Ewan MacColl Song Collecting

Subject: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: Phillip
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 09:35 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiC5sCZgWjM

I think we can all agree that Ewan MacColl could listen like fuBilly-O. It's not technically level 3, I don't think, but it's a certain level 2 and maybe supportive comments and nodding and shit would have woken Peggy.

(I really wanted to call it "Critical Discussion of Ewan MacColl's Listening Style" but Mudcat wouldn't allow the length.)

---

The thread ended up in the non-music section wecause the thread title wasn't understandable. You're better off to be accurate, so that people know what's inside. I changed the thread title. I hope it's reasonably accurate now.
-Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor-

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 12:13 PM

HERE
Wonderful Phillip, Sheila at her best and Ewan at his most typical - nice piece of film - brings back wonderful memories
It's worth letting the clip run on to the next item, superb young Irish piper, Katherine Dickson playing the slow Air "Táimse im' Chodladh" and the jig, "King of the Pipers" on the Uilleann Pipes
Thanks
Not sure why it's in BS
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: leeneia
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 12:28 PM

Anybody who endured that voice for 2:03 minutes deserves our heartfelt thanks.

Nice cotton grass at 10 seconds. `

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 12:28 PM

seeing as we are down in BS..

wtf is "fuBilly-O"...!!!???



[ a pass code for a secret Billy Fury bootleg download site..??? - I wish...]

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: Phillip
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 01:17 PM

It was going to be “Ewan can listen like fuck” but half way through I began to wonder if I could say fuck or not so I changed it to Billy O.

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: Phillip
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 01:18 PM

No one understands my attempts at humour. Perhaps they aren’t, er, humorous enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: Phillip
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 01:26 PM

My tea was nice tonight though, so that’s a step forward.

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 01:52 PM

"No one understands my attempts at humour.
Sorry Phil - off form - I cracked a rib yesterday - (not laughing)
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 02:47 PM

Billy O is something I haven't heard for donkeys years..

Is it more northern slang..???
I'm down in the south west...

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 02:54 PM

"Is it more northern slang..???"
Didn't realise it was restricted to the North - if it is
The Liverpool kids used it to sing:

My Brother Billy-O
Played the banjo
Up the back-jigger O (back entry - whoops - back-alley; don't want that to be misinterpreted after the dirty-words thread)
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: rich-joy
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 07:56 PM

Haven't heard that expression since my 1950s Aussie childhood!! (e.g. "Gee, it hurt like billy-o!")

Anyway, I wanted to have my 2c's worth about the words "woken Peggy" in the O.P.

I often close my eyes when listening to a singer or musician, the better to concentrate and hear, without visual distractions, and it royally pisses me off to have smartarse comments made to me to "wake up!" and being nudged ......
Jest sayin.

R-J

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: Phillip
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 04:36 AM

As the OP - old person? - I can honestly say that it was an attempt at humour, and not intended to cause anyone any unpleasant memories or thoughts at all, and I apologise to you for doing so.

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: Phillip
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 04:37 AM

(I do know what OP really stands for...)

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: rich-joy
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 05:41 AM

I don't usually react so quickly in print, so yes, obviously some memories of annoying people there, haha!! - sorry :)

And at this point in time, there's probably only Peggy herself left, who could say whether she really was listening intently or "resting her eyes" !!!

R-J

Subject: RE: BS: Critical Row about EM's Listening Style
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 07:22 AM

Thanks and thnks to joe stead for putting it up on youtube

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Phillip
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 03:56 AM

"The thread ended up in the non-music section wecause the thread title wasn't understandable. You're better off to be accurate, so that people know what's inside. I changed the thread title. I hope it's reasonably accurate now.
-Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor-"

Not exactly. It ended up there because that was where I deliberately put it, vainly hoping for a quiet laugh in a backwater, hoping not to attract too much attention or spark any anti-MacColl diatribes by the people who like to do that kind of thing.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 04:32 AM

"And at this point in time, there's probably only Peggy herself left, who could say whether she really was listening intently or "resting her eyes" !!!"
Not really
Ewan and Peggy sat exactly like that week after week at Critics Group meetings while intense discussion on singing took place - they were very much part of those discussions - as I was
I was the only one who ever fell asleep at a meeting - on my first day at work in London
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 06:43 AM

Incidentally
I suggest people take a peek at Phillip's wonderful clip agan
Alec seems to have nodded off and Belle appears to be mouthing the words in her sleep
Maybe they'd all had a late session the night before :-)
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 08:03 AM

Don't worry Phillip. I, at least, saw your opening post for the piss-take that it was intended to be. I didn't expect others to take it so seriously.

