Folk-singer, composer, and writer, born in Salford, Greater Manchester, NW England, UK. As a playwright, he collaborated with Joan Littlewood in forming the experimental Theatre Workshop in the 1940s, and reviving street theatre. Later he became a pioneer of the British folk-music revival. His series of Radio Ballads, begun in 1957, combining contemporary social comment with traditional musical forms, had a powerful influence on songwriting and performing in subsequent decades. As a collector of traditional folk-song, he published several anthologies. Among his own compositions were Dirty Old Town, Freeborn Man, and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. His wife Peggy Seeger (1935 ) and son Callum MacColl are well-known musicians in their own right. His daughter Kirsty MacColl (19592000) was also a musician.
Ewan MacColl (25 January 1915 - 22 October 1989) was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer.
Early history
MacColl was born James (Jimmie) Miller in Salford, Lancashire in England, to Scottish parents, William and Betsy Miller.
In 1932 the British intelligence service, MI5, opened a file on MacColl, after the Chief Constable of Salford told them that the singer was a Communist Party member. MI5 caused some of MacColl's songs to be banned from the BBC, and blocked the employment of Joan Littlewood as a BBC children's programme presenter.
MacColl enlisted in the Army in July 1940, but deserted in December.
Acting career
In 1931, with other unemployed members of the Clarion Players he formed an agit-prop group, the Red Megaphones.
In 1936, after a failed attempt to relocate to London, the couple returned to Manchester, and formed Theatre Union.
In 1946 members of Theatre Union and others formed Theatre Workshop and spent the next few years touring, mostly in the north of England. Jimmie Miller had by then changed his name to Ewan MacColl. Littlewood was the sole producer and MacColl the dramaturge, art director and resident dramatist.
The techniques that had been developed in Theatre Union now were refined, producing the distinctive form of theatre which was the hallmark of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop as the troupe was later known.
Music
In this period MacColl's enthusiasm for folk music grew. In 1953 Theatre Workshop opted to settle in Stratford, London, and MacColl, who was opposed to the move, left and began to concentrate on the promotion and performance of folk music.
As well as writing and performing, MacColl followed in the footsteps of his colleague Alan Lomax and collected traditional ballads.
In 1956, MacColl caused a scandal by leaving his then second wife, Jean Newlove, the mother of his children, Hamish and Kirsty, for Peggy Seeger, who was many years his junior.
This song became a #1 hit for Roberta Flack in 1972; MacColl won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for it, while Flack won the Record of the Year award for it.
His other best-known song is "Dirty Old Town", written about his home town of Salford in Lancashire.
Radio
MacColl had been a radio actor since 1933. MacColl produced a script that incorporated the actual voices and so created a new form that they called the radio ballad.
Between 1957 and 1964, eight of these were broadcast by the BBC, all created by the team of MacColl and Parker together with Peggy Seeger who handled musical direction. MacColl wrote the scripts and the songs, as well as, with the others, collecting the field recordings which were the heart of the productions.
Songwriting
Seeger and MacColl recorded several albums of searing political commentary songs. MacColl himself wrote over 300 songs, some of which have been recorded by artists (in addition to those mentioned above) such as Planxty, The Dubliners, Dick Gaughan, The Clancy Brothers, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. In 2001, The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook was published, which includes the words and music to 200 of his songs.
There is a plaque dedicated to MacColl in Russell Square in London.
His daughter from his second marriage, Kirsty MacColl, followed him into a musical career, albeit less traditionally.
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