Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: JamesHenry
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 08:28 AM

On the contrary it was an educational and enjoyable experience but as the saying goes, "It's hard to kid a kidder"

Did you read them all?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 08:58 AM

Did he go Absent WithOut Leave from the British Army and why is this period in his life glossed over? Where was he hiding? There is a story that he dessed as a hunchback to avoid recognition.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: JamesHenry
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 09:28 AM

Apparently so. Research has revealed that during this period he was known as "AWOL MacColl" and that the Military Police had to regularly drag him out of singing sessions where he was attempting to indoctrinate local club performers into his way of doing things.
In his defence he always stated that he was working on a hunch that this would be good for them.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 10:05 AM

Yes, and he once asked me for the loan of a fiver 'till he got straightened out!

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 12:49 PM

My respect goes up for AWOL MacColl. Attempting to indoctrinate? How 'bout just expressing what you believe? Ewan did a great service doing just that.

"Attempting to indoctrinate" is the business of American mainstream corporate media.

Good on Ewan for taking a courageous stand. The MP's dragging him out of singing sessions is comparable to what death squads do in dicatatorial countries.

They cut off Victor Jara's hands for singing songs of the Nueva Cancion.

Ewan is to be admired because he had the temerity to stand for something.

Only dictators try to squelch free speech. But the songs live.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Big Mick
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 01:38 PM

Yep, Frank, right dead on as usual.

Lizzie, the point of the post was to show how unfair the wording of your opening post was. It screamed of an agenda. I agree with the poster above who indicated that it is easy to throw out a loaded premise and then watch for how the sentiment runs in order to craft your response.

I am dealing with the loss of a close personal friend right now, but I will post more later.

Mick

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 02:49 PM

MacColl's army record was virtually kicked to death on another thread recently (Did MI5 spy on MacColl or something). It didn't reach a satisfactory conclusion then and I very much doubt if it will now.
Next year will see a biography (well researched as far as I can judge) and then we can make up our own minds on whether MacColl was a spy, a deserter or Kaiser Bill's batman with a lot more real information at our disposal.

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 06:41 AM

Did you know how he got his name btw? When Mr Miller moved up to Scotland he was sat in a pub one day listening to a miner talking.

"I was doon at the face today, hewin ma coal..."


:D (tG)

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 07:26 AM

So he was a deserter in an anti fascist war?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 08:07 AM

My father was a card carrying member of the communist party, on one occassion he had to serve one months hard labour in prison.I remember him saying that at the start of the second world war, the British communist partys official line was that this was a capitalist war and communists were not to get involved.Ithink this changed in 1943. this could well be the reason why Ewan was not fighting at the beginning of the second world war.Whatver or however propagandists or historians want to view J Stalin, without him the allies would not have won the second world war. The battle of Stalingrad was Very important in the final determination of the second world war.I for one would not be hear but for ALL the allied forces. I believe Ewan had flaws as a person dont we all,but he was a great songwriter. Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 11:12 AM

Dick,

Interesting points. Apparently the Bank of America and others feared Stalin as well and that's why Hitler was supported early on in the US by certain groups. Hitler was supposed to be the deterrant to Stalin.

My view is that there was no real communism in the USSR. It was a dictatorship under Stalin.

It's true that the battle of Stalingrad was a decisive turning point.

Many early folk lefties were naive about Stalin and what he did. They just didn't know.
Ewan may have been one of those.

So Ewan and Alan Lomax were passionate about folk music. What's wrong with that?
Even though they may have rubbed some people the wrong way.

Anyone with a sense of conviction about anything is bound to step on someone's toes.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Big Mick
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 02:10 PM

Frank's post reminds me again why Lizzie Cornish's title and post are so unfair. Over the many yeara I have been on this forum, I have grown to admire people like Art Thieme who has a very definite view of what constitutes folk music. I would never ask anyone to define him as a folk friend or a folk foe. He is, in the strictest sense, a folk musician. He has forgotten more about the songs than I will ever know. MacColl is the same way. You may not approve of his way of it, but there is no question as to his devotion to it and his devotion to certain principles.

