The Critics Group

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also known as The London Critics Group

The Critics Group was a group of people who met to explore 'how best to apply the techniques of folk-music and drama to the folk revival' under the direction of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, with some participation from Bert Lloyd and Charles Parker. Running for eight years from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s this was not a conventional musical group as it had no permanent line-up.

It started out as a study group for singers, meeting once a week at MacColl & Seeger's home in Beckenham, attempting to raise the standards of singing. One of the main activities of the meetings was group criticism and discussion of each other's performances which subsequently earned the group its name, coined by Charles Parker when pressed for a name by a radio interviewer.

Many of the meetings were recorded, and some of these recordings are held as part of the The Charles Parker Archive which is held in the Birmingham City Archives.

The group went on to produce an annual show called the Festival of Fools. Running over Christmass they satirised events of the previous year whilst including folklore and customs of each month. They were staged in the back room of a North London pub and ran for five years.

Members of the group included Frankie Armstrong, Bob Blair, Brian Byrne (UK), Helen Campbell (UK), Jim Carroll (UK), Ted Culver, John Faulkner (UK), Richard Humm, Sandra Kerr, Paul Lenihan, Pat Mackenzie, Jim O'Connor, Tom Paley, Brian Pearson, Buff Rosenthal, Susannah Steele, Denis Turner, Jack Warshaw, Terry Yarnell.

The group released a number of recordings on the Argo label.

[edit] Discography

Poetry and Song Volumes 1-14 1966/7 Argo ZDA 50 - ZDA 63 (For use in secondary schools (11 - 16 years), edited by James Gibson and recorded in association with MacMillan & Co. Ltd.)
A Merry Progress to London 1966 Argo ZFB 60
Sweet Thames, Flow Softly 1966 Argo ZDA 47 (John Faulkner, Sandra Kerr, Terry Yarnell, Ted Culver and Jim O'Connor)
Waterloo-Peterloo 1968 Argo ZFB 68 (Frankie Armstrong, John Faulkner, Brian Pearson, Denis Turner and Terry Yarnell with Sandra Kerr, Jim O'Connor and Peggy Seeger)
Female Frolic 1968 Argo ZDA 82
As We Were A-Sailin 1970 Argo ZDA 137
Ye Mariners All 1970 Argo ZDA 138