Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 02:39 AM

"Yarmouth was full of Scots fish-gutters." Quite so Jim. My mother-in-law's grandfather lived in Gorleston and she said she remembers the place was full of Scottish girls. Likewise the link below suggests that perhaps over half the fishing fleet setting out from these ports originated in Scotland. So the place was presumably teeming with Scottish men at times too. It wouldn't be unusual for an Englishman to pick up a word often used by Scots especially when the said word isn't in itself even alien to England.


"The catches during this period were prodigious. This was the time when it was said it was possible to walk from one side of Great Yarmouth harbour to the other, across the boats. By the end of this period Great Yarmouth had a fleet of over one thousand boats, three quarters of which made the autumnal trip from Scotland. Lowestoft had a massive fleet of over seven hundred and fifty boats, with over half coming from Scotland"


http://www.gorlestonhistory.org.uk/fishing/fishing.php

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 06:17 AM

A point about MacColl's song-making, especially some of the Radio Ballad ones.
He regularly took actuality recorded from people like Sam Larner and used it directly - "living gales" and "silver darlings" came from Sam, 'Just a Note' was inspired by Sligo man Jack Hamilton, and much of 'Shellback' was taken from recordings of Ben Bright. 'Tenant Farmer' was made after a New Years party at Sandiford after talking to a border farmer who had been evicted from his land for not being able to pay the rent increases. These, in my opinion, were some of his most durable and 'authentic' songs and why, as Susanne said, Sam Larner claimed "I known that song all my life". Travellers we have met have made similar claims of 'Freeborn Man'.
Ewan was regularly accused of 'stealing' songs from the tradition and claiming them as his own, though I am not aware of one song this has been claimed of that has been found prior to the date his having written it.
A mark of his ability to listen to what people said - and how they said it, as far as I'm concerned.
Jim Caroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 06:50 AM

GOODpoints jIM, But with any song the singer should feel free to sing which verses he prefers

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 06:54 AM

while we are on the subject of listening this song was taken from listening to a fisherman talking about his life, and from listening to a lt of macColls songs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peA18SO9afU&list=UU-GtPNIEDLICv5yKnirJAPg&feature=plcp

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 06:55 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peA18SO9afU&list=UU-GtPNIEDLICv5yKnirJAPg&feature=plcp

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 06:56 AM

"But with any song the singer should feel free to sing which verses he prefers "
Sorry Cap'n - did I suggest otherwise?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 07:08 AM

no you didnt, just remarking how i feel about it

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Barnacle (at work)
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 07:50 AM

The Tide and Tide Museum in Great Yarmouth does use "Singing the Fishing" and is a brilliant place to go, based in an old curing shed. I have been lots of times, but recently took my 9 year old German grandson, who thought it was wonderful, too - especially the smell. The restaurant is delighful as well with kippers that, in the words of aforesaid grandson "taste better than smoked salmon". Incidentally Sam Larner's house, in the next but one village to me, has just been graced with a blue plaque.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 09:45 AM

"....blue plaque."
Wonderful news wonder if they'll put one on Walter Pardon's, or Harry Cox's.
In Sam's time Winterton had a reputation of being somewhat parochial.
We were told on a number of occasions that if a lad from another village came courting a local girl, the men would picket both roads to keep him out.
Another story was of the fisherman who had just finished washing his boat down on the beach when a butterfly landed on it. The man was so furious at "having all his hard work spoiled that he chased it over four fields before he squashed it flat".
Sam's local, the Fishermans Return, was the venue of a weekly singaround.
The landlord bought one of the first 'wirelesses' and, on being asked by a local what it was, he explained "that's a gadget for bringing the news and the latest music from London".
The old man leaned across the counter, hooked the "gadget" off the shelf onto the floor, where it smashed into 100 pieces - it was never replaced.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Alex Binnie
Date: 19 Jan 14 - 02:32 PM

Just to throw a herring among the pigeons (!!) can I suggest the McColl heard the tune first from Scots Gaelic speakers?
I have spotted it in a book of pipe tunes, where it is described as a popular Gaelic song " An Sgada Sgathan".
Nothing wrong in using existing tunes, Burns did it all the time!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Jan 14 - 02:58 PM

I have that pipe tune book - the Cabar Feidh Collection, no date I can see but no earlier than the 1980s. They call it "Sgaoth Sgadan". I think they're havering. Maybe somebody translated "Shoals of Herring" into Gaelic?

