Ian Campbell to retire

Subject: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 06:43 AM

I don't normally listen to Mike Harding's show but I made an exception this week as he interviewed Ian Campbell. When I was a jazz,skiffle & blues fan in Birmingham in the '60s I had friends who frequented the Jug o'Punch at Digbeth Civic Hall and I heard about the group and saw them (probably at B'ham Town Hall, I never went to the Jug)live a couple of times including Lorna & Swarb, on tv quite a bit and also bought several of their records, probably one of the main groups that got me interested in the wider acoustic music scene.
According to the programme (available on Listen Again) he is now 75, back in B'ham after 11 years in Ireland and will make his "last" public appearance at Mosely FF at the end of this month but is still writing (string quartets!). A great voice & songwriter.

RtS

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 07:18 AM

A seminal influence on many in today's folk scene, and a driving force behind the UK folk revival in the 60s.
He deserves much respect for what he has done thus far.
John 'G'

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Black Diamond
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 10:19 AM

I was a very young Brummy teenager in the 60s going to the Jug O Punch, and another folk club in a working mens club on the Stratford Road (but I cant remember the name of the Club). I was "in love" with Brian Dunkerley, the banjo player in the ian Campbell Folk group, who sadly died young. I remember the group very fondly, and Lornas version of "The Shoal of herrings" was superb. I understand Ian has two sons who are members of a modern pop group.
Thanks to Ian Campbell for all the happy memories of the 60's !!!
Lin

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 10:22 AM

"I understand Ian has two sons who are members of a modern pop group."

LOL!

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: bubblyrat
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 02:20 PM

A great influence on me too : for many years, the ICFG and the Spinners were all we had !! I saw them "live" at the "Den of Folk" ( awful name !! ) in Gosport in about 1970 or so, and thought them very slick and professional. I also liked the work they did on TV, about the history of shanties,agricultural songs etc. And Ian Campbell's voice ---!! Nasal or what ?? But fascinating none the less ! Good luck in retirement to a Great Man, says I !

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 04:00 PM

Good to hear he's still going! Many happy memories of the Jo'P from the early 70s, when this wet-behind-the-ears folkie was still cutting his musical teeth. If anyone would like to pass on my good wishes to Ian, that would be great. (If he remembers who I am! Tell him Barrie Roberts' sidekick.)

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 03:14 AM

He and they were excellent. I saw them at a Communist Party Rally in Manchester's Free Trade Hall around 1964. They sang lots of great songs and the tune sets from Dave Swarbrick, John Dunkerley and sorry I have forgotten the guitar players name, were excellent. Fortunately I soon escaped from the CP but never from the influence of TICFG. They sang songs that working people had kept alive for generations, songs that reflected the joys, the sorrows and the resistance to oppression that is found in old songs.

As Ruth alludes Ian's sons were singers / guitarist in the mighty UB40 one of the most important bands ever to come out of anywhere. Named after Unemployment Benefit form 40 they wrote and performed music that recorded and damned the Thatcherite policies of the 1980s that condemned millions of people to a life of poverty without work. UB40 are a collection of African-Caribbean and white brummy musicians who more or less created a new musical genre. Although a very long way from TICFG they created music that was exciting and said what needed to be said about the lives of us all and so had a link to the traditional music of this country.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 03:28 AM

Brian Clark.... and for a while there was Colin Tommis and Aiden Foord.

I didn't know Ian was in Ireland. i would love to be at the Moseley gig - but I'm at Fylde that weekend.

A great man. Very intelligent and perceptive. I'd give a lot to sit down and a just hear him tell me of how life seems to him, and hear him sing again.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:03 AM

Les: just for the record, he has two other sons who weren't in UB40 as well...both have recorded with him.

I knew Ian and Lorna for a while in the early 90s in Birmingham. I didn't know he had moved to Ireland, either.

I remember going to Ian's album launch in Digbeth in around 1992, and their mum, who I think had come down from Scotland specially, singing A Bunch of Thyme. Lovely.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:15 AM

Like Ewan MacColl, I think Ian has a great gritty folk voice; but it's a shame if his sons have indeed gone into American pop rather than English folk.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: GUEST,Amber
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:17 AM

The Jug of Punch - ah, happy days

300 - 400 folkies? You had to be there early to get a seat. How I hated to miss the opening song - always 'The Jug of Punch' - what else? So many wonderful songs, Farewell to Tarwathie, Fiddlers Green, The Cockfight etc.

