Never heard of Alex Campbell

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 06:27 AM

Didn't Allan Taylor write a PhD thesis on Alex?

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 07:48 AM

I heard [ or read ] a story that Alex once went on stage with Derroll Adams somewhere in Holland, both so drunk they couldn't remember the words of the first song., now thats style.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 08:33 AM

interesting guy. he had something of the Tony Hancock's 1950's aspirational bohemian about him. i liked him.

but the folkscene was on its arse in the 70's. much worse than now. due to pure civil war between the factions on the English scene.

the jasper carrot lot on one side - all trying to replicate Billy Connolly's success. the ones Jim Carroll thinks were the bees knees singing real folk music and boring the arse of everyone.

entertainer/minstrel folksingers - my ownparticular favourites - Campbell, Brimstone, Murphy, |Lockran. for the most part they supplemented the dog rough English venues with work in Europe.

people are more tolerant nowadays. just because you find youself attracted to a certain kind of folkmusic - it doesn't preclude you from playing and enjoying another. nothing excuses or necessitates rudeness or unpleasantness.

it was that ferret pit of the English folkscene in the mid to late 1970's where i started off as an entertainer. i saw my heroes abused and treated roughly, struggling to make a living, they weren't at home in either venue. the crowd at Jasper's Boggery quickly grew restive if someone sang a sad folksong. i recall Noel Murphy trying to sing Freeborn Man - by the second verse half the audience were talking about something else;

i recall shit for brains traddies thinking they were so superior to Gerry Lockran at a club in Sutton Coldfield - they weren't fit to lick his boots.

However if Elijah Wood's biography of Dave Van Ronk is to believed - Van Ronk in his later years suffered the same sort of smart arse audiences over in the states.

ignorance and rudeness are truly international.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 08:48 AM

My recollection of Alex is as a charismatic performer with a nevertheless questionable technique. I remember once asking rhetorically, reviewing one of his albums in Folk Review, something to the effect of "how can he hold an audience so expertly and effortlessly when he can't hold a melody line?". I recall Peter Bellamy laughing heartily and approvingly. Alex himself, tho I am sure he was aware of this notice of mine, greeted me with perfectly cordial affability when we met a few weeks later at Cambridge FF.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 09:14 AM

"Jim Carroll thinks were the bees knees singing real folk music and boring the arse of everyone."
Why do you insist on doing this Al?
The singers Club was boring full houses right up to the death of MacColl
The 1970s/80s was e of the best times for folk music - it was more or less guaranteed that if you turned up to a folk club you'd hear folk songs - the crash came when that ceased to be the case.
Throughout that time Folk had a fair selection of its own magazines and even its own shops - can't say that - very different from the anything goes/and you don't need to know the words or tune to sing at a a folk club ethos that pervails nowadays.
If you find folk song boring, why not try hip-hop and stop knocking those of us who do?
Didn't intend to take part in this - I've said what I have to say on Alex.
Give your arse a chance Al, as we used to say in Liverpool!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 09:34 AM

point taken Jim. it was a good time for your lot they got set their stall out.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 10:17 AM

"Our lot" actually got the revival started, 'twas the mistletoe killed the tree.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,Warwick Slade
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 11:05 AM

Sadly I never heard him sing live but I did sell him a set of strings for his 'old Gibson guitar' I had most of his records though (some digitised on my Mac)

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 11:06 AM

I disagree that (Y)"our lot" actually got the revival started.