I wonder how many other tunes by Communists got into the British Army repertoire?

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: mayomick
Date: 19 Jan 14 - 03:18 PM

My family had the Clancy Brothers LP with the Shoals of Herring in the sixties. We all used to love the song and were convinced that it was called The Shores Of Erin , for ages even though the title was clearly written on the LP sleeve

Alex. I once heard an Irish republican pipe band playing a tune that I took to be Dirty Old Town in Dublin's O'Connell St, which I thought was a bit odd at the time . It was in fact the tune to a rebel song about O'Connell St "the night was young and the battle over , the moon shone down O'Connell St." I assume that MacColl must have somehow taken the Dirty Old Town tune from that song , but the air itself is probably older than the twentieth century ; somebody who knew as many tunes as McColl did could have just composed the song from the music in his own head with a little variation. I've sometimes thought that The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was influenced by Blackwaterside .

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Jan 14 - 05:13 PM

Thread on the tune mayomick was talking about here:

The Dying Rebel

which says the tune for it was "Waly, Waly". Which is a bit like "Dirty Old Town", and does predate the 20th century, but it's not the same tune.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 19 Jan 14 - 05:55 PM

I am surprised no-one has put this link up on this thread!
Shoals of Herring.. Ewan McColl!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 04:54 AM

Thanks for the above link.

Wonderful song. Wonderful singer.

And I liked the photos that had been posted on the link

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 06:00 AM

Interesting to re-visit this subject
MacColl wrote it as a whole song for 'Singing the Fishing' - it was broken up for the programme.
He based the lyrics directly on actuality recorded from mainly Sam Larner - the recordings are in The Charles Parker Archive in Birmingham and in the Ewan MacColl Archive at Ruskin college - lines like "stormy seas and the living gales" came directly from Sam.
He adapted the tune from the the version of the ballad "Famous Flower of Serving Men' 'Sweet William' included in Gavin Greig's 'Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads' which Ewan recorded on a Folkways album.
Peggy said he adapted the same tune for several of his songs, including 'Freeborn Man'.
I was said to learn the late Louis Killen was one of the Ewan knockers who claimed MacColl didn't write some of his best songs, but stole them from elsewhere - alongside the pratt writing in Musical Traditions who claimed MacColl stole 'Herring' from Sam Larner and claimed it as his own.
The song has been recovered several times from source singers since it was composed, but invariably in fragmented and distorted versions
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Ruth Archer
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 06:30 AM

Shoals of Herring in The Guardian yesterday, and in the new Coen brothers' film:

Inside Llewyn Davis has its pleasures and its flaws, as did the folk movement

Jim, you'll enjoy his assertion that MacColl took the tune from an older Irish song, "The Shores of Erin". :)

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 07:04 AM

Also repeats the canard that Ewan claimed to have been born in Auchterarder. Nowhere, in his autobiography Journeyman or anywhere else, did he make such a claim ~~ if he had, why would he have sung all his English songs, inc Shoals, in his native light Lancashire accent? He always named Salford as his birthplace. It was his mother Betsy who came from Auchterarder.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 07:34 AM

"Jim, you'll enjoy his assertion that MacColl took the tune from an older Irish song, "The Shores of Erin"
It actually appeared under that title in a learned work on Sea lore, 'Folklore and the Sea' by Professor Horace Beck, as being typical of the songs sung by Kerry fishermen.
I don't mind that sort of thing too much - there's genuine ignorance and there's sheer vindictiveness and dishonesty.
"Auchterarder"
I think this arose from record notes written by Ken Goldstein for some of Ewan' early records on Riverside.
I have no idea whether this was a mistake on Ken's part or Ewan wishing to create a Scots persona for himself, which is possible, but would have been a little foolish as he was already well established as a playwright coming from Salford.
I was once amused by Ewan's discomfort when I had a meal in their home once and his mother Betsy loudly declared to me across the table "we christened him Jimmy, you know"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 09:52 AM

I was said to learn the late Louis Killen was one of the Ewan knockers who claimed MacColl didn't write some of his best songs, but stole them from elsewhere -"
if that is true what is the relevance here apart from having a go at Killen?

