A centenary tribute to famous Salford son Ewan MacColl will be brought to life by a three-man band including former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce.
On Sunday 10 May at 2pm Joyce will take to the stage at Salford University’s Peel Hall as Ewan McColl himself, joined by Gerard Kearns – best known for his film work in Looking for Eric and six years as Ian Gallagher in Shameless – as the young MacColl, alongside composer John Conolly.
The joint event organised by Salford’s Working Class Movement Library and Salford University will see the three perform music and scenes from McColl’s rather eventful life.
Joyce last starred with Maxine Peake in the sell-out show Radical Readings and Salford Stories at Salford University in aid of the Working Class Movement Library.
Working-class legend Ewan MacColl was born James Henry Miller on 25 January 1915 at 4 Andrew Street in Broughton.
His strong socialist family moved to the city to look for work after being blacklisted at practically every foundry in Scotland for their trade union activism, but Miller would leave school at just 14 to join the massed ranks of the unemployed in Salford.
However his talent as a songwriter would shine through and he would later achieve worldwide fame under his stage name of Ewan MacColl.
MacColl also founded the Red Megaphone theatre group who performed at Hyndman Hall on Liverpool Street in Salford, and was an activist in the unemployed workers’ campaigns.
One of his best known works ‘The Manchester Rambler’, from which came the famous lines: “I may be a wage slave on Monday/But I am a free man on Sunday”, was written after a mass trespass onto Kinder Scout.
His star rose highest after his attendance at The Battle of Bexley Square in October 1931 when an estimated 10,00 people marched to Bexley Square in Salford to hand in a petition voicing their concerns about government welfare cuts.
Watch: The Battle of Bexley Square – Part One
Watch: The Battle of Bexley Square – Part Two
MacColl will always be remembered as a brilliant songwriter and his ditty ‘Dirty Old Town’ has become the unofficial anthem of Salford, covered by many artists including The Pogues and Rod Stewart.
In 1956 he fell in love with the American folk singer Peggy Seeger, writing ‘The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face’ for her, which won a Grammy and was a 1972 hit for Roberta Flack.
His daughter from his second marriage was the singer Kirsty MacColl whilst his grandson is Jamie MacColl who now plays with indie stalwarts Bombay Bicycle Group.
Sadly Ewan MacColl died in 1989 at the age of 73 after complications following heart surgery.
The Working Class Movement Library on The Crescent holds material from all aspects of his political and cultural life.
You can buy tickets for the event at the Salford University online shop.