To another matter, there is no question that the Russian Front and the Battle of Stalingrad were major contributors to the downfall of Hitler. Between the fighting grit of the Russians and the weather, they severely depleted Hitler's armies. But Joe Stalin was no hero. He was a murdering despot of the first order. I also don't believe he was a decent communist. I don't believe communism has truly been practiced anywhere.   It is not a system of governance that I could embrace, but neither is it the horrible thing that the US propaganda machine makes it. The totalitarian regime instituted by Stalin was just another dictatorship in the world.

You say the war could not have been won without Stalin. I could make the same statement about Churchill, Roosevelt, DeGaulle, and a number of others. The statement is self evident. The war was won by all the factors.

Mick

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 02:56 PM

Just when you get around to MacColl as an artist - along comes some eejit and changes the subject - ah come on fellers, can't you come up with anything more orginal than ground that has been covered ad-nauseum.
I have nothing to add to this argument about MacColl and his politics (anti-Fascist war my arse - especially when you take into consideration statements by Brit politicians describing the reports of the concentration camps as "rumours put round by whining Yids" - not forgetting the cynical second front delay in the hope that Russia and Germany would rip each other to pieces).
I know of at least two traditional singers who gave evidence against Pete Seeger and his fellow musicians at the McCarthy witch-hunts, a superb banjo player who prevented Woodie Guthrie taking part in a local music festival because he was a 'damned red', an English singer who came from a fascist background (Mosely's party), and if you care to read Lomax you will find that some great singers and musicians from the Southern States were active segregationists who supported, if not participated in the lynchings and burnings.
As much as I might abhor their politics, I hope I am able to discuss their music rationally.
This has been a great thread to date. I cant remember reading as interesting and informative contibutions as Don Firth and Frank Hamilton's for a long time.
I have no doubt that red herrings such as MacColl's pacifism, his change of name, his Scots/Salford background (even his singing with his hand over his ear) are always dragged up to prevent discussion of his singing.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 03:18 PM

I said that without J STALIN, world war two would not have been won. Stalin was mentioned by me because he was determining COMMUNIST PARTY policy.the British communist party was following the Soviet communists party line,which is probably why Ewan macoll was AWOL during the first part of the war. I am sorry but I disagree I dont think the second world war would have been won by the allies without Stalin.having to fight on two fronts defeated Hitler,.Now Churchill had blood on his hands too at Sydney Sreet, and with the introduction of the Black AND tans in Ireland   but he was the man England needed at the time.Likewise Stalin and the Soviet Union. i Dont wish to discuss anything else about Stalin in public, so lets stick to Ewan Macoll I would prefer to remember him for the great songs that he wrote than for any feet of clay he may have had as a person.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 07:11 PM

There were a lot of people dreaming of a better world who had a great deal of faith in Communism and the Communist Revolution. This includes Pete Seeger. But as Lenin muttered, "What's the point of having a revolution if you can't betray it?" And betray it they did. When Seeger and others grasped what was going on, they didn't lose their ideals, but—they backed away from Communism as it was manifesting itself.

I see nothing wrong with that. What is disingenuous is when people attack someone for their former position and don't say anything about their change of mind. That's not telling the whole story, and it's not playing fair.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 07:21 PM

The CP in Great Britain and elsewhere enthusiastically supported the war effort as soon as Hitler attacked the USSR, toward the end of June, 1941.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 09:06 PM

Thanks to Malcolm and Jim for the info on Sheath and Knife. What a link!
Jim also wrote "Just when you get around to MacColl as an artist - along comes some eejit and changes the subject" I understand (and often share) the frustration but good conversations can, occasionally, be like that. At the risk of becoming such an eejit I'd like to comment on Big Mick's "Frank's post reminds me again why Lizzie Cornish's title and post are so unfair" with reference to a technique I've observed a couple of times.

