Introduction

From time to time, an artist appears who seems to embody in her/his work the dominant features of a whole historical process, to speak not only for himor herself but for the unknown, voiceless people around them. Woody Guthrie springs to mind. Thanks both to his notoriety, and to the way cinema has imagined American folk culture, an image of such culture is quite widespread. MacColl is perhaps the nearest equivalent the UK has, although what he represents has little of Guthrie’s mythical presence.