Fight Game (Donnelan Seeger MacColl) Radio Ballad

Subject: the Fight Game Donnelan Seeger MacColl
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Oct 22 - 04:12 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol0vHxTGhQ0 Ewan Peggy a and Philip Donnelan Film

Subject: RE: the Fight Game Donnelan Seeger MacColl
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Oct 22 - 04:14 PM

and of course Charles Parker

Subject: RE: Fight Game Donnelan Seeger MacColl-Radio Ballad
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 04:24 AM

Dick, can you tell us more about "The Fight" Radio Ballad? I looked into it many years ago. Seemed to be reminiscent of Bob Dylan's songs about boxers.

Subject: RE: Fight Game (Donnelan Seeger MacColl) Radio Ballad
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 05:08 AM

I am not acquainted with Dylans material about Boxers
here is some info
These programs were revolutionary for their time, using as they did the actual spoken words of the ‘informants'. Up until this time, this 'actuality' (as the trio dubbed it) was transcribed and then interpreted by trained radio speakers. The radio ballads lead you effortlessly from to song to music to sound effect to the spoken word and back again, revealing the effect of a way of life upon those who lead it. They are entertaining, informative, musical, poetic and educational.

There were eight radio-ballads, created, between 1957 and 1964.

The Fight Game was the seventh radio ballad and tackled the world of the professional boxer. It proved to be not the lighthearted escape "from the huge canvas of industry and the intensely private world of the sick and the adolescent" that the team had expected, but an ironic allegory in which the world of prizefighting represented the larger world in which we all live.
Sixty hours of interviews were taped in gymnasia above London pubs, boxing rings, dressing rooms and on the streets in early-morning training sessions. The regular references by the fighters to themselves as latter-day gladiators prompted Peggy Seeger to score the music for brass, the trumpets and trombones reminiscent of Roman circuses and matching perfectly the sudden and brutal violence of the ring.

Though The Fight Game's actuality was not as rich as some of its predecessors, in MacColl's view the programme was technically the most successful of the series, largely because the songs were written to the rhythm of a boxer's training schedule. The team had perfected ballad-making by this stage but the production demands were enormous. The fight sequence alone needed 86 takes and MacColl notes one trumpet player, lips swollen like small balloons, gasping, "I have nothing left to give". He writes: "I think we all felt like that".
end of quotes
one of the boxers looked to me like Billy Walker

Subject: RE: Fight Game (Donnelan Seeger MacColl) Radio Ballad
From: GUEST,The Sandman
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 05:18 AM

Above post was mine

Subject: RE: Fight Game (Donnelan Seeger MacColl) Radio Ballad
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 06:24 AM

I find this quote fascinating
MacColl's view the programme was technically the most successful of the series, largely because the songs were written to the rhythm of a boxer's training schedule. The team had perfected ballad-making by this stage but the production demands were enormous. "
in my opinion the only song writer on the uk folk scene who comes near to MacColl, perhaps is Jez Lowe,
the idea of writing to rhythms and listening to his informants plus his ability to muse words well made Ewan a great song writer

Subject: RE: Fight Game (Donnelan Seeger MacColl) Radio Ballad
From: GUEST,The Sandman
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 07:02 AM

Soory again, above post was mine