This is is where my love affair with folk music really began as a young teenager in the 60s.

Thanks Ian and here's wishing you health and happiness.

Amber

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 05:01 AM

" it's a shame if his sons have indeed gone into American pop rather than English folk."

UB40 were an English Reggae band. as the band itself was mixed race, there was no better expression of the musical and cultural values of Birmingham in the 1980s, and they went on to be one of the biggest-selling bands in the world. And they made some brilliant songs.

Only you, WAV, could find this unfortunate.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 05:04 AM

As RtS said in the opening of this thread, I too listened to Mike Harding this week just because Ian Campbell was on. Harding played three musical examples during his conversation with Ian - Twa' Recruiting Sergeants/ The Old Man's Song/ Dirty Old Town - the first was certainly sung by Ian but I don't think that the other two were, despite Harding's accreditation. Anybody got any thoughts?

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:11 AM

You all ought to know by now that WalkaboutsVerse is a moron, trust him to comment on UB40 without actually knowing anything at all about them,
as a matter of fact both Robin and Ali will be playing with Ian on his farewell gig.

eric

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:37 AM

blimey - that'll up the attendance at Mosely FF!

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:41 AM

As far as I'm aware (unless things have changed yet again) it's Robbie & Duncan who are now in UB40, Ali having sloped off in some kind of strop. The 4th brother, David, who's not been mentioned yet, is one of the luminaries of the long-established Islington club.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:44 AM

I didn't know Duncan had finally joined the band. Good for him!

Ian talked a lot about David and how talented he was - he was already in London at the time, working in theatre, I think...?

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:51 AM

I worked with Ian Campbell at the start of TV-am in the egg cup building. That's our guilty secret. David is a fab singer. He'll go into a song just from wherever he's sitting or standing. The most electrifying performance I've seen him do was Slip Jigs & Reels from the doorway of The Horsehoe. I'd never liked the song before that.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:52 AM

I booked David's band Cockagne for my Orton the Hill club, and Ian of course.

back in the 1970's.....

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Banjiman
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:57 AM

WAV....
Present Arms by UB40 was a seminal ENGLISH album containing insightful social comment on the condition of the nation in 1981. A great album.....absolutely nothing do with American pop. The international influence on it was Jamacian not American (Roots Reggae probably qualifies as the Folk Music of Jamaica....by any definition).

The Dub version is even better.

Please desist from commenting on things about which you know nothing.... at least in the damning terms you use here.

UB40 did get a little limpwristed for my taste later in their careers (in mu opinion) but did make a pile of money.....and there's nothing wrong with that.

Good luck to Ian, my Mum & Dad really liked him.

Paul

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: GUEST,beachcomber
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 10:59 AM

The inevitable day comes, I suppose. Like so many others, among the denizens of Mudcat, The Ian Campbell Folk Group were my ideal band.
I still play their old LP material which I have "converted" to CD.
The clarity and virtuosity of their musicianship , not to mention Ian's and Lorna's voices, and the variety and arrangements of their songs, were so much better than what I had been listening to up to the time I first heard them, on BBC Radio. It must have been in the very early sixties, would it ?
I had been told by a friend some time ago that he had met "This Ian Campbell" in a pub somewhere in Kilkenny City in Ireland and I had long contemplated paying a visit to that lovely place in order to search him out just to thank him for the pleasure of his music.
Like all such good intentions , it too has been overtaken by time and other circumstances.
Fare well old man (I can say that as I am 70 myself) but, before you leave our pubs and clubs and stages, make certain that your legacy will be readily available in whatever format proves the popular choice.
I hope the sentiments expressed in these messages find there way, somehow, to Ian.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 11:45 AM

Thanks Roger. I normally avoid Harding like the plague, but I'll listen in to this week's prog. I saw them at (I think) Bunjies with the then unknown Sandy Denny, some time during the winter of 1966-67.

If anyone here is still plugged into the Birmingham fok scene, I would be very enterested to know what happened to Nigel Denver, whom I lost touch with some years ago. The surprising thing all the time I knew him was that he kept surviving, but I'm not expecting to be surprised again.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Effsee
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 12:38 PM

Guest, beachcomber, I can recommend this double CD... http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=6822894   
62 tracks of the old ICFG magic and lots more of their CDs available from the same site.