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 09:59 AM

"f that is true what is the relevance here apart from having a go at Killen?"
Louis Killen claimed to have put it together as a song
Stop trying to cause an unnecessary argument on something thet has been posted
Jim Carroll

"Ewan MacColl certainly wrote it but only in snatches for different radio shows. I saw Louis Killen many years ago and he claimed to have put it together as a song. He even laughed about Ewan being asked to sing it and not being able to."

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 11:49 AM

Look I don't get the chance to drop a name very often so here goes:

In a discussion I had with Bobby Campbell in July or August 1972 in his flat in London when he still lived with Bea Campbell, he said the song had been pulled together from the Radion Ballad where, as pointed out above, it can be heard in parts - across a number of passages through the programme.

As I recall, it came into the repertoire of the Exiles (Enoch Kent, Bobby and Gordon McCulloch) via this process.

I guess loads of people listened to Singing the Fishing and did pretty much the same - as I also guess, was what Peggy & Ewan wanted.

Great song

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Newport Boy
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 11:56 AM

I don't know when people suggest that Louis Killen 'put this together as a song', but I would be surprised if Ewan couldn't remember it in 1963. That's the first printed version I know - in the 'Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger Songbook', Oak Publications, New York. The copyright is to Stormking Music, 1962.

The words (apart from the omission of the introductory verse) are exactly as in the DT. The tune is also the same, except that it's in 3/4, which is how I hear it and have always sung it.

Phil

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 12:18 PM

JIM , I Think you are incorrect, i never heard lou killen make any such claims, furthermore he heard me sing it once, and i introduced it as being written by MacColl, LOU made no comment, please stop repeating drivel., are you sure you are not confusing lou killen with ian campbell?I was under the impression it was the Campbells that put it together as a song.
I sympathise with you Jim, because I understand you are a disciple of MacColl, and misinformation must be very annoying for you.
I recall having a conversation with MacColl and he said he never sung it live and that the Ian Campbell group put it together as a song .I think this is likely to be nearer the truth than the absurd claim that Lou Killen said he put it together as a song, honestly Jim, you do repeat some old cods wallop sometimes.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 01:59 PM

Re my post above: Gordon McCulloch and Ian Campbell (no relation to Bobby) are listed as vocalists on the recording so clearly both would have the ealiest access to the song

Singing the Fishing

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 02:10 PM

The divil's always in the details.

Beck did include the song in Folklore and the Sea as anonymous and traditional about forty years ago, but the title there was "The Bonny Shoals of Herring."

"Shores of Erin" is a later, er, "folk" development.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 02:29 PM

Here's someone clearly singing "Shoals of Herring," and the poster thinks it's "Shores of Erin."

Which doesn't even make sense in the song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiU04meCXI0

Come on. Has anybody actually heard a real song called "The Bonny Shores of Erin" that had anything to do with MacColl's song?

The Internet suggests not.

It's a big jump from a mondegreen to a whole song built around it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Iain
Date: 20 Jan 14 - 02:51 PM

Shoals of herring was recorded by the Dubliners, with Luke Kelly singing, around 1966 if I remember correctly. This version has the slow verse beginning and end. Also the diction of Luke Kelly is very clear.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 06:45 AM