It was mainly skiffle that got "the revival" started, Ken Colyer, Tony Donegan etc.
Alan Lomax was in the UK at the time and formed Alan Lomax and The Ramblers featuring skiffle and folk songs. Group members included Lomax, Brian Daly (I think), Shirley Collins, Clarinettist Bruce Turner and Bassist Jim Bray from the Humphrey Lyttelton band and Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl. I believe this group was only a recording group. I don't think they performed live.
The popular appeal of skiffle increased the interest in the UK of American blues and folk music. From this interest a few people discovered British folk and decided that they preferred that. Unfortunately some of them also lost their sense of humour and started taking themselves too seriously.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 11:47 AM

The folk revival was not started by Jim Carroll,what killed the tree were people like Jim Carroll laying down rules in their club and being so serious that they forgot that some people who like folk music also liked to have fun and were there not just because they liked folk music but to socialise get to know with a similiar taste in music girls. much as i respected Ewan as a songwriter and a performer, the idea of spending an evening with such a pompous overbearing patronising old git was not my idea of fun

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 12:20 PM

don't lets get into all that. there were certainly faults on both sides. ironically it was actually the professional disseminators of folk music like Alex and my own favourite Derek Brimstone that i saw being the real victims of that polarisation.

and i got so much out of them.... i saw alex more than a few times at Barrie Roberts club in Walsall. also at Andy Dwyers club in Tamworth. neither were really well attended. in both cases they weren't source singers in the way that Jim puts so much value on. but in both cases - they had known the source singers and absorbed, and thought carefully how to convey traditional songs to contemporary audiences - there was no 'take it or leave it' about those guys. they had a passion to communicate.

it was sad to see it misunderstood so profoundly. distrusted by the traddies.   misunderstood by the folk comedian crowd who expected a laugh every 45 seconds.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 12:42 PM

" it was actually the professional disseminators of folk music like Alex and my own favourite Derek Brimstone that i saw being the real victims"
I've got a recording of Alex Campbell complaining bitterly about young upstarts (that wold be tCarthy, he Watersons, Peter Bellamy, and many others of that ilk) earning the same as he did.
I came onto the scene when payment wasn't an issue - not to say there was anything wrong with being paid for singing - just that the vast majority of us didn't, and didn't particularly want to.
The revival was basically the child of the BBC's mopping up campaign in the early 1950s, Colyer, Donegan, et al, were doing something else - they certainly weren't promoting their music as 'folk'.
Lomax was the one who kicked Ewan and Bert up the arses for singing America stuff.
I've always found folk music "fun" (and a great deal more) to be involved in - if I wanted to socilaise, I'd go down to The Old Sergeant or The Eagle, where my wanting to socialise didn't nause up anybody elses enjoyment or concentration - the same with Shakespeare, or watching films, which I also find "fun"
Jim Carroll.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 12:47 PM

Derek Brimstone was a very gifted musician, an excellent performer, and a most likeable man. But as to his having "thought carefully how to convey traditional songs to contemporary audiences", as asserted by Al above -- when would that have been? I certainly never heard him sing a traditional song: EVER; from the time I first heard him at the competition of the 1st Cambridge FF 1965, in which he won Second Prize [First Prize: Lee Nicolson; No Prize At All: MGM] onwards. Was he ever a performer of traditional songs in any shape, manner or form whatsoever? I suspect not.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Vic Smith
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 01:16 PM

A contribution from a pedant:-
[First Prize: Lee Nicolson; No Prize At All: MGM]

He was Lea Nicholson with an "h" and he took his first name by shortening his middle name "Leatham".

I ran a weekly club with him in Brighton from 1968 - 1970 and though he had a good reputation as a singer and musician, I reckon that he was seriously underrated in both departments. He was a truly original inventive concertina player.
Moved away from folk song into electronica. Last spotted playing bass guitar in a band in the Derby area.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 01:20 PM

Yes indeed. Thanks for correction, Vic.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 01:29 PM

well lets see

i've heard him sing songs of the Copper family, Frank Proffit, Leadbelly, Broonzy, Josh White, Mance Lipscomb, Rev Gary Davis, Jean Bosco M'wende, Jean Ritchie. just off the top of my head.

you probably didn't notice. derek never exercised his right to bore you with his erudition.

if theres no room for people like derek in your version of the tradition - you're throwing away one of your best cards. well they did throw him away - more fool them.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Tradsinger
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 01:31 PM

i saw Alex perform several times around Portsmouth in the 60s. What I remember is a performer of tremendous charisma who always had the audience hanging onto every word of the song. His singing of tender songs could bring the audience near to tears. He had another side, however, and could quickly switch to coarseness, almost offending the audience.