In a past life I used to run school camps at Steiglitz, a more or less derelict goldmining town about 60 miles west of Melbourne. It's heyday had started in 1864 and finished in the 1920s and I was one of only three permanent residents. The old bloke living in what had been the pub was the only resident with any time depth and had been extensively interviewed by various people who were interested in the oral history of the area. A brash young fella I'd known while at university went and wrote an article on the history of Steiglitz for the Geelong Advertiser, the nearest thing to a local paper for the area. He included his contact details as part of the article, which I recognised as containing quite a few simple errors. He later told me that he'd been inundated with letters from all sorts of characters who'd previously resisted all contacts from other more local historians but who insisted that they had documentation to correct his mistakes and 'obvious ignorance.'

At the 1990 international conference on cycads held in Townsville attended by the usual academics (and, more unusually, a swag of seed collectors and plant nursery operators with no academic pretensions) I listened to a presentation by a friend of mine who proceeded to tell the audience that he was writing the then the forthcoming chapter on cycads in the "Flora of Australia" and outlined the names and distributions of the species he intended including. I didn't see him for the next day and a half. When he surfaced he commented "seven [or was it "seventeen"] new species and 12 new localities!"

Both were (and still are, I think) great examples of fishing expeditions where a proposition, whether declared subtly as part of a question or, more provocatively, as part of a declaration can elicit useful information. But I'm well aware that, if you don't want to raise hackles, the technique requires more skill than I can muster.

On a topic more closely related to the thread title, perhaps I should tell the story about how Ewan's classes on voice projection affected the tree frogs at Wyong. Unless you've all heard it before.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: van lingle
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 10:07 PM

Do tell, Rowan.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 12:04 AM

In the early '80s (or late '70s) Ewan came out to Australia and, among his concerts, gave a series of voice projection workshops. I wasn't able to attend either the concerts (which disappointed me, because I'd enjoyed all the times I had had previously with both Peggy and Ewan and I wanted to ask him about his Sheath and Knife version) or the workshops. As a singer of shanties and a caller/MC at bush dances I'd never had any problems with voice projection but I was out of luck there too.

At the workshops Ewan gave everyone lessons in how to move the diaphragm with a series of "Hough!" (for want of any better spelling) ejaculations. The idea was to do these exercises in front of a mirror so that you could see that you weren't forcing the air by moving your shoulders; all the vocalisation had to come from the diaphragm. A friend of mine, who lived at Wyong (on the mid-North Coast of NSW, and thus vaguely subtropical, for all you northern hemisphere people) taped Ewan's performance of these exercises so that he could properly replicate the "Hough!"

My friend would routinely play the tape and perform the exercises in front of his bathroom window. Outside the window lived some tree frogs. After the first couple of days practising the exercises, my friend noticed that, whenever he played the tape, every time Ewan's voice ejaculated "Hough!" the resident frogs would respond with their call, which was very similar to Ewan's call. This became part of the day's routine for my friend, who later commented that he wanted a second tape recorder so that he could record the antiphon-response between Ewan and the frogs.

I never found out whether he'd ever made such a tape of the folk process at work.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 05:08 AM

Since there are clearly several posters on this thread who knew MacColl and his methods far better than I (who never met nor even heard him in the flesh), does any of you have inside knowledge of his creative input to the traditional songs he popularised? I'm thinking specifically of "Four Loom Weaver", which he credited as having been collected from Beckett Whitehead of Delph, in my part of England. Whitehead does not sing this in the collected recordings held at the VWML, and it strikes me as far more likely that he either recited or presented MacColl with the text of the old "Jone O' Grinfilt" poem and that MacColl set it to the grand tune we all know. And did something similar happen with "I Mean to get Jolly Well Drunk", which again has more of the ring of a polemical poem and little in common with Beckett Whithead's generally rural folksong repertoire? (He did sing "To the Begging I Will Go" but again MacColl seems to have made up a new tune for this too) I don't have any axe to grind over this, but it's a matter of interest that many songs were fed into the revival by MacColl and Lloyd after what had clearly been much creative tinkering, and were then passed down the line as completely authentic.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 05:30 AM