""Shores of Erin" is a later, er, "folk" development."
No - it is possibly a mishearing.
It happened all the time, especially among non-literate communities like the Travellers - you want to here some of the mondegreens we've recorded down the years.
It can and does happen among folkies.
I was present during a musing discussion between MacColl and The Johnsons, who had just guested at The Singers Club.
They had sung his 'Tunnel Tigers' and he was carefully the significance of the chorus:
"Up with the shield and jack it, ram it""
They had sung
"Up with the shield and jacket, ram it"
Now that doesn't make sense.
"JIM , I Think you are incorrect, i never heard lou killen make any such claims"
Don't care if you did Dick - I didn't make the claim - somebody else did further up.
If you are going to interrupt a discussion, please don't do so before making sure you know what you are talking about - it helps to read what other people have written.
"it live and that the Ian Campbell group put it together as a song"
Load of crap - he recorded it on the folkways album, 'New Briton Gazette' not long after he wrote it.
He always wrote all his songs for the radio ballads in full and gave full texts to whoever was going to sing them to rehearse before they were recorded - standard practice.
Someone said Lois Killen put it together, you claim Ian Campbell did - thereby hangs yet another MacColl Chinese whisper!
And don't use loaded terms like "MacColl disciple" - I certainly am not, and such inanities get in the way of the real discussion - just as you are getting in the way of this one.
Please take your vendetta elsewhere.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 07:31 AM

I dont believe Lousia Killen claimed she put it together.
I said "I was under the impression that the Campbells put it together as a song"I am also sure MacColl told me he did not sing it live,    that does not mean that i said he did not record it.
as far as i am concerned MacColl wrote the song, Furthermore there is no vendetta, just a desire for you to stop believing and repeating ridiculous claims that Killen said certain things, based on supposed hear say.
it is fairly easy to check who recorded it first in its entireity, and is not a matter of vast importance, I have never disputed who wrote the song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 07:47 AM

They had sung his 'Tunnel Tigers' and he was carefully the significance of the chorus:
"Up with the shield and jack it, ram it""
They had sung
"Up with the shield and jacket, ram it"
Now that doesn't make sense.

Both make equal sense to me. The normal way you make a tunnel is by connecting short segments of lining after boring a few feet more hole. Why wouldn't you call the lining a "jacket"? A quick google says the word is used in exactly that way in "Tunnel Construction" [1998], edited by Messe München International, p.31.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 07:49 AM

OH DEAR - NOT AGAIN!!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 08:04 AM

"Up with the shield and jack it, ram it""
They had sung
"Up with the shield and jacket, ram it"
,..,

I can't see how these would actually sound any different in singing.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 08:09 AM

I don't recall any discussion about this before.

Why wouldn't MacColl have found out what the standard terms of art used in the tunnelling trade were, and put them in his song?

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-89013607/stock-photo-metal-caisson-jacket-on-the-underground-footpath-tunnel-across-the-river-thames-in-greenwich.html

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 09:51 AM

A matter of emphasis Mike - Jacket - one word, jack it two words.
As with 'Shoals', MacColl made the song directly from interviews with navvies and tunnel workers - he said that this was how the phrase was explained to him - there are recordings of the interviews he did with some of them on our shelves.
It would seen he might have got it wrong, if he did, he and I owe an apology to Adrienne Johnson (but sadly both are dead)
Thanks for the heads up Jack
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 03:45 AM

here is more info on who recorded the song,Killen recorded it some years after ian campbell, which in my opinion reinforces my point that killen would not have made such a ridiculous claim as to have put it together, killen was not noted for her song writing skills.The Shoals of Herring

[ Roud 13642 ; Ewan MacColl]

The Shoals of Herring was written for the third of the eight BBC radio ballads by Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker and Peggy Seeger, Singing the Fishing (first broadcast on August 16, 1960, released on an Argo LP in 1966 and now available on a Topic CD). It was about the herring fishery and fishermen, and the song was designed specifically to highlight the life-story of Sam Larner, who had spent a long life as a herring fisherman, but was retired at the time of the recording. He first went to sea, he said, in 1892, when he was just a boy. In this moving documentary, the song is sung partly by Ewan MacColl and partly by Bert Lloyd, all skilfully interpolated among the spoken words of Mr Larner. An extract of this with A.L. Lloyd and Sam Larner is on the last track of the first side of Karl Dallas' brilliant 4 LP anthology, The Electric Muse: The Story of Folk into Rock.

(A 12" LP of Mr Larner was later produced: Now is the Time for Fishing: Songs and Speech by Sam Larner of Winterton, England, collected and edited by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger; Folkways 1961; Topic 2000.)