However, as an interpreter of folksongs, I have seldom heard anyone better.

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 03:06 PM

"derek never exercised his right to bore you with his erudition"
Constant references to boredom are very reminiscent of those tiresome bt#rats who constantly whine "mammy, I'm bored".
I know people who are bored out of their skull by Dylan, Shakespeare, Jazz folk song of any type, blues, dickins, Coronation Street......!!!
Boredom is the domain of the bored, not the boring - most subjects have their adherents.
(I always found Derek Brimstone facile, boring and not infrequently unfunny - but then again, that's me
I wouldn't dream in telling people what they should or should not be interested in a million years
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Gurney
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 03:21 PM

I think that people saying "I saw Alex at...." is typical of the man. He was on tour for much of the time!
He charged less than most professionals, and he worked a lot more, and he was often available in your locality, wherever that locality was.

I booked him several times when I ran clubs, and he never let me down, unlike some who would accept a booking and then cry off later (and late!) because they got no other booking in the area.

And could he drink whisky!
He came to our wedding ceildh. We had a day when there was nothing folky on, so he had no gigs to go to. Ah, yes. If he didn't have a gig, he would go to some local club anyway.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: breezy
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 03:41 PM

Couldnt get away from the bugger in the late 60s early 70s in the SE London and N kent

He adjudicated a folk singing competition at Whitelands college Wimbledon about 1971

There were a handful of performers

After announcing the winner he reintroduced the artiste to conclude the evening

The sod

He was a folk entertainer and thats what drew in the crowds

Derek Brimo was of the same style but sober and a great deliverer of jokes

The warning to folk club organisers was 'watch out for the traddies,' !!!!

I see him now in my mind's eye, in the mid 70s, sitting in the lounge bar of the Ivanhoe Hotel in Bloomsbury, dressed to the nines. I had to do a double take.

Yes he was a legend in his own lifetime

Hell Yeah

The black cat piddled.... and the white cat sighed....
And the white cat said'cor blimey'
And the black cat said 'You silly sod, you shouldnae stand behind me'


any more memories

So long

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 04:00 PM

"I've always found folk music "fun" (and a great deal more) to be involved in - if I wanted to socilaise, I'd go down to The Old Sergeant or The Eagle, where my wanting to socialise didn't nause up anybody elses enjoyment or concentration - the same with Shakespeare, or watching films, which I also find "fun""
as usual an interesting comment, there is an assumption that wanting to socialise is going to mess up someone elses enjoyment, we obviously have different viewpoints on socialisation, for me it was going to the les cousins folk club listening to good folk music even if some of it was american, and maybe quietly chatting up an attractive young woman in between the music no ones enjoyment was spoiled.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 04:11 PM

no more to be said - really - boring, facile, frequently unfunny.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 06:03 PM

funny old game as Jimmy Greaves used to say, but I find the disciple of MacColl now resident in County Clare, boring facile and frequently unfunny. I know who i would rather pay money to see perform and its Derek Brimstone,but thats just me.. a talentless moron

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 15 - 06:16 PM

i said - no more to say. but looking back - i love that bit about most of us just didn;t want to be paid - like as if being as talented as Alex or Derek was just a matter of choice, but of course real folksingers would disdain such shallowness.

I can see why he was pissed off at the young upstarts . people were turning up at folk clubs expecting the folk stuff they heard on the radio in the 1960's. exciting though it must have been to dig up some fusty old unmemorable folksong that had died out for bloody good reasons - it was /is frequently tough going on the poor sods listening. England's two folk journalists were calling Carthy England's Bob Dylan - so where was blowing in the wind?