The most (in)famous example is, of course, [i]The Recruited Collier[/i], cobbled up and industrialised from a Cumbrian farmworker's poem, but that's been done to death here on other threads. Mind you, someone was arguing vehemently with me the other day that Kate Rusby wrote it . . . Anne Briggs must have had tremendous powers of foresight. After I had left the Critics after a very short time (rather ungratefully but I was young and knew a lot more then than I do now), Ewan and especially Bert Lloyd helped me enormously with my writing. After each published piece, Bert would send me page upon page of advice, single-spaced on a manual typewriter. How I wish I'd kept these as they may have contained clues to help answer Brian Peters' question. And whenever I turned up at the Singers, Ewan would always ask if I was still singing and would tell me how I was always welcome to come back. Very missed chaps and grossly represented by those who never even knew them.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 06:25 AM

>> The most (in)famous example is, of course, [i]The Recruited Collier[/i], cobbled up and industrialised from a Cumbrian farmworker's poem <<

Something similar obviously happened with "The Handweaver and the Factory Maid" (Roy Palmer published a paper on the various versions, and armed with that knowledge you can see the scissor marks and glue in the version popularised by Lloyd). And don't get me started on "The Cutty Wren". None of this is to decry the work of either man, but for those of us interested in what people actually sang in the first place it's sometimes worth doing a bit of digging.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 06:56 AM

Well it works like this. Its called the folk process. Ewan had these rooms full(if he was lucky) of people to interest in folk music. So he came up with something, within his technical ability, that he felt confident and capable of holding the audiences attention with. So he could make as powerful presentation to an audience as possible.

he wasn't the curator of a museum, though god knows there are plenty of people in revival who see themselves as something similar.

And the proof of Ewan's sincerity and the success of his enterprise is that we are here today - talking about these songs and what he did.

Lay off a very decent, sincere guy...and one of the best friends the folk revival ever had.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 07:17 AM

>> Lay off a very decent, sincere guy <<

I thought I'd made it pretty clear I had no agenda against either MacColl or Lloyd. Collating, improving, or patching-up songs is something I've done plenty of myself, although creating what were in effect new songs from fragments, poems and collations, then disseminating them amongst enthusiastic young revival singers, stretches the definition of "folk process" to the very limit, if you ask me. But when, for instance, I'm asked to give a workshop on "Industrial Songs", it might be no bad thing to have an idea of whether any singer predating the folk revival actually sang the songs in question. That has nothing to do with museums or curatorship.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: JamesHenry
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 07:47 AM

Ewan MacColl and Bert Loyd
Filled the hole that was then the folk void
They sought a revival to ensure its survival
Don't dwell on the means they employed.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 08:22 AM

the point of what I was saying that much of this material is audience/artist specific.

Maybe the original artist - knew a local fact, or personality, or even a way of phrasing that would bowl over his audience.

Ewan Macoll had his set of co--ordinates to navigate and the young singers who follow after will have theirs.

I'm obviously not communicating. I've been slung out and studiously ignored at many a traddy gathering of kindred spirits and fisherman's smocks. Its not a new experience.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 08:48 AM

I Dont know if Don Firths comments are aimed at me,but i do not wish to discuss STALIN in depth.It may be that I agree with you,But Iwould need a lot of time to discuss it,and as far as i am concerned This is not the time and place Ewan was a better songwriter,what did Stalin write, even less than Henry the Eighth,             In my opinion Ewan macoll was a great songwriter.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 08:59 AM

>> I'm obviously not communicating. I've been slung out and studiously ignored at many a traddy gathering of kindred spirits and fisherman's smocks. <<

Obviously not, given that you feel the need to bring outdated caricatures like "fisherman's smocks" into a discussion about traditional song.

"Four Loom Weaver" is an extremely powerful song with a magnificent tune. I've sung it myself. I'd love to have been in the room to hear Ewan MacColl perform it. Nonetheless, is the question of no historical interest, whether Becket (spelling corrected) Whitehead actually knew it in that form?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 12:07 PM

What a prat - if that wanker idiot came to my club and told me what I could or couldn't sing I'd break his scotch legs. Good job the shithead is dead!!!

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: JamesHenry
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 12:44 PM

Tourette alert!