Peter K, Nigel is an ocassional visitor to the Forum and has posted here quite recently IIRC.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 12:52 PM

As mentioned above Nigel Denver was on here sometime last year.
Nice to hear about Ian Campbell again - a very astute observer of the folk scene.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: GUEST,Ken Brock
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 02:30 PM

It has been great to follow this thread. I bought one of the ICFG lps on Elektra in the US in 1970 and was very impressed with every track, and sought out what else I could find as imports. When I had a folk music radio program in VA for 19 months 1998-99, I played something from the ICFG almost every week.

An interview I conducted with George Grove (Kingston Trio since 1976) in 1999 is available online at www.kingstontrioplace.com under "Read, Look and Listen". In this, you can hear George's reaction to hearing the ICFG for the first time, as I played "My Johnny Lad" and "We're Nae Awa to Bide Awa", citing them as obvious sources for the KT songs "Genny Glenn" and "Stay Awhile".

It was also my pleasure at that time to interview Frank Hamilton (of this board), but unfortunately I did not capture the interview on tape. It was a delight to be able to introduce him to the ICFG also.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 03:11 PM

Thanks Effsee and DaveS. I'm delighted to be surprised again.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:08 PM

It's great to hear that Ian is doing well. We in the USA have enbjoyed his records for a long while. What was that unique song that popped into my head on thinking of Ian Campbell? It was a rather serious song, (I think) about Marilyn Monroe. And "The 40 Foot Trailer" too. --- Lord, that was quite a long time ago!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 10:35 PM

30 foot trailer is Ewan MacColl - although we all sang it.

Marilyn Monroe... I really don't know which one that is.

He did write a song and Paul simon put it on the first album The Paul simaon songbook. Then when the album started shifting quantities - they made the album without Ian's song on it. No point in splitting the dibs with this English bum.

One day someone came across a warehouse full of the first album with Ian's song on it, and they realised it would be of interest to Paul Simon completists, and they put it in the shops - and that's how Ian bought his first house and got out of Aston - the grotty part of Birmingham into more salubrious Kings Heath - anyway that's the story he told me.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 02:36 AM

And here it is in mySpace lyrics, The Sun Is Burning, credited to . . . guess who?

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 06:55 AM

Just talking to my wife. I got that story wrong. Ian always lived in Kings Heath. Mrs Gavin (who taught with my wife in Aston) used to teach Ian's kids. I had assumed they were in Aston.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Sir Roger de Beverley
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 07:02 AM

The Sun is burning was definitely not on the PS Song Book in any incarnation - it was recorded by S&G on their Wednesday Morning 3am offering that was released first an EP (without that track)in 1964 and then (after they became famous) as an LP (with that track)in 1966. I own copies of the first pressings of both the PS songbook (which PS signed for me in 1965) and the S&G EP and the later LP. The sun is burning is credited to Ian Campbell on the Wednesday morning 3am LP.

I learned the song from Ian's singing and was pleasantly surprised to that S&G had recorded it.

R

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: GUEST,beachcomber
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 07:21 AM

Yes Ian & Group did a song titled Marilyn Monroe on one of their LPs, I rem it well.
The chorus was simply: "Marilyn...Marilyn...Marilyn....Marilyn Monroe " but I will not attempt the words just yet. It seems to me to have been to another song's tune ??

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: GUEST,beachcomber
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 07:23 AM

BTW Effsee, where can his CDs be purchased , other than "Online" ?
They are not in the Record shops ,in my part of Ireland at any rate.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 09:17 AM

To Hollywood to Hollywood to Hollywood I'll go,
And you will know me by the name of Marilyn Monroe,
Marilyn, Marilyn, Marilyn, Marilyn Monroe

as recorded by the late great Hamish Imlach.

eric

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: danensis
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 09:19 AM

I was helping build an open air theatre at the Midlands Arts Centre in 1967, and one of the other helpers mentioned that he went to a folk club on a Thursday night, and would we like to go. I'd no idea what a folk club was, and it was a big surprise to find a roomfull of people singing the sort of songs I'd sung in the school hall on a rainy dinnertime.

When I met my wife-to-be in 1970 I took her to the Jug O'Punch, and Ian encouraged her sing a couple of songs (being a Campbell an' all). In those days the club was recorded - I think for local radio - and I just wish I could get a copy of those recordings.