Brimstone told me through that period, he would turn up after a melody maker folk page had built up a young upstart - to find a club that had been there for ten years had been decimated. i guess alex was having the same sort of experiences.

and as for facile - Derek could piss rings round most people as a guitarist and banjo player. i knew none of your gang who came anywhere near. you don't get that good as a diletante semi pro. you WORK to get that good.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 12:20 AM

Whom do you mean by "England's two folk journalists", Al? I certainly would never have dreamed of calling Martin any such thing. Neither, I am sure, would Karl; or Fred; or Eric -- or any of the other great number of us who had as much right as whoever you mean to be called "England's folk journalists".

Regards

≈Michael≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 12:58 AM

you'd have to ask Martin. i've forgotten where i heard it, but he would remember. i remember he was pissed off about it.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 02:09 AM

there are several things that are required now, one is that young performers are paid to run a guest booking folk club, perhaps the EFDSS should be allocating funds for this.
secondly,young performers should be running guest booking folk clubs , where people listen to the music, they should look back at the early days of the uk folk revival and start doing club swap and booking each other at their clubs. young people canotr expect other peop[lew to do all the work, IF they want a scene where there is a network of guest booking clubs , they have to put some work in , if they dont then the network of clubs will be gone

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 03:11 AM

"one is that young performers are paid to run a guest booking folk club,"
Making money a factor in folk song is a nail in its coffin before it even begins feeling a little queasy
God protect Irish song from such a mercenary (from a professional singer).
Not to say that some people shouldn't make money from their work - just that it should never, ever be a guiding principle.
I really did think this died way back in the folk boom that gave us 'The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 03:20 AM

Should read "mercenary attitude"
Thank you for your character reference BTW - a confirmation that I'm not getting things too wrong, coming from who it did!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:05 AM

has it ever occurred to you how many people were drawn into folk music by The Smothers Brothers? MacColl was pissed off because he wasn't one of the big names in the great folk scare. understandable.   vanity, vanity...all is vanity!

Stop being bitter on his behalf. like they say in Jurassic |Park, the dinosaurs had their shot. MacColl had his, and he did what he wanted with it. good for him. he achieved much.

there is no need to slag off fine musicians like Derek and Dick.

but try having some dignity. you are doing the memory of Ewan MacColl no favours by using this site to remember and celebrate his petulance and intolerance. they were small and very occasional failings in a man deserving of our admiration.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:11 AM

Making money a factor in folk song is a nail in its coffin before it even begins feeling a little queasy."
what a load of crap, money is one[not the only but one] of the incentives for most professional musicians, if you want to have professional standards [and you are always banging on about amateurish performance people reading from notes etc] then you have to have professional performers, professional performers have to practise their music,that generally means they need the time to do it, that is facilitated for them if they can work at it full time., OR HAVE A PART TIME JOB THAT ALLOWS THEM TIME TO PRACTICE
I could have earned a lot more money if i had chosen another form of music, but i loved playing this kind of music and accepted that the financial rewards would be less than in the pop world, but that dOes not stop me accepting money for performance, however i do on occasions play for nothing. I ALSO run a festival for nothing.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:17 AM

Not an answer to my question, Al. I don't care who said what about Martin; I just don't know what you could have meant by "England's two folk journalists", implying that there were only two. If you had said "Two of England's folk journalists", it might have made a bit of sense. But I know full well that I was one at the time, and I said never any such thing about Martin or Dylan or whoever.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:38 AM

"Never heard of Alex Campbell?" Sounds like an old country song

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 05:40 AM

of course you're right Mike. you were a fine journalist - top end though.
i was thinking of Karl and Colin Irwin who wrote for the very influential melody maker folk pages. the phenomenon of those guys making large claims for artists who were inaccessible to general listeners - i have heard one or two of the old stagers remark on. i suppose they thought thet were doing the artists a favour.

like i say, i made my entrance as folk singer, after many years listening to find myself in the middle of this civil war. anywsy the traddies won, but time has proved that they couldn't hold the ground.

sooner or later - the real folk take possession of folk music.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Vic Smith
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 06:40 AM

the real folk take possession of folk music.