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 12:48 PM

No, Captain, my comments were not directed at anyone in particular. They were just an observation that there were (and for that matter, are) many people who embraced what they considered an idealistic position (such as many people, e.g., Pete Seeger and perhaps Ewan MacColl also, but I don't know his history that well), only to be disillusioned by how those ideals work out in practice. There were a lot of Americans who were into Communism who later decided that it wasn't such a good idea after all, especially the way it manifested itself in the Soviet Union. I presume that there were a lot of British, French, Scandinavians, and others as well.

I just think that it's unfair to saddle someone with perpetual guilt because they were young and idealistic, then, after they've matured and changed their minds, continue to insist that they are guilty beyond merely being young and idealistic. We'd all be in deep soup if that were the case.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,The Real DB
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 01:02 PM

I'm afraid my psycho impersonator has been at it again with the most tasteless remarks that he can possibly think of.
As I can't seem to re-join because my e-mail address appears to be simultaneously 'on the database' and 'not on the database' I think it's time to call it a day. From now on all postings from 'Guest DB' are from the sicko psycho.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 02:48 PM

Don't worry DB we are on to him know his email address. he hs also posted on other threads. Will expose or pm, your choice ?

Best wishes
J.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 03:35 PM

MacColl's work on song was purely as a singer, his aim was to put them back in the repertoire and in order to do so he was happy to re-write or collate as the basic integrity of the song was maintained. Usually, but not always, he could tell you what he had done to which song. He never, as far as I know, made any claims to authenticity.
He said Four Loom Weaver and Drinking were recorded from Beckett Whitehead on a field trip for material for a radio programme for the BBC in 1947 with Joan Littlewood. They got Fourpence a Day, T'owd Chap Cam' Ower The Bank (an obscene version of Seven Nights Drunk) and (I think) Moses of The Mail on the same trip. To my knowledge he never had copies of the recordings but kept them in ms form.
He used to tell the story of the time he was singing at a club in Brighton and getting a visit from Big Bill Broonzy who was appearing nearby. Broonzy heard him sing Four Loom Weaver and described it as the nearest thing to an English blues.
Bert, on the other hand, claimed authenticity for most of the songs he sang, though quite often he omitted to say where he got them from. One of his sources of repertoire was the Edith Fowke collection of Canadian songs, some of which he claimed were typically English. I believe somebody has done a great deal of research on Bert's work on Australian songs, though I have never seen the result of this.
I had never heard the story of the tree frogs - thanks for that Rowan.
Luke Kelly's biographer, Des Geraghty tells of the time Kelly was performing at (I think) the Grimsby Club and was staying with friends of Ewan and Peg. One morning his hosts heard peculiar noises coming from the bathroom and, thinking Kelly was having some sort of siezure, they broke down the bathroom door to find Kelly naked in the shower doing his voice excercises.
Incidentally - despite claims to the contrary, Luke Kelly described his time in The Critics group as the most exciting and informative period of his career.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 04:39 PM

I knew Luke Kelly very well before and after I became the Dubliners' first roadie. I heard the story posted by Jim Carroll and asked him about it. He said he was only having a gargle.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: JamesHenry
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 04:52 PM

Wasn't the waxies gargle was it Jim?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 05:47 PM

Do you mean gargle in the 'clearing the throat' sense or gargle in the Irish sense?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 06:08 PM

To the guest that called Macoll a wanker. I think you will find he was born in Salford.as far as i know he was not scotch or scottish although i think his mother was.    2.If he was a wanker it certainly didnt affect his creative flow, perhaps when youve written the amount of good songs that EWAN did we could take seriously your criticisms, in the meantime we could do without your defamatory language.When you come out from behind your cloak of anonymity,perhaps you would send us a list of all the great songs you have written.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 11:40 PM

Thread title sounds like--"Ludwig van Beethoven: Music Friend or Foe?"

After all, he wasn't the easiest person to get along with.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Nerd
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 02:20 AM

eric the Red:

[Colin Irwin] often repeated the erroneous fact that Ewan MacColl was born in Auchterarder, when everyone else in the world knew he was born in Salford.

"Ewan MacColl is that rare combination of traditional and revival singer at one and the same time. Born in Auchterarder, Perthshire, Scotland..." From Broadside Ballads [Folkways 3443, 1962], notes by Ewan MacColl.