Ewan MacColl sang The Shoals of Herring again in 1983 on his album Black and White; this track was also included on the 3 CD anthology The New Electric Muse: The Story of Folk into Rock.

The Ian Campbell Folk Group sang The Shoals of Herring on the 1964 LP Edinburgh Folk Festival Vol. 2, and Nigel Denver recorded it in the same year for his eponymous LP Nigel Denver.

The Three City Four (Martin Carthy, Leon Rosselson, Ralph Trainer and Marian McKenzie) sang The Shoals of Herring on their 1965 LP The Three City Four.

The Exiles sang Shoals of Herring in 1967 on their Topic album The Hale and the Hanged.

Louis Killen recorded Shoals of Herring in 1968 for his 1973 LP Sea Chanteys, sang it in 1973 with the Clancy Brothers on their album Greatest Hits, and sang it solo in 1979 on the Folkways album Sea Songs Seattle and in 1995 on his CD Sailors, Ships & Chanteys.

Dave Burland, Tony Capstick and Dick Gaughan sang Shoals of Herring in 1978 on their album Songs of Ewan MacColl.

Bob Fox sang Shoals of Herring in 2003 on his Topic CD Borrowed Moments.

Robert Lawrence sang The Shoals of Herring in 2010 on his CD The Journey Home.

Jon Boden sang Shoals of Herring as the February 20, 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. He noted in the blog that it's a "powerful song from the Radio Ballads. Sung on FSC, despite being a tad wordy for communal singing—the strength of the melody drives it on."

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 04:16 AM

Does it matter who claimed what Dick?
Somebody claimed that Killen put together Shoals of Herring from MacColl's fragmentary writing of it - you claim that Ian Campbell did.
As far as I am concerned, neither clam has the slightest basis in fact - MacColl wrote it and shortly afterwards recorded it for Folkways Records (New Briton Gazette)
MacColl's technique for making all his songs, for the Radio Ballads, fr the Irishmen, Romeo and Juliet, Before the Mast... all his media work, was to completely make the song complete and pass complete recordings to the singers who were to perform them.
I've just been listening to a recording of Joe Heaney singing MaColl's song, 'New Rocks of Bawn' for 'The Irishmen'.
Joe was given the song and asked to learn it, then perform it in two-verse sections, each section sung in a different key to suit the part of the film it was to be used in - absolutely brilliant.
You throw a hissy-fit about Killen being criticised for something someone (not me) has claimed that he said, but you have little compunction in taking snidey pops at a major performer whose contribution to our love and understanding of folk song is immesureable (and who has been dead for over twenty years).
Quite honestly, I'm tired of mediocre performers and folkie eccentrics working out their inadequacies on a twenty-year-old corpse - grave dancing at its most extreme.
Pat and I have just embarked on a project of producing 1, maybe 2 radio programmes outlining MacColl's work on singing.
I am staggered at the amount of information on his approach to singing and his aspirations for folk song has lain untouched and unconsidered, largely due to the barrier of garbage that has made discussion on his work virtually impossible.
MacColl is dead - let's see if he had anything valuable to say shall we?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 06:56 AM

You throw a hissy-fit about Killen being criticised for something someone (not me) has claimed that he said, but you have little compunction in taking snidey pops at a major performer whose contribution to our love and understanding of folk song is immesureable (and who has been dead for over twenty years)."
give it a break jim , you are pathetic, i have consistently praised macColl as a singer performer and song writer, i take exception to you repeating hearsay about Killen. OF COURSE MACcOLL HAD SOMETHING VALUABLE TO SAY, he wrote many good songs and was a good performer, you however continue to believe any old hearsay rubbish[ some years old written on this thread] in my opinion you appear to be paranoid about any comments about macColl] why did you automatically believe what the earlier poster said about Killen. I knew lou well enough to know that the comment about killen was very unlikely to be true.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 07:09 AM

"VALUABLE TO SAY, he wrote many good songs and was a good performer,"
Nice of you to say so as the fine performer you are
Who said I actually believe what was said about Killen - what do you want me to do - call a contributor to this thread a liar
". I saw Louis Killen many years ago and he claimed to have put it together as a song. He even laughed about Ewan being asked to sing it and not being able to."
I' used to this shit from revival superstars - why shoul it be any more untrue than all the other garbage
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 08:39 AM

Jim you said "I was said to learn the late Louis Killen was one of the Ewan knockers who claimed MacColl didn't write some of his best songs, but stole them from elsewhere"
clear evidence you believed the statement supposed to be made by Killen.
Jim, stop wasting everyones time, including your own.
what i would have like you to do was not repeat the statement.
"I' used to this shit from revival superstars - why shoul it be any more untrue than all the other garbage" what are you on about? what shit from what revival superstars?