John

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: GUEST,beachcomber
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 09:32 AM

That's the one Eric Dearg,
My own favourite song of the ICFG was   "The Fireman's Song" (Hope that is correct title) with that "skittering" banjo in the back ground. That was an inspiration indeed.

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 12:19 AM

YES, that's the song about Marilyn Monroe I alluded to. And I think the "Thirty Foot Trailer" was on that same LP -- even if Ewan did write it. Back then I recall thinking a folk song about M.M. was a bit..., well, over the top---or at least just not the thing folk songs would be about.

There was a verse about her marrying Arthur Miller because he was the smartest man she'd ever known---or something like that.

"I'll marry him" --she said." (a line from M.M.)

Strange, that stuff is still in my head now all these years later. And my MS plays havoc with my recent memory. It drives me nuts.

Also on that same LP album was: "Down In a coal mine underneath the ground... Digging out the dusky diamonds all the seasons 'round..."

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: mark gregory
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 01:40 AM

I still have an Ian Campell Folk Group EP from 1962

Topic Records 82: Songs of Protest. The Ian Campbell Folk Group: Viva La Quince Brigade / We Will Overcome / The Boys of Wexford / The Peat Bog Soldiers / Domovina / The Cutty Wren

I also saw the group (or some of them) at a ban the bomb rally where the Dean of Canterbury (Hewlett Johnson aka "The Red Dean") spoke in London in 1959 I think.

It seems they recorded We Will Overcome before it transformed into the civil rights songs We Shall Overcome.

Ian Campbell and other members of the group were involved in some of the famous Radio Ballads (Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger and Charles Parker)

and I was absolutely blown away when I heard Martyn Wyndham-Read (then in Australia) sing Ian Campbell's "The Sun is Burning" ... an extraordinary song

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Marilyn
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 07:59 PM

This is the full text of Hamish's version as recorded on 'Portrait' (1989):

MARILYN
(Sydney Carter / Rory McEwen)

             Marilyn, Marilyn, Marilyn
             Marilyn Monroe

To Hollywood, to Hollywood, to Hollywood I'll go
You will know me by the name of Marilyn Monroe
All the soldiers and the sailors whose names I'll never know
Will wish that they could have a girl like Marilyn Monroe

Laughter is a thing I love, Said Marilyn Monroe
I used to be an orphan girl, it wasn't long ago
I've seen enough of sorrow, heard enough of woe
I'd rather have you laugh than cry for Marilyn Monroe

I'll glitter like a candle for all the world to see
Good luck to all who walk alone and fear the dark like me
Whether I am happy or whether I am not
I'll fight the blues, Said Marilyn, With everything I've got

I'm a fan of Abraham Lincoln, Said Marilyn Monroe
Arthur Miller is more like him than any man I know
Don't marry Arthur Miller, they say that he's a Red
They say he's un-American - I'll marry him, She said

I hear the hounds behind my back wherever I may go
Good luck to every hunted thing, Said Marilyn Monroe
When the hunt is over I want you all to know
I led those hounds a merry chase, Said Marilyn Monroe

From Hollywood, from Hollywood, from Hollywood I'll go
They used to know me by the name of Marilyn Monroe
All the soldiers and the sailors whose names I'll never know
How long will they remember me, Said Marilyn Monroe

There'll never be another one like Marilyn Monroe

Subject: RE: Sun is Burning
From: GUEST,Alistair Banfield
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 10:00 AM

The Sun is Burning has gone on and on. It was recorded on the No Nukes LP by Jackson Browne and even issued as a single. A Show of Hands have also released it more recently, following the sound and tempo of the Jackson Browne recording. It was a single for Topic, and also the title of an LP for Argo. And it contained a sentiment that we humans still haven't quite got to grips with...

Subject: RE: Ian Campbell to retire
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 28 Nov 12 - 08:19 AM

I lost touch weith Ian in the late 70's after years following them around Kings Heath & Moseley in Birmingham. He used to ask me about my home town of Kilkenny in Southern Ireland, and I've only just realised since his sad passing that he moved to live there for over 10 yrs! He used to say I should work for the Kilkenny tourist board. But he was such a big part of Birmingham life it's rather fitting he returned to end his days there. Great man and great musician