Ewan MacColl: 1915 - 1989
A Political Journey

Ewan had been making up songs since he was a lad, and from the very beginning of his theatrical life he was a singer as well as an actor. He wrote Manchester Rambler when he was 17 in the aftermath of the 1932 Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout. Another of his most famous songs "Dirty Old Town" was written to cover an awkward scene change in "Landscape with Chimneys" (1949).

He was not at all happy with the decision, made by Theatre Workshop in 1953, to settle in London, and pulled back from full involvement, concentrating on his other love, folksong. Alan Lomax introduced him to A. L. Lloyd and in that new friendship was created a source of inspiration and direction for the growing folk movement. They worked together on several projects in the next few years, the most famous of which are probably their collections of sea shanties, "Row Bullies, Row" and the " Blackball Line ".

The Ballad and Blues concerts were originally conceived as fund raisers for Theatre Workshop but soon spawned a club which established itself at The Princess Louise, a pub in Holborn. In 1961 it was renamed the Singers Club. It closed its doors for the last time in 1991
Ballad and Blues Concert : Royal Festival Hall, July 5th 1954

Ewan and Peggy Seeger first met in 1954, and by 1956 were established as a musical and romantic partnership, which lasted until Ewan's death in 1989.

In 1954 Ewan produced Shuttle and Cage , a songbook, and an album, of industrial songs. Some years later Ewan and Peggy produced Second Shift , a further collection.

As politically committed as ever Ewan and Peggy wrote songs for the progressive causes they supported, and contributed to songbooks published by groups like the Workers' Music Association, the Young Communist League and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Ewan was a regular contributor to 'Sing' ("published for the London Youth Choir"). The May Day supplement for 1955 contains seven songs, four by Ewan. (Hard Case, Fare Thee Well Westminster, Against the Atom Bomb, and For Peace and Lasting Friendship)

In 1963 Ewan produced a songbook acknowledging his debt to his parents for his wealth of song, A Personal Choice of Scottish Folksongs and Ballads .

In 1965 they formed the Critics Group, a circle of songwriters and musicians who aimed to improve their skills through creative and critical workshops.

The Festival of Fools

This was an annual event which took place at The New Merlin's Cave in Marjorie Street, London for the first six weeks of the year. Each Festival consisted of skits, monologues, songs, readings, sound effects and dances which blended into an imaginative and colourful interpretation of the past year's news. The Critics Group collected and catalogued material for the first nine months of the year: news items, quotes from politicians, pop songs, advertisements, cartoons. etc. During October and November, Ewan drew up a script and wrote songs. Then everyone was involved in assembling lighting, props, and costumes. Charles Parker put a sound cue tape together and Peggy was responsible for stage management, musical arrangments and training of the singers. Like Theatre Workshop, Ewan not only wrote the show but produced and directed it. Unlike Theatre Workshop, he did not have acting parts. We fitted the Cave out with three stages and fitted 170 seats around them, allowing only minimal aisles for actors' access. Oxygen was in short supply and top-ups of beer were stashed under your seat, for the show lasted for two-and-a-half hours with only one interval.

Songs from the 1965 Festival of Fools:
Execution Song
Gravedigger's Song
Politician's Alphabet
Seasons of Mist (poem)
McEwen's Rant

Songs from the 1967 Festival of Fools
Disc of Sun
The Flower People
Prince Charles's Wage Rise
Yankee Doodle
Home on the Range

Songs from the 1968 Festival of Fools
Lament on the Death of A Nobody
Let's Pretend
Look At You
Nation of Animal Lovers
New Policemen
Student Edward
We Don't Want to Live Like That
All Those Murdered People

Songs from the 1970 Festival of Fools
Here's to Old Jack
Holiday Song
New Boys
Tatty Underpants
White Tornado

Songs from the 1971 Festival of Fools (a reprise of the 1970 script with one addition)
Love for Love

In 1967 Peggy and Ewan decided to produce a periodical, illustrated song collections mixing the old with the new. Between 1968 and 1985 21 issues of the New City Songster were produced. In practice Peggy was the editor/publisher, Ewan's role being limited to contributing new, mostly political songs, to several issues.
The complete run of NCS is available on microfiche from University Publications of America, 4520 East-West Highway, Suite 800, Bethesda MD 20814, USA.

In 1985 a Seventieth Birthday Concert was organised in celebration of Ewan's life. The programme contained an appreciation by Karl Dallas.
The concert was also a benefit for the National Union of Mineworkers, then involved in a year long strike over pit closures. Ewan and Peggy also produced a recording about the issures of the strike in the form of a radio ballad.

The 1986 Peace Calendar - Still Singing for our Lives produced by Better Days includes the Critics Groups' song Grey October.
"The same day that a coalmine slid down and engulfed Pantglas Junior School in Aberfan, Glamorgan, South Wales, a similar school in Thuy Dan, Thi Binh Province, North Vietnam, was hit by American bombs."

Publications

This is not a complete list. It has been impossible to fully document MacColl's publishing life during the late 1940s and mid-1950s as he contributed to and often acted as editor on many small pamphlets and songbooks. Most of these were in conjunction with party political and cultural groups such as the Workers' Music Association. One or two of his songs were credited as folk songs in such booklets, a few of which are included in the following list.

Scotland Sings
110 Traditional Scottish folk songs (W.M.A., The Workers' Music Association, London, June 1953) Reissued in 1984.

Shuttle and Cage
Industrial Folk Songs of England and Scotland (The Workers' Music Association, London, March 1954) Reissued in 1984.

A Personal Choice of Scottish Folksongs and Ballads
A collection of MacColl's favourite traditional songs (Workers' Music Association, the mid-1950s)

Singing Island
In collaboration with Peggy Seeger, an anthology of British folk songs (Mills Music, London, 1960).

Songs for the Sixties
In collaboration with Peggy Seeger, a collection of topical songs (Workers' Music Association, London, 1961).

The Peace Songbook
Songs for peace (Workers' Music Association, London, 1960s) Reprinted in 1989.

The Peggy Seeger- Ewan MacColl Songbook
In collaboration with Peggy Seeger, 51 contemporary songs (Oak Publications, New York, 1963).

Folk Songs and Ballads of Scotland
Scots traditional songs (Oak Publications, New York, 1965).

I'm a Freeborn Man
In collaboration with Peggy Seeger, contemporary songs (Oak Publications, New York, 1968).

Shellback, reminiscences of Ben Bright, mariner.
In collaboration with Peggy Seeger, a monograph on the life of Ben Bright, a sailor whose working life had straddled the last days of sail, the steam era and extended into the period of diesel-driven ships.(History Workshop Pamphlets, 1973).

Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland
In collaboration with Peggy Seeger, an anthology of traditional songs collected by the two authors between 1961 and 1976 (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1977).

Theatres of the Left
In collaboration with Raphael Samuel and Stuart Cosgrove, a History Workshop Journal production (Routledge Kegan Paul, London, 1985).

Agit-Prop to Theatre Workshop
In collaboration with Howard Goomey, political playscripts 1930-1950 (Manchester University Press, London, 1986).

Till Doomsday in the Afternoon
In collaboration with Peggy Seeger, the folklore of a family of Scots travelling people, the Stewarts of Blairgowrie (Manchester University Press, London, 1986).

Journeyman
Ewan MacColl's autobiography, issued posthumously (Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1990).

Awards and Honours included :

A gold disc of (and for) "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

The Ivor Novello Award for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

Songwriter of the Year 1972 award (given by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger received an award in 1971 for the most ambitious and successful recording project of the year for the Argo ten-volume ballad series, The Long Harvest.