DC

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 08:14 AM

Phillip and I are non the same wavelength, I think - I'm never sure of everybody else when it comes to discussing Ewan
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: rich-joy
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 09:12 AM

Re Belle mouthing the words in the clip - I thought that it was probably something she would be almost unable to stop herself from doing!

I then read this interesting quote in Shelia's Obit in The Guardian, 17Dec2014 by Derek Schofield :

" ..... Her mother, Belle, was the source of many of Sheila’s songs, although until Belle’s death in 1997 Sheila was not always allowed to sing them. The family repertoire was large, however, and ballads such as Twa Brothers and The Mill o’ Tifty’s Annie were performed superbly by Sheila. It was Belle’s brother, Donald MacGregor, who taught Sheila, when she was still a girl, many of the family ballads learned from his father. It was not simply a matter of learning the words and tune. Donald instilled in Sheila the “conyach” – his word for the emotional expression in the song that comes from the heart not the head. He taught her all the ballads orally – Donald could not read or write..... "

Wish there were more clips of the younger Sheila singing!
In this clip, Sheila sings Mill o' Tifty's Annie through and Belle explains about "conyach" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZnorPhVjCo


R-J

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 04:28 PM

Thanks for posting that link rich-joy.

When I was working for PPL seeing vast sums in royalties going out to pop so called musicians. I was very pleased to be able to register Sheila to enable her to collect unpaid royalties due to her and her late mother. It wasn't a large sum but enough for her to thank me profusely.

It was a pleasure to get some funds to people who really deserved.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: sciencegeek
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:07 AM

it was a great experience to see Belle and Sheila, along with their family, sing for our folk music association here in the USA back in the late 1980s... very special folk

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 08:52 AM

Sheila performed at Ripponden Folk Club many years ago, a magic night.


Dave H

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 09:13 AM

Sheila and Belle stayed with us after their last appearance at The Singers Club
Belle buggered off to bed early and Sheila, Pat and I got rotten drunk emptying a bottle of Glenmorangie (Sheila did the pouring) - wish I'd had the tape-recorder handy (I can only remember snatches of the evening)
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: r.padgett
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 09:29 AM

I understood Ewan recorded songs from Sam Larner ~ have they not been made available on Musical Traditions?

Ewan's & Peggy's The Singing Island contains a collection of songs from a number of sources 1960 ~ and I think would include songs collected from Sam Larner ~ my copy was down at £1.50 which would have been after 1971 when we went decimal

Ray

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 09:38 AM

Ewan and Peg recorded a great deal of Sam
If you want it, it's here
Most of the songs are available on M T, Topic and Folkways but only a little of the talk was used for The Radio Ballad and a series of four programmes for children
We also have a film of Sam and harry Cox (filmed separately - they never met)
WE have that too
If you want any of these PM me an e-mail address
Jim,

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: r.padgett
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 02:00 PM

I have Harry Cox CD and Sam Larner as mentioned above, thanks

Also MacColl's own book of written songs and Singing Island oh and the

Song Carriers series of CDs

Ray

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:04 PM

Will put up what you have and once I have an e'mail address, will link you tow where to find and download it
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:22 PM

Any royalties due on any of this?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:32 PM

Ray... double CD of Sam Larner on musical traditions... mainly maccoll recordings if i remember correctly...
Derek

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:25 PM

"Any royalties due on any of this?"
Not unless Ewan stole them - he gave them to me
Snide tules OK with some people who never give anything away
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:19 AM

For the record - am now working on the Poetry and Song 14 volume set if people haven't been put off
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: r.padgett
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 04:49 AM

