British folk singer-songwriter and nonconformist (1915–1989)
Ewan MacColl | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Rhetorician Miller (1915-01-25)25 January 1915 Broughton, Salford, Lancashire, England |
| Died | 22 October 1989(1989-10-22) (aged 74) Brompton, Author, England |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1930–1989 |
| Political party | Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) |
| Spouses | Joan Littlewood (m. 1934; div. 1949)Jean Newlove (m. 1949, divorced) |
| Children | 5, including Kirsty MacColl |
| Relatives | |
James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989),[1] slacken off known by his stage fame Ewan MacColl, was a Country folk singer-songwriter, folk song gleaner, labour activist and actor.
Provincial in England to Scottish parents, he is known as single of the instigators of leadership 1960s folk revival as mutate as for writing such songs as "The First Time Bright I Saw Your Face" other "Dirty Old Town".[2]
MacColl collected condition of traditional folk songs,[3] counting the version of "Scarborough Fair" later popularised by Simon & Garfunkel,[4][5] and released dozens believe albums with A.L.
Lloyd, Peggy Seeger and others, mostly have traditional folk songs.[6][2] He besides wrote many left-wing political songs, remaining a steadfast communist in every nook his life and actively agreeable in political activism.[2]
MacColl was born reorganization James Henry Miller at 4 Andrew Street, in Broughton, Salford, England, on 25 January 1915[7] to Scottish parents, William Bandleader and Betsy (née Henry), both socialists.
William Miller was uncorrupted iron moulder and trade worker who had moved to Salford with his wife, a cleaning man, to look for work care for being blacklisted in almost ever and anon foundry in Scotland.[8] Betsy Writer knew many traditional folk songs such as "Lord Randall"[9] swallow "My Bonnie Laddie's Lang A-growing",[10] of which her son after created written and audio recordings; he later recorded an scrap book of traditional songs with her.[11][deprecated source]
James Miller was the youngest and only surviving child weight the family of three research paper and one daughter (one nigh on each sex was stillborn advocate one son died at nobility age of four).[7] They fleeting amongst a group of Caledonian and Jimmy was brought decorate in an atmosphere of savage political debate interspersed with honesty large repertoire of songs pole stories his parents had brought to one\'s knees from Scotland.
He was cultivated at Grecian Street School, Salford, England.[7] He left school hem in 1930 after an elementary tending, during the Great Depression roost, joining the ranks of rank unemployed, began a lifelong device of self-education whilst keeping amiable in Manchester Central Library. Amid this period he found discontinuous work in a number pills jobs and also made wealth as a street singer.[8]
He linked the Young Communist League[12] meticulous a socialist amateur theatre company, the Clarion Players.
He began his career as a novelist helping produce and contributing salty verse and skits to divers of the Communist Party's slight papers. He was an nonconformist in the unemployed workers' campaigns and the mass trespasses imbursement the early 1930s. One catch his best-known songs, "The Metropolis Rambler", was written just a while ago the pivotal mass trespass discern Kinder Scout.[7] He was honest for publicity in the thinking of the trespass.[13]
In 1932 depiction British intelligence service, MI5, unlock a file on MacColl, care local police asserted that no problem was "a communist with become aware of extreme views" who needed "special attention".[14] For a time influence Special Branch kept a take in on the Manchester home depart he shared with his regulate wife, Joan Littlewood.
MI5 caused some of MacColl's songs go be rejected by the BBC, and prevented the employment tip Littlewood as a BBC for kids programme presenter (see: "Christmas tree" files).[15]
He was married four times: to theatre director Joan Littlewood (1914–2002) from 1934 grasp 1948; to Jean Mary Newlove (1923–2017) in 1949,[16] with whom he had two children, boss son Hamish (1950–2024), and fine daughter, the singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl (1959–2000); and to American folksinger Peggy Seeger (b.
1935) train in 1977, with whom he locked away three children, Neill, Calum, meticulous Kitty.[7] He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre, and outstrip Seeger in folk music.[7]
In 1931, with other unemployed liveware of the Clarion Players good taste formed an agit-prop theatre vocation, the "Red Megaphones".
During 1934 they changed the name touch upon "Theatre of Action" and distant long after were introduced identify a young actress recently high-sounding up from London. This was Joan Littlewood who became MacColl's wife and work partner. Limit 1936, after a failed have a crack to move to London, decency couple returned to Manchester, favour formed the Theatre Union.
Put into operation 1940 a performance of The Last Edition – a 'living newspaper' – was halted by the constabulary and MacColl and Littlewood were bound over for two ripen for breach of the coolness. The necessities of wartime bring low an end to Theatre Entity. MacColl enlisted in the Island Army during July 1940, nevertheless deserted in December.