Is it just me, or is this a totally meaningless phrase? I know we are in a election campaign with lots of trite phrases being bandied about - 'for the benefit of hard-working families', 'all in this together' etc. but without something more precise and clearly defined, it just sounds like a sloppy slogan to me.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 06:43 AM

"what a load of crap,"
Take this somewhere else - I raised it in response to your having doneso.
The only relevence to the topic is that Campbell once complained about younger singers earning more than he did.
Other than that, it has no place here - go and start another thread if you want to pursue it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 06:48 AM

"MacColl was pissed off because he wasn't one of the big names in the great folk scare"
No he cartainly was not Al - unless you know something we don't.
Parhaps he wrote about it somewhere??
Ontherwise, it sounds like yet another MacColl urban myth to me - I'd have thought we have enough of those already shame on you joining that particular flock of sheep!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 08:12 AM

some things never change, still the same people in the folk world trying to tell others what they should do, the disciple of MacColl reveals his true colours,
Alex Campbell was a generous man, I have been told by two ex organisers, how in his.. hey day he refused to take the larger fee[percentage of the door], just taking the agreed minimium, and saying keep it you might need it some time to keep the club going.both clubs had been packed and busier than they had been for a long time, he was an entertainer whose music was accesible though his quick wit.
He was a giant compared to some of the pontificating pygmies on this thread, if he complained about the hype of young superstars he had justification,no one pulled in audiences like Alex Campbell, he was a very funny man and a good communicator.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 08:33 AM

i'm sorry Jim - i thought that was a given. i understood that from the first interviews i read. ten years before i met him. he came over as rigid with anger that Donovan etc were being described as the face of folk music.

i remember he thought it extraordinary that i had learned Nottanum Town from Bert Jansch. i didn't pursue it. i figured it was of cos of his dismissiveness of all the 60's crowd.

perhaps i misunderstood. its possible. perhaps you'ld care to elucidate. he certainly seems to have passed on his low opinion of other people trying to play folk music to you.

i take it he wasn't keen on Alex Campbell either.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,dave
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 08:39 AM

Ewan MacColl's record as a songwriter stands alongside anyone of that era, I never got to see him perform. Alex Campbell I know only from recordings, a significant performer, if not to my taste. Martin Carthy may not have written Blowing in the Wind, but his arrangement of Scarborough Fair was of course a worldwide hit, even if unattributed. Bob Dylan's output is of course prodigious, if uneven. But I had never, ever heard of the Smothers Brothers until happening upon this thread.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Vic Smith
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 08:58 AM

The Smothers Brothers - My Old Man

Fairly popular in the USA in the late '50s early '60s, occasionally their shows were broadcast on British television.
A very broad interpretation indeed would be needed to call them a 'folk act'.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 09:10 AM

"Donovan etc were being described as the face of folk music."
Yup - me too - a little far from "MacColl was pissed off because he wasn't one of the big names in the great folk scare"
"i take it he wasn't keen on Alex Campbell either."
I honestly never heard him take a pop at any other performer - not publicly anyway, and certainly not in the period I knew him.
After the John Snow meeting, he adopted an isolationist policy and worked with those he believed could make a difference on the folk scene
I confess, when I spoke on The Critics Group at his 70th birthday symposium, it was one of my main criticisms of his wit#k with the Group - in view of the grave-dancing that is still going on thirty years after his death - didn't I get that one wrong!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: breezy
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 09:27 AM

Thanks Vic, I enjoyed that, and we had Robin Hall and Jimmy McGregor[sp]

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 10:20 AM

gravedancing?his isolationist policy was a mistake , but none of it takes away from his legacy , his songs

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 10:30 AM

As I have said before: far from its being 'grave-dancing', I consider the continuing {pro as well as con} critical evaluation of Ewan's influence as an earnest of what an important figure he was on our Scene. Shows how seriously we all take what he stood for and achieved, Jim.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 10:31 AM

I've only heard him on recordings, but think he could put life into a song. Just been listening to a clip and I'd just have to join in with "Can't You Dance The Polka"

I do more playing that singing but sometimes when I do a song, it's one I got the words from a tape of his - Willie Moore. Other end of the scale maybe, quite a sad one.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 10:44 AM

