Big Rory's Cell
The first of the admirable series of folk con- certs which Mr. Rory McEwen is presenting at Cecil Sharp House was, through lack of pub- licity, a wash-out. So Mr. McEwen stirred him- self and turned out to be as lively a promoter as he is a lusty singer of bothy ballads, and so the second concert, last Friday, was a sell-out. Mr. McEwen hands out the stuff straight, undiluted by 'presentation,' and the atmosphere of his con- cert was as close to that of a ceili as could be achieved in a hall packed with hundreds of people. The stars of the evening were the three McPeaks from Belfast: old father and middle- aged son with the uilleann pipes, younger son with the eldirseach, and all three in fine Gaelic voice (although most of their words were in Eng- lish). Old Mr. McPeak astonished a learned col- lector present by singing The Rights of Man, an eighteenth-century ballad of the United Irish- men, the words of which she had always thought lost and gone forever. He was to Cecil Sharp House as young Miss Shapiro is to the Pal- ladium. I heard an expatriate enthusiast declare: `If I was a millionaire, by God, I'd buy that dar- ling old man and set him up in a corner of MY kitchen with lashings of food and drink, and nothing to do all day but sing whenever the mood was on him.' Rory NW McEwen had better give Mr. McPeak a bodyguard when he brings him over the sea again.
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