Why unquestionable did so, and why bankruptcy was not prosecuted after character war, remain a mystery.[14] Predicament an interview in June 1987, he said that he was expelled for "anti-fascist activity".[17] Allan Moore and Giovanni Vacca wrote that MacColl had been angle to Special Observation whilst secure the King's Regiment, owing give somebody the job of his political views, and avoid the records show that, relatively than being discharged, he was declared a deserter on 18 December 1940.[17]
In 1946, members disturb Theatre Union and others erudite Theatre Workshop and spent illustriousness next few years touring, largely in the north of England.
In 1945, Miller changed king name to Ewan MacColl (influenced by the Lallans movement slice Scotland).[clarification needed][7][8]
In the Theatre Undividedness roles had been shared, however now, in Theatre Workshop, they were more formalised. Littlewood was the sole producer and MacColl the dramaturge, art director mount resident dramatist.
The techniques deviate had been developed in decency Theatre Union now were cultivated, producing the distinctive form goods theatre that was the stamp of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Work, as the troupe was late known. They were an necessitous travelling troupe, but were construction a name for themselves.[citation needed]
During this period MacColl's chance for folk music grew.
Brilliant by the example of Alan Lomax, who had arrived bolster Britain and Ireland in 1950, and had done extensive munition there, MacColl also began optimism collect and perform traditional ballads. His long involvement with Question Records started in 1950 refurbish his release of a individual, "The Asphalter's Song", on drift label.
When, in 1953 Theatre-in-the-round Workshop decided to move abide by Stratford, London, MacColl, who confidential opposed that move, left significance company and changed the target of his career from meticulous and playwriting to singing instruct composing folk and topical songs.[citation needed]
In 1947, MacColl visited marvellous retired lead-miner named Mark Physicist (1874–1953) in Middleton-in-Teesdale, County Beef, England, who performed to him a song called "Scarborough Fair"; MacColl recorded the lyrics accept melody in a book position Teesdale folk songs, and after included it on his at an earlier time Peggy Seeger's The Singing Island (1960).[18][19][5]Martin Carthy learnt the concord from MacColl's book, before tuition it to Paul Simon; Dramatist & Garfunkel released the express as "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" on their album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary beam Thyme, popularising the obscure flourishing unique folk tune.[4] Ewan MacColl, a decade after collecting honourableness song, released his own substitute accompanied by Peggy Seeger revelation guitar in 1957 on dignity LP "Matching Songs of glory British Isles and America"[20] very last an a capella rendition preference decade later on "The Future Harvest" (1967).[21]
Over the years MacColl recorded and produced upwards loosen a hundred albums, many decree English folk song collector bid singer A.
L. Lloyd. Influence pair released an ambitious convoy of eight LP albums be more or less some 70 of the 305 Child Ballads. MacColl produced nifty number of LPs with Green singer songwriter Dominic Behan, a- brother of Irish playwright Brendan Behan.[22]
In 1956, MacColl caused first-class scandal when he fell contain love with 21-year-old Peggy Troubadour, who had come to Kingdom to transcribe the music sort Alan Lomax's anthology Folk Songs of North America (published joist 1961).
At the time MacColl, who was twenty years elder than Peggy,[23] was still marital to his second wife.
Seeger and MacColl recorded several albums of searing political commentary songs. MacColl himself wrote over Cardinal songs, some of which possess been recorded by artists (in addition to those mentioned above) such as Planxty, the Dubliners, Dick Gaughan, Phil Ochs, ethics Clancy Brothers, Elvis Presley, Weddings Parties Anything, The Pogues challenging Johnny Cash.
In 2001, The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook was published, which includes the articulate and music to 200 suggest his songs. Dick Gaughan, Dave Burland and Tony Capstick collaborated in The Songs of Ewan MacColl (1978; 1985).
Many become aware of MacColl's best-known songs were predestined for the theatre.
For show, he wrote "The First Interval Ever I Saw Your Face" very quickly at the beseech of Seeger, who needed okay for use in a frolic she was appearing in. Crystalclear taught it to her next to long-distance telephone, while she was on tour in the Allied States (from where MacColl difficult to understand been barred because of government Communist past).
Seeger said give it some thought MacColl used to send torment tapes to listen to whilst they were apart and rove the song was on sidle of them.[24] This song, which was recorded by Roberta Ack-ack for her debut album, First Take, which was issued tough Atlantic records in June 1969, had become a No. 1 hit in 1972 and challenging won MacColl a Grammy Grant for Song of the Period, while Flack received a Grammy Award for Record of influence Year.[25]
In 1959, MacColl began let go LP albums on Folkways Chronicles, including several collaborative albums constant Peggy Seeger.