Yes indeed. I too learned Willie More from Alex's singing. Now one of my favourite songs.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 10:45 AM

nah the smothers bros glory days were late 60's early 70's. they came over did Parkinson. they even tried one series on the bbc, but it was too bland for England. Tom Smothers did some acting. but they were a stateside thing. the sort of act that had its genesis in nightclubs in the days when Josh White played alongside Lenny Bruce.

they were pretty good musically as i remember - sharp. and like i say - they featured folk artists on their show and folksongs in their act. they introduced people to folk music - someone has to -otherwise it never gets away from behind the haystack.

but the thing is Jim. i look at it as an artist, and i understand the source of Ewan's angst -perhaps better than you do. everyone says he worked he worked like a demon on that ship of fools project - and so many other things.
of course it would have pissed him off seeing Donovan and Dylan and all the rest of that circus pissing away creative opportunities, publishing deals - god knows what. he'd been promoting and writing folk music before most of them were born. Ewan on the Parkinson Show, interviewed by Playboy, Esquire....it would have made his work so much easier. he must have been incandescent. its the lot of all artists!

being nasty about other very talented performers won't make people like MacColl any more. i admire your loyalty. i don't like the nastiness that comes with it - i don't believe Ewan would want it. he was more of a positive person than a negative one.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: Vic Smith
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 11:30 AM

Jim Carroll wrote -
After the John Snow meeting, he adopted an isolationist policy and worked with those he believed could make a difference on the folk scene
I confess, when I spoke on The Critics Group at his 70th birthday symposium, it was one of my main criticisms of his wit#k with the Group

I think that this is an important and significant point that Jim has made. Ewan did shut himself off from the rest of the folk scene and keep a lot of the benefits of his wide reading and broad and interesting thinking and experience only to the group that met in Beckenham. If he had tried hard to explain his views on the tradition in a better way to a wider audience, his impact on the folk scene - and the understanding of his approach - at the time might have been broader; but that was not Ewan's way.

I would like to add that I think he went beyond an "isolationist policy" and that he actually blocked the importance of what was happening on the wider scene. This story will illustrate why I suggest this.

In the late 1960s Ewan and Peggy were booked at a club in Brighton.
Now, in those days, as I remember from when I booked them myself, their contract was quite specific on how the evening would be run including no bar to be open in the performing room and that they were to perform the whole evening with no support acts.
Now when the organiser of this club told his resident singers/comperes that their only task that evening was going to be introducing the guests not starting off the evening or organising and introducing floor singers they decided that they would not bother to come on that night. The pissed-off organiser approached me, the organiser of another club in the town to run the evening for him whilst he, as usual, took the money on the door.
I was talking to Ewan before the evening started when we heard that it was house full and people were being turned away.
"House full," said Ewan, obviously very pleased, "I don't expect that happens very often."
"Oh, yes, I replied. "Reasonably often. Certainly, twice in recent weeks."
"Really? Who was booked as guests?"
"Well, one was Jake Thackray and the other was Jeremy Taylor."
"Who?"
I repeated the names.
"I'm afraid that you have the advantage of me." was the reply.

Well, at that time these two were household names - well beyond the folk scene. Jake was always on the television and had a weekly spot on the hugely popular Esther Rantzen programme. Jeremy had shows running in West End theatres, some he wrote the music for and some like "Wait A Minim" he appeared in himself. I didn't (and still don't) believe that Ewan had not heard of these people. If he hadn't he must have been leading a very "isolationist" life indeed.

Subject: RE: Never heard of Alex Campbell
From: GUEST,oggie
Date: 09 Mar 15 - 11:35 AM

Alex's son (also Alex) is gradually putting more and more of his recordings on Youtube, just search for him.

In all fairness they are a mixed bag. By modern standards some are now so old and hackneyed I don't think they're sung anymore BUT live (and I saw him a couple of times) it didn't matter. One of the most charismatic performers I've ever seen.

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

Steve