Black and White: The Definitive Collection

Black and White: The Definitive Collection

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
MacColl was a renaissance man of folk music, not as well known as Seeger or Guthrie, but in many ways just as important. Born in Scotland in 1915, MacColl knew and recorded thousands of traditional British and Celtic songs, a generous sampling of which is here offered. His voice can be a bit of a shock--wild and rustic and thick with dialect--but matched with original and traditional material like "Dirty Old Town" (made infamous by the Pogues), "Driver's Song," "Looking for a Job," and "Joy of Living," MacColl's art has vigor and immediacy. --Roy Francis Kasten

Tracks:

Ballad Of Accounting
The Driver's Song
My Old Man
Dirty Old Town
Black And White
Brother Did You Weep
The Press Gang
The Shoals Of Herring
The Manchester Rambler
Sheath And Knife
Highland Muster Roll
Cam Ye O'er Frae France
The Maid Gaed Tae The Mill
The Moving On Song
Nobody Knew She Was There
Looking For A Job
Kilroy Was Here
The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face
The Foggy Dew
The Joy Of Living

Amazon.com

MacColl was a renaissance man of folk music, not as well known as Seeger or Guthrie, but in many ways just as important. Born in Scotland in 1915, MacColl knew and recorded thousands of traditional British and Celtic songs, a generous sampling of which is here offered. His voice can be a bit of a shock--wild and rustic and thick with dialect--but matched with original and traditional material like "Dirty Old Town" (made infamous by the Pogues), "Driver's Song," "Looking for a Job," and "Joy of Living," MacColl's art has vigor and immediacy. --Roy Francis Kasten

Customer Reviews:

Ewan MacColl: The Definitive Collection.......2007-07-26

This is a great easy listening CD full of happy and sad songs beautifully performed. The Joy of Living and Dirty Old Town are my favourites.

Excellent material, but..........2006-11-27

...hardly 'definitive'. Probably best to seek out source material for this artist until a truly 'definitive' collection comes out...

A Great Social Injustice .......2005-11-30

Ewan MacColl does a great job with these songs of injustice. The music on this CD reminds me of Pete Seeger - was Pete influenced by Ewan? These songs give you lots to think about the injustices of this world - a woman "lies dead in the ditch fed on by hungry flies" and no one seems to notice, his father loses his job to new and improved means (robots, most likely), being born of the wrong class therefore "you can't stay here ... you'll drive down the price of property", begging for work - anything - even cleaning up after animals that unload on the street, slave labor that picks the fruit that we put on our table, etc. These are the types of people we tend to ignore when we see them on the street begging for a "dollar". Will we think twice the next time we see these types of people? I hope that I do, for some day I could end up like them.

distilled experience.......2001-10-01

This album is an antidote to all forms of fashionable 'arty' popular music (from Maccoll's original 'bete noir' Bob Dylan onwards). Maccoll's language is so spare and precise that it cuts right to the essence of the emotions and experiences he describes. The poetry of `Nobody Knew She Was There' is almost like Auden. But Maccoll is most powerful for the ethical force of his songs, and the charismatic control of rhythm with which he performs them. The lyrics of these songs are like a history of left-politics in Britain during the twentieth century, culminating in its defeat at the hands of Mrs Thatcher during the 80s. She is the `lady' of `Looking for a Job', a painful song to listen to because its raw power seems now to come from desperation - the failure of the traditional Communist values which Maccoll supported throughout his life. In the end all he seems able to offer is resentful resistance to change (`My Old Man'). This is sad, and depressing to experience, but it is also, in a way, unimportant. What we have here is a real sense of continuity - from the 1930s to the 60s to the 80s, but also stretching back to the 17th and 18th century. It's intensely moving to feel this sense of continuity and communality so consistently affirmed in these wonderful songs. This is an album that cares about life: past, present and future. The final song 'The Joy of Living' can make you cry.

Rough-edged, wide-ranging, and essential.......1998-10-02

Black and White includes a song whose cover version hit the Top 40 (The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face), songs that couldn't be sung by anyone else (Looking For a Job), songs that have entered the folk canon (Shoals of Herring, which is often assumed to be by 'trad.arr.', and Manchester Rambler) and songs that really are traditional (Sheath and Knife). When MacColl has a message it's blunt as can be, as in Dirty Old Town and the despairing Looking For a Job (skip this song if you're really out of work!). There is no danger of overproduction here; there are only a few musicians on the album besides MacColl himself and Peggy Seeger, his wife (I think) and life partner. MacColl's singing suits his music; Seeger's is definitely an acquired taste, and their harmonies are raw, with the almost Appalachian sound characteristic of theeraly folk revival. The crowning jewel is the last song on the album, the beautiful Joy of Living, a farewell to MacColl's life that will leave you with a greater appreciation of your own.