As the above shows, Ewan sometimes claimed (or allowed his publicist to claim) that he was born in Auchterarder, and moved to Salford later.

So, yes, MacColl lied a bit about himself. Lloyd lied a fair bit about songs (see the Reynardine thread and the Recruited Collier thread, which both have a link to my 2004 scholarly article, for more on Lloyd's approach). I wouldn't venture a guess on Brian P's question about "four loom weaver," but I wouldn't put anything past either of them when it came to reworking a song into something they liked better.

As to the original question, Friend or Foe of the music? MacColl made huge contributions, and will be remembered for them long after our comments here are forgotten. Brian Peters continues in that tradition (as do many of us, I'm sure). So, I would say, "friend."

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 04:31 AM

After all, he wasn't the easiest person to get along with.

Whilst not accusing anyone - this is often repeated through hearsay. Whilst not everyone would agree, correspondent after correspondent in this thread - and many others - have testified to the fact that he was precisely the opposite to what people "spread " about him.

As for Colin Irwin's record as a journalist - he couldn't tell "Oh COme All Ye Faithful" from "While Shepherds......." when he came up here to Sheffield for the carols. Perhaps the locals got him pissed!!

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: JamesHenry
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 04:44 AM

Are you up there Ewan
Reading this tread?
What do you think
Of what's written and said?
Your life and your work
Has still got us all guessing
Was your passion in life
A curse or a blessing?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 04:53 AM

To Jim Carroll: Thanks, Jim; a little more of the picture emerges....

To Nerd:

>> I wouldn't put anything past either of them when it came to reworking a song into something they liked better. <<

Indeed not. And nothing wrong with reworking at all. So long as we don't lose sight of the songs that were actually sung in the tradition. If we do that, we risk being diverted down attractive but entirely misleading pathways such as the Reynardine "werefox" example, that I'd love to read about if I could make the link to your article work, Steve! (We must talk about this stuff sometime).

>> I would say, "friend." <<

Without question.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 05:09 AM

I meant to mention this in my last post.

Others who have been known to "rework" songs include Martin Carthy. And I am pretty sure the Watersons have done so too - though in fairness I canot think of a particular example at the moment.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 05:49 AM

Jim Carroll, you'll have to ask Luke that.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 09:48 AM

Further information on the 1948 collecting trip by MacColl and Joan Littlewood.
A programme entitled The Song Collector directed by Olive Shaply using some of the songs collected on the trip was broadcast by the BBC in the same year.
Wonder if they - or anybody kept a copy!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 11:16 AM

There was a programme on R4 (one of those Monday 13.30 - 14.00 music docs, I think) a couple of years ago about Olive Shapley's broadcasting career. There's also her autobiography:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/185727038X/026-0501046-0149248?v=glance&n=266239

Or have you tried asking BBC Manchester, or maybe the Village Music Project?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 03:57 PM

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST,Nerd at work
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 04:05 PM

Oops, that last post didn't work!

Yes, folkiedave, I wasn't suggesting there was anything wrong with reworking a song. In fact, usually the song comes out the better for it. However, to rework a song extensively and then claim to have collected it, as Lloyd has certainly done and MacColl may have done, is a bad policy. Not only is it inherently dishonest, it makes it harder for people like Brian Peters and me, who care about such things, to sort out what was in the tradition and what wasn't.

To those folks who don't care, fair enough...but for their purposes, the reworkers might as well admit what they are doing. For ours, it's much better if they admit what they are doing. No one's life is improved by the deception.

As sins go, this a very minor one, as we'd all admit.

Brian, a link to a more complete, and fully accessible, version of my article has been added to the Reynardine thread by Malcolm Douglas. Handy fellow, Malcolm!

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl ...Folk Friend Or Foe?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 04:39 PM

Nerd,
I agree with you it does matter if they are passed off as the real thing.
I know that Bert did it regularly - don't know that Ewan did, though he might have at one time or another.
And then there's the story of Aunt Mollie Jackson giving Lomax Robin Hood ballads - from (I think) the Kitteridge edition of Child she had on her bookshelf. Any truth in this story?
Jim Carroll