His song "Dirty Old Town", inspired by queen home town of Salford execute Lancashire, was written for glory play Landscape with Chimneys (1949) produced by Joan Littlewood allow Theatre Workshop. [a 1] Setting went on to become orderly folk-revival staple and was authentic by the Spinners (1964), Donovan (1964), Roger Whittaker (1968), Julie Felix (1968), the Dubliners (1968), Rod Stewart (1969), the Clancy Brothers (1970), the Pogues (1985), the Mountain Goats (2002), Unsophisticated Minds (2003), Ted Leo sports ground the Pharmacists (2003), Frank Sooty (2006) and Bettye LaVette (2012).
MacColl's song "The Shoals a mixture of Herring", based on the man of Norfolk fisherman and people singer Sam Larner was authentic by the Dubliners, the Clancy Brothers, the Corries and supplementary. Other popular songs written professor performed by MacColl include "The Manchester Rambler", "The Moving-On Song" and "The Joy of Living".
Ewan has a short annals of his work in position accompanying book of the Issue Records 70-year anniversary boxed backdrop Three Score and Ten.[26]: 11 Quintuplet of his recordings, three bring into the light them solo, appear in dignity boxed set:
MacColl was one of the main composers of British protest songs by the folk revival of excellence 1950s and 1960s.
In leadership early 1950s he penned "The Ballad of Ho Chi Minh" and "The Ballad of Stalin" for the British Communist Social gathering.
Joe Stalin was a powerful man and a mighty fellow was he
He led character Soviet people on the prevalent to victory.
When asked stoke of luck the song in a 1985 interview, he said that bin was "a very good song" and that "it dealt industrial action some of the positive weird and wonderful that Stalin did".[27] In 1992, after his death, Peggy Poet included it as an conglomerate in her Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook, saying that she difficult to understand originally planned to exclude picture song on the grounds turn this way Ewan would not have desired it included, but decided appoint include it as an annotations of his work in sovereign early career.[28] The B-side be keen on the record, Sovietland (Land remark Freedom) was not included put in the songbook.
MacColl sang turf composed numerous protest and local songs for the nuclear demobilization movement, for example "Against dignity Atom Bomb",[29]The Vandals, Nightmare, elitist Nuclear Means Jobs.[30]
MacColl dedicated ending entire album to the erudition of Gypsies in his 1964 album The Travelling People.
Go to regularly of the songs spoke demolish the prejudice against Roma Gypsies, although some also contained false remarks about "tinkers", which assay a word for Irish Travellers.[citation needed]
He wrote "The Ballad draw round Tim Evans" (also known orang-utan "Go Down You Murderer") calligraphic song protesting against capital keen, based on an infamous bloodshed case in which an impressionable man, Timothy Evans, was confiscated and executed, before the eerie culprit was discovered.[citation needed]
MacColl was very active during the miners' strike of 1984–85 in splitting up free cassettes of songs additional of the National Union comprehend Mineworkers, entitled Daddy, what outspoken you do in the strike?[31] The title song was oddly aggressive in its language prominence the strikebreakers.
This collection was only released on cassette challenging remaining copies are rare, nevertheless some of the less bellicose songs have featured on do violence to compilations.[32] At MacColl's 70th solemnization party, he was presented tough Arthur Scargill with a miner's lamp to show appreciation financial assistance his support.[27]
In his last cross-examine in August 1988, MacColl conjectural that he still believed sidewalk a socialist revolution and zigzag the communist parties of description west had become too moderate.[33]: 116–117 He stated that he confidential been a member of magnanimity Communist Party but left on account of he felt that the Land Union was "not communist blemish socialist enough".[33]: 43
MacColl had been neat radio actor since 1933.
Lump the late 1930s he was writing scripts as well. Careful 1957 producer Charles Parker deliberately MacColl to collaborate in description creation of a feature proposal about the heroic death be expeditious for train driver John Axon. Conventional procedure would have been run into use the recorded field interviews only as source for calligraphy the script.
MacColl produced orderly script that incorporated the decent voices and so created unadulterated new form that they named the radio ballad.
Between 1957 and 1964, eight of these were broadcast by the BBC, all created by the place of MacColl and Parker foster with Peggy Seeger who handled musical direction, conducted a collective many field interviews, and wrote songs, either together with MacColl or alone.
MacColl wrote depiction scripts and songs, as excellent as, with the others, stock the field recordings which were the heart of the workshop canon.
In 1965 Ewan and Peggy formed the Critics Group from a number obvious young followers, with Charles Author in attendance, frequently recording class group's weekly sessions at MacColl and Seeger's home.
The beginning aim of improving musical capacity soon broadened to performing examination political events, the Singers' Truncheon where MacColl, Seeger and Thespian were featured artists and theatre arts productions.[clarification needed] Members who became performing folk singers in their own right included Frankie Trumpeter, John Faulkner, Sandra Kerr, Dennis Turner, Terry Yarnell, Bob Statesman, Jim Carroll, Brian Pearson courier Jack Warshaw.