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Vic Smith
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 08:54 AM

I remember talking to Bert Lloyd many years ago about MacColl's songwriting.
I mentioned that in the couple of years before that conversation that we had got to know Belle & Alex Stewart well and that phrases that came up in their day to day conversation, I found had been used by MacColl in the songs that he has written for The Travelling People. I said that I felt that MacColl was somehow cheating by using so many of their phrases.
Bert Lloyd listened carefully to this and then said, "I think what you are describing is the great skill of the man."

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 09:10 AM

Sam Larner once said he felt as if he had been singing 'Shoals of Herring" all his life
Social commentator and writer, Jeremy Sandford, whose book 'Gypsies' first inspired us to become involved with recording Travellers compiled an excellent collection of Travellers songs (Songs of the Roadside) from his experiences in the Midlands.
He included several of MacColl's songs, which he had been given by Travellers, attributing them as "traditional" and suggesting that Ewan had lifted them from the Gypsies themselves - unintentional praise.
Hi Vic - how's retirement - counting the grapes on the wallpaper yet?
Go away Dick - finished wasting my time with you.   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 09:45 AM

> Bert Lloyd listened carefully to this and then said, "I think what you are describing is the great skill of the man."

I think Lloyd was right. If speech idioms aren't in the public domain, what is?

Furthermore, whatever else in MacColl's songs might be criticizable as "inauthentic," "too political," "too sophisticated," "not folk," etc., those passages are immune by origin and nature.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Vic Smith
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 10:02 AM

Sam Larner once said he felt as if he had been singing 'Shoals of Herring" all his life.

Adam McNaughtan was asked to review Betsy Whyte's great book Yellow On The Broom. On reading it, he immediately wrote the lovely song of the same title. When Betsy heard it, she said that she couldn't understand how an outsider could summarise a part of her life so perfectly.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 11:07 AM

"Nice of you to say so as the fine performer you are"
Jim Carroll.
what has anybodys abilties as a performer got to do with giving praise to someone elses singing and song writing skills? even if I was as not as gifted a performer as yourself I would still be entitled to praise MacColls abilities.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 11:39 AM

I wish more people sang 'Shellback' - much neglected in my opinion
The inspiration for it arose from a chance meeting by Charles Parker with an old Welsh sailor who had served under sail Parker was crossing London Bridge when he say an escape artist trussed up in a canvas sack wrapped in chains.
He started to talk to the assistant who, it turned out, had given James M Carpenter songs in Cardiff 50 years earlier, and had jumped ship in the California in the 1930s and joined the I.W.W - the Wobblies, working alongside Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and T-Bone Slim, organising the fruit-pickers.
MacColl and Seeger recorded him and structured the song Shellback around his description of life under sail - it was used for the BBC film, 'Before the Mast' - stunning song.
Talking of new songs, wonder if anybody has come across Con 'Fada' O Driceoll's latest - 'Hunting the Hair' (not a typo, rather a reflection (pun intended) on hair loss).
There were a number of glowing bald-spots when he sang it here at a concert on Saturday night - magic!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 12:44 PM

Ben Bright was his name. Didn't know he'd sung for Carpenter, though.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 01:07 PM

Yup
Nice little monograph on him if anybody would like a copy
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 03:20 PM

For the record, "Singing the Fishing was aird on BBC in 1959. Before the end of 1960, the song was well known (and badly overdone) in Greenwich Village folk circles.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 03:28 PM

Jon,
If you haven't got it I'd take Jim's offer up. He very kindly sent me a copy which I treasure. Thanks, Jim.