Cress
Well-known member
The Real MacColl - BBC Sounds
John Cooper Clarke looks back at the life of broadcaster and folk singer, Ewan MacColl.
www.bbc.co.uk
Ewan MacColl
- Thread starter Cress
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www.bbc.co.uk
Redwurzel
Well-known member
Ewan was the father of modern folk music folk to me.
He also lived an interesting life, because of his political beliefs he was judged the "enemy within" by many of the UK authorities.
At one point it was rumoured he was harboured by Ruth Pennyman @ Ormesby Hall, when he was under tight surveillance by MI5. Ruth had also hosted the socialist theatre company @ Ormesby Hall run by his first wife Joan Littlewood.
I have a LP of Industrial folk songs performed by Ewan, produced around 1963. Before this period folk was more seen as songs from rural or coastal towns and villages. I would guess this help inspire Graham Miles and the Teesside Fettlers and later Vin Garbutt.
Ewan also visited old lead miners (like some of my distant relatives) in the 1940s and 1950s around Middleton in Teesdale, finding traditional songs they sung like Four Pence a Day and Scarborough Fair. As we know S/Fair was taken gup by Simon and Garfunkel and made a wordwide hit. His third wife was Peggy Seeger who was big on the US folk
scene.
He also lived an interesting life, because of his political beliefs he was judged the "enemy within" by many of the UK authorities.
At one point it was rumoured he was harboured by Ruth Pennyman @ Ormesby Hall, when he was under tight surveillance by MI5. Ruth had also hosted the socialist theatre company @ Ormesby Hall run by his first wife Joan Littlewood.
I have a LP of Industrial folk songs performed by Ewan, produced around 1963. Before this period folk was more seen as songs from rural or coastal towns and villages. I would guess this help inspire Graham Miles and the Teesside Fettlers and later Vin Garbutt.
Ewan also visited old lead miners (like some of my distant relatives) in the 1940s and 1950s around Middleton in Teesdale, finding traditional songs they sung like Four Pence a Day and Scarborough Fair. As we know S/Fair was taken gup by Simon and Garfunkel and made a wordwide hit. His third wife was Peggy Seeger who was big on the US folk
scene.
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It would appear he was certainly on the vetting list kept by the man in room 105 at BBC Broadcasting House.