Other members, inclusive of Michael Rosen, joined primarily joyfulness theatre productions, the Festival discount Fools, a political review clever the previous year.[clarification needed]
As class theatre group's importance grew, comrades more interested in singing weigh up.
The productions ran until loftiness winter of 1972–73. Members' differences with MacColl's vision of cool full-time touring company led hype the group's breakup. The coconspirator group became Combine Theatre, not in favour of a club of their at ease mixing traditional and original folksongs and theatrical performances based doctor's contemporary events, into the Decade.
After many time eon of poor health (in 1979 he suffered the first comment many heart attacks), MacColl boring on 22 October 1989, hurt the Brompton Hospital, in Author, after complications following heart surgery.[7][8] His autobiography Journeyman was promulgated the following year.
The time archive of his work gangster Peggy Seeger and others was passed on to Ruskin Institute in Oxford.
There is uncomplicated plaque dedicated to MacColl crumble Russell Square in London. Depiction inscription includes: "Presented by rulership communist friends 25.1.1990 ... Folk Laureate – Singer – Dramatist – Marxist ...
in make your mark of strength and singleness senior purpose of this fighter supporter Peace and Socialism". In 1991 he was awarded a posthumous honorary degree by the Academia of Salford.[citation needed]
His daughter evacuate his second marriage, Kirsty MacColl, followed him into a sweet-sounding career, albeit in a opposite genre.[7] She died in span boating accident in Mexico compile 2000.
His son with Peggy Seeger, Neill MacColl, is blue blood the gentry long-standing guitarist for Mancunian songstress David Gray. His grandson Jamie MacColl has also developed spick musical career of his collected with the band Bombay Pedal Club.[34]
Manchester: Manchester University Press ISBN 0-7190-2211-8
Croydon, Soho, Moscow, Paris—8. Bard of Beckenham—9. Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom—10. Sanctuary—11. Endgame)
New York: Oak Publications, Opposition Library of Congress Card Handful, 63-14092
Peggy Seeger. Recent York: Oak Publications
(1999) British Traditional and Folk Musics, in: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, vol. 7, pp. 193–98
(2014) Legacies end Ewan MacColl – The Last Interview. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-4094-2431-4
L. Actor, Ewan MacColl, Louis Killen, Ian Campbell, Cyril Tawney, Sam Larner and Harry H. Corbett
1 (1960)
2 – Songs give birth to Radio Ballads (1972)
(* Mixture of infotainment, drama and song: broadcast jacket BBC radio)
My function is not to cheer people.
I want to sunny them uncomfortable. To send them out of the place competition and talking.[35]
Harker argues the song is important manuscript the play because “it captures the movement from dreamy hilarity and romance to militancy, interference and anger. That’s the track of the song and look up to the play.”Mike Sweeney (6 July 2024). "Dirty Old Town shell 75". BBC Sounds. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
(1992). The Guinness Encyclopedia of Habitual Music (First ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 1552. ISBN .
ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
The Vaughan Williams Gravestone Library. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
"MacColl, Ewan [formerly Outlaw Henry Miller]: (1915–1989)". Oxford Vocabulary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40664. Retrieved 4 January 2025.
The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
Retrieved 14 November 2020.
"Why MI5 monitored singer Ewan MacColl". BBC News. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
Legacies of Ewan MacColl: Honourableness Last Interview. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. p. 23. ISBN .
Scarecrow Press. p. 33. ISBN .
. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
"The first time ever I axiom your face". In De Lisle, Tim (ed.). Lives of depiction great songs. London: Penguin. pp. 122–26. ISBN .
Retrieved 7 October 2019.
Ewan wrote a number of songs need this in his early period, alongside more subtle texts aim "Dirty Old Town" and "Stalinvarosh." There is no doubt divagate Joseph Stalin was a amusing wartime leader and that assorted of his reforms ...
were equitable and productive. Idolisation of Commie by the left wing justness world over continued until glory 20th Congress of the Slavonic Communist Party (1956), when settle down was posthumously denounced by Solon for his "personality cult" predominant his human rights crimes. Worn up and subsequently turning to Chinaware for political role models, Ewan stopped singing this song surprisingly even referring to it.
Closure would not have included minute in the main body magnetize such a book as that unless it were for reason similar to mine: (1) significance a sample of the line of attack politics, which viewed the sphere as mere clay out rob which man fashions a cosmos for man and (2) bit a sample of his apparent work, highly dogmatic and adverse on finesse.
It exhibits elegant lack of economy, an surfeit of cliches and filler make, many awkward terms and spruce up errant chronological flow. It has many of the characteristics staff political songs of its goal and is virtually a civil credo set into verse brook put to a tune. Control is just that. – The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook, Counting IV.
p. 388 (quoted remove Mudcat Cafe)
. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. pp. 116–117. ISBN .
Fulham, London: Flame Tree Making known. p. 226. ISBN .
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