Yes MT Rod Stradling continues with his CD production ~ lots of words online too

Ray

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 07:16 AM

Rod is one of the people who has expressed concern at the pparent declining fortunes in Traditional song
The sales (around half a dozen) of the magnificent set of Sam Larner's songs earned special mention
DEspit this, Rod soldiers on and, I hope, will continue to do so
I was pleased ro be able to assist with his recent North Yorksire collection and particularly happy to supply a large number of Scots Traveller singers for his MacColl Seeger Songbook CD rom
These sort of productions need all the help they can get if the songs are going to survive
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 08:48 AM

Jim, you have no idea of what I do or do not give away. You have no knowledge of if I do work, or do not do work, for charities. You do even know if I am generous or not when I go to the pub.

What I would not do however is to pass on copyright work.

So, could I suggest before you make any more wild accusations you ensure you have the correct and relevant facts before you.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 10:23 AM

"Jim, you have no idea of what I do or do not give away.
No, of course I don't, any more than you have any idea of the relationship I developed with Ewan and Peggy that leads me to believe thay wouldn't mind my passing on their albums to others as they did to people like me
That doesn't stop you snideswiping when I try to echoe th "pass it on" generosity I got through working with them
It is none of your business what I do with these albums - I do no more than most of us have done by sharing what we have with others to help them become better singers
Were oir Peggy or one of the family who objected to doing what I do, you might have a pont
When it comes from people who leave the impression that they don't even like the music we are talking about - what can you say !!
Don't commenent on what I do in the unpleasant way you have and I's refrain from sticking my nose in your business
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:56 AM

If you're happy to defraud the estate of MacColl then fine. All your bleating about Peggy knows about this is hogwash to cover your errors.

PS I could suggest you let this drop you are doing yourself no favours.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:01 PM

"If you're happy to defraud the estate of MacColl then fine."
Just as you're happy to prevent his generosity from continuing - and you don't even like the music he stood for - money more important than art
We know all about that attitude
We are talknig about a pittance next to Ewan's art continuind
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: r.padgett
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:04 PM

Yes I have spent a while throwing stuff away as I couldn't find the Sam Larner double CD ~

found now thanks ~I must be one of the half dozen ~ it is entitled
Cruising Round Yarmouth 1958 #1960 Ewan and Peggy recordings
MTCD369~0
Ray

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:12 PM

As long as you keeping posting about this Jim I will continue to remind you that you are defrauding his estate.

I'll go one further if you carry this on I will remind you on every occasion on every thread every time you post about MacColl that you are defrauding his estate.

Your choice.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:33 PM

"As long as you keeping posting about this Jim I will continue to remind you that you are defrauding his estate."
I can't stop you doing that, but at least I thought you might have the deceny to address the poinsti I'm making
Why not just contact Peggy or the family and lt her sort it out ?
Or would you rather just take your revenge publicly
What you snided about above has nothing to do with Royalties - that was just childish spite
I have a letter from Peggy which she sent when we made the 'Freeborn Man' programmes - (for which we received only expenses which neither covered our layout or the three days journey to Oxford and back or the editing time) - giving us carte blanche anything we had been given while we worked with them as we see fit
All you are achieving with this spitefulness is to prevent me drawning the attention of young people to Ewan's work
If that is your aim - good luck to you - you wouldn't be the first and I don't suppose you will be the last
Finished here before you manage to close this thread
You and Dave really have shown your true colours - did I get that wrong
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:57 PM

I have no reason to want you not to draw young people attention to MacColl writings. He wrote some of the finest FOLK songs that are sung today, and hopefully will be sung for years to come.

What I do object to is your damned near deification of the man. His shit stank, he couldn't pee straight just like the rest of us but you treat him like some kind of god at the same time as you deny his estate income that should be theirs.

I will say this again so you are quite clear. Despite your "deification" and your professed undying admiration of him you are quite happy to give his material away, material that his family have every right to expect the income from.

