research....
Derek

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Vic Smith
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 10:37 AM

I'm guessing that could have been Charles Parker and that it was during the Radio Ballads research.
I would have thought not, Derek, The photo is dated "early 1960s" which most probably cuts out the first four. The fourth The Big Hewer was broadcast in early 1961 so recording/research/preparation would have been before that.
The second four were The Body Blow (1962) polio, On the Edge (1963) teenagers, The Fight Game (1963) boxers and The Travelling People (1964). Well the first three do not look as though they relate to the photo in the book and unless it is something that did not make it anywhere near the final programme, it is not the last one either.

Of course, if the Doc Rowe collection were all on-line and searchable it would make things easier - but that would be a bit of a task as there are more than 40,000 photos alone apart from:-

   * audio and video recordings (with related documentation and transcripts); photographs and transparencies (both archival and contemporary);
   * written and printed material (photocopies or published volumes);
   * field notes;
   * correspondence;
   * artefacts and posters;
   * newspaper cuttings.
Etc.etc.....

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 02:42 PM

well, Vic, I was assuming that the dating of the photo might have been a bit of a guess :-) I assume it's not a photo that Doc took, hence the credit "Doc Rowe Collection". Presumably the photographer is not known, hence the lack of a credit...
Who was Ewan collecting from the in the early 1960s..?
Derek

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Vic Smith
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 02:59 PM

I assume it's not a photo that Doc took, hence the credit "Doc Rowe Collection".

Well, you may well be right, Derek. He certainly would have been young in the "early 1960s" of the estimated date. I was going by the photo credits page where it says:-
List of Photos
Unless otherwise stated, all photographs are © Doc Rowe. Reproduced with kind permission of the photographer.

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 03:00 PM

He did some recording of Harry Cox along with Alan Lomax - not sure of the date.
Before that, he worked with Joan Littlewood on a programme entitled 'The Ballad Hunter' but that was way back
Doc once said that he was recording in Padstow at one time - not sure when.
Radio Ballads were made between 1958 and 1962 - Singing the Fishing in 1960
The actuality was recorded within a couple of months of them being broadcast.
Ewan also did some documentary work for the Beeb with Denis Mitchell.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Vic Smith
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 03:25 PM

He did some recording of Harry Cox.....

Certainly a possibility. It was the sort of cap that Harry wore. It is just a pity that the jaunty angle of it obscures so much of the face.

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 02:35 AM

Have yet to see the photograph
There are a series of photographs of Ewan recording speakers for 'Singing the Fishing', Norfolk fisherman Ronnie Balls among them - MacColl spoke of him often.
Some of these are included in 'Journeyman'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 07:11 AM

Vic ... you wrote:

"" Well, you may well be right, Derek. He certainly would have been young in the "early 1960s" of the estimated date. I was going by the photo credits page where it says:-
List of Photos Unless otherwise stated, all photographs are © Doc Rowe. Reproduced with kind permission of the photographer.""

yes, and against that photo, there is the comment "Photo: Doc Rowe Collection". I interpret that as meaning ... not copyright Doc Rowe as he didn't take the photo... but he has a copy of it. There is no similar comment for the other photo credits so we assume that they were all taken by Doc. But not this one.

Jim .. the photo is not in either edition of Journeyman..

Derek

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 07:26 AM

Didn't think it was Derek - I said there were a series taken at the time of the making of 'Singing the Fishing' and wondered whether the one in the new book compared in any way - will look when our copy arrives (thanks, btw)
I know that Doc had access to Charles Parker's photos and recordings because of their friendship,
The fact that it is captioned as "Photo: Doc Rowe Collection", makes me suspect that this is one of those.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 07:37 AM

Ewan MacColl was the best thing before and after sliced bread.

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 10:41 AM

Actually, Dick, I have often wondered why people think sliced bread is so great? It's OK, but doesn't compare with the delicious light rye loaves I used to make in my Panasonic breadmaker before I got too lazy. Must make effort to get back to real bread, not this makeshift sliced substitute...

Or maybe you were subtly trying to imply that Ewan was not a real, but a makeshift substitute, folksinger?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: New book - Legacies of Ewan MacColl
From: Vic Smith
Date: 16 Mar 15 - 10:11 AM

Legacies of Ewan MacColl is reviewed in the new April edition of fRoots which has just dropped through the letter box.