That is wrong, that is unethical, that is theft. I shall remind you each time you post ……………. if you wish.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:58 PM

Incidentally
Some time ago I linked one of you pair to my PCloud box containing the 'copyrighted' BBC collection and other similar stuff
It was accepted with great thanks and an enquiry as to whether it was ok to pass it on
Changes of heart seem to come more regular than changes of underwear with some people
Jim

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 03:03 PM

Weren't me for sure.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 03:55 PM

Is it unethical,
Jim Says
I have a letter from Peggy which she sent when we made the 'Freeborn Man' programmes - (for which we received only expenses which neither covered our layout or the three days journey to Oxford and back or the editing time) - giving us carte blanche anything we had been given while we worked with them as we see fit.
Jim is not making any money out of it, and has permission. how is it unethical. he is not making financial gain.
he is trying to bring attention to MacColls work

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 04:09 PM

Dick, if I copied one of your CD's for a friend you, quite rightly, would be incensed.

There is no difference.

If I claimed that I had done so to bring your work to the attention of other people you would still be incensed.

There is no difference.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 04:44 PM

no , it is more like this,I say to you i give you this cd, you can copy it and do what you want with it
after my death you send it to a radio station to play so my work gets noticed. the essential point is that i gave you the cd and you being a very close and trusted friend are not trying to make money out of it, but trying to get my work noticed further.
Iwould get off my cold marble slab play a jig on my concertina and do the hokey cokey with all the available nuns

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 04:48 PM

anyway after you are dead you do not get incensed, unless you are very high church, and i am a quaker

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl Song Collecting
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 02:42 AM

Leave it Dick
Ewan made albums in order that the songs and ballads he researched would be passed on and resung - I know hat for a fact
He and Peggy mde them for a record company that specialised in Education and the Arts - much of their work was 'specialist' - it wan financed by a big record company, but rtheir output -folk (national and international), poetry, prose literature, and Classical music, was aimed at educating people into the betterment of society rather than profiting from it - Decca made enough money from the Music Industry to b able to allow Argo to do that
Thet fitted in quite well with Ewaan and Peggy's own outlook on life, and they passed athat attude on to people like me - and they did it by making sacrifices, their time, their home weekly, a constant sharing of their knowledge
As far as their records went, the important ones we hawked around to the clubs they performed at and sold at cost (pretty much as we do with the few we've put out)
When they fell into money accidentally through a love song Ewan wrote to Peggy, thy ploughd a lump pf it back into the music they loved and thought important - making recordds of folk and their own songs for a small section of the folk music population they had always worked for
Ewan told ne of his total bemusement when his first significant royalties cheche laded on the doormat of their somewhat cramped, three bedroom maisonette on the upper floors of a house in a London Suburb
They never moved - they could have done - they never really upped their life-style, when they bought a tiny holiday home in the Scottish Borders they threw it open to people like Pat and I for our pleasure - the only payment they asked in return is that we took on a few hour long minor cleaning job in the house to help keep the house habitable for the next guest
In all the twenty years I knew Ewan - and the thirty odd years after his death I have kept in contact with Peggy - the last thing you associated them with was "money"
Anybody who now wishes to do that - especially those who don't appreaciate their art - and would make a major issue of a tiny possible amount of royalties to be made out of the faled of a minute number of specialist records which might be sold to a tiny number of people, (overpriced, in my opinion), then split between three sons, a daughter and several grandchildren - after a large lump having being taken out by the production company - shows no respect for Ewan as an artist, nor any real concern for his family
Ewan's raison d'être was to popularise the People's music and to create new songs using its forms
In a small, small way - that's the attitude I take - to echo what he taught me to do and be
Anybody who wants to change that objective by hanging a pathetic few sheckles worth of price tag on Ewan's legacy, undervalues Ewan as an artist and is not worth t'the oxygen of publicity' (to borrow mad- Maggie's phrase)

Incidentally - Ewan once boasted to me that if he had been paid the royalties owing to him by theatre companies in Eastern Europe like Brecht's Berliner Ensemble, and other Socialist groups still performing his plays up to the end of the last century, he could have retired wealthy - he was proud of that fact - nor resentful or litigious
Ewan was prone to exaggeration, but whatever he claimed had a basis in fact, in my experience
Jim