The following text tells about my doings up till 2010. Since then I've mostly done more of the same.
GENERAL
Born in Inverness in 1941. Moved to Dingwall in 1947, Glasgow in
1955. In 1957 became a banker in Glasgow, in 1961a boy bank manager
in Uganda, Kenya and then Aden. Escaped banking in 1966 to become
guitar teacher in Colorado and Boston, USA. Returned to Scotland in
1968, worked 1971 –1995 in various areas of social work, including
psychiatry .Retired from this employment in March 1995, developed as
self-employed author, storyteller, songwriter etc.
Ewan has since 1989 run various
community arts projects, with Scottish Arts Council backing.
Songmaker In Schools involved making new Scots songs out of old ones.
From 1994 to 1997 Ewan worked in an artistic partnership called
Mungo 200 with Ghanaian artist Amu Logotse to create and
organise exhibitions and education and community performance events
linking Scotland and Africa. This work continues through The Bird
Exchange, a project initiated and run by Ewan, which has for the
last 12 years combined artistic exchanges and practical assistance
between children in Scotland and Uganda. In October / November 2007 a
visual arts exhibition was assembled for Edinburgh, then went to the
CHOGM meeting in Uganda. A community recording studio for ex street
kids to record their own songs about their lives was set up in
Kampala through a new project, The Music Exchange, and at
present a new phase of Global Citizenship exchange work between
schools in Uganda and Scotland is being developed under the title
Bridge Builders.
In 1998 Ewan acquired an MSc
[with distinction] degree at the School of Scottish Studies,
Edinburgh University, for the study of Scottish playground songs. He
is now probably the foremost authority in Scotland on children's song
and rhyme. His latest book, A B C My Grannie Caught A Flea,
Scots children’s songs and rhymes’, contains over 900 lyrics and
rhymes.
He has written, lectured and
broadcast on a range of topics.
From 1998 to 2000
Ewan was Writer in Residence to schools in Craigmillar, Edinburgh,
with Scottish Arts Council co-funding.
From 2000 to
2005 Ewan undertook a number of projects linking the Russian
city of Perm with Scotland, including inaugurating a Festival of
Scottish Culture, a collaborative tour of Scotland by a quartet of
opera singers, and various joint writing projects. He is currently
working with the AHRC Network, based at Glasgow University, on
the project ‘Translating Russia & Central / East European
cultures’, his particular input being on aspects of storytelling in
different cultures.
Ewan is also currently
developing the project ‘Collier Tracks’, an
investigation into and celebration of the songs and lives of Scots
coalminers and their families, with a particular focus on Scots
miners in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
STORYTELLING
In 1995 Ewan was by happenstance formally reconstituted as a
traditional Scottish storyteller, and in this persona has performed
in Scottish castles and museums, about 200 schools, folk festivals
and other venues, including storytelling and other festivals in
Prince Edward Island, Milton Keynes, Holland, New Hampshire, Russia,
Sweden and numerous Scottish festivals.
He has run a storytelling festival
and two storytelling clubs in Glasgow, and is Vicechair of the
Scottish Storytelling Forum. In June 2006 he set up two Scottish
Storytelling Internet Radio Stations.
He has run
numerous school projects that combine traditional story elements and
creative writing.
WRITING
Ewan
in June 2010 started his own publishing business as GALLUS
PUBLISHING, and has written and published four books:
Lang Legged Beasties, Scottish Children’s Stories, Songs
and Rhymes about animals.
Cod Liver
Oil & The Orange Juice, Reminiscences Of A Fat Folk Singer,
Hamish Imlach’s rumbustious autobiography of 1992 reissued,
co-written by Ewan McVicar.
One Black
Isle Night, stories from the 1001 Arabian Nights are retold as
tales from and of Ross-shire 200 years ago.
The Eskimo Republic, Scots political song in action
1951-1999.
Ewan’s previously published
books include :
Doh Ray Me When Ah
Wiz Wee, an anthology and discussion of Scottish children's
songs and rhymes for the last 200 years, including many previously
unpublished rude ones, was published by Birlinn in October 2007, and
sold very well.
One Singer One
Song, Old and New Stories and Songs of Glasgow Folk, published
by Glasgow District Libraries, a 'Glasgow best-seller' in 1990.
Streets Schemes and Stages, co-written with Mary McCabe, an
account of community arts supported by Strathclyde Region's Social
Work Department for 1990, published by Strathclyde Regional Council
in 1991.
Cod Liver Oil and The
Orange Juice, Reminiscences of a Fat Folk Singer, co-written
with singer Hamish Imlach, the latter's autobiographical
reminiscences, published by Mainstream, another 'Glasgow best-seller'
in 1992.
The Bonny Ship The
Diamond, a teaching pack with book and cassette about Scotland's
whalers, published by Jordanhill Publishing in about 1995.
Traditional Scottish Songs and Music, co-written with Kathleen
Campbell, published in 2001 by Leckie and Leckie.
Ewan in 2009 completed The Eskimo Republic, a book
about Scottish Political Song, 1951-1999. This book got funding
support from the Scottish Arts Council in 2008.
In 2009/10 Ewan has worked to create, co-create
and source web material for Learning & Teaching Scotland, for the
Curriculum For Excellence, on The Caledonians, The Scots in
Canada, and most notably a major new resource on Scotland’s
Songs. In early 2010 he worked with Stuart McHardy to create
and develop the approach of the new SCOTSFEST
project, and is currently creating additional on-line Scots Song
resources.
Other published material includes:
poetry and prose and articles in various publications, including
three years of New Writing Scotland, Edinburgh Review, The Scotsman,
Cencrastus and various anthologies;
Theatre
writing :
Comin To The Well, community play
for Motherwell Festival 1995;
The Magic
Fiddle, storytelling with groups of children, for Mayfest
1995;
Which Way Does The Niger Flow, a
professional touring show 1992;
a show in
Nuremberg for Glasgow Nuremberg Twinning ceremony 1985;
various other shows in Scotland and Perm, Russia; etc, etc.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe reviewer for The Scotsman, 1996 and 1997.
SINGING,
SONGWRITING AND RECORDING
In 1960 Ewan
wrote a song Talking Army Blues which entered the Hit
Parade. He in 1959 co-started with Drew Moyes the first Scottish folk
club, in Glasgow. Since then he has performed solo and with various
unknown groups with names like Bawheid McBear and Robbery With
Violins in venues ranging from peace rallies in George Square to a
winter tour of Finland, plus stage, street, hall, pub, festival, and
you-name-it. He plays various instruments and noise-makers from
African thumb piano to American autoharp, Philippino mouthbow and
beyond. He has written some forty songs which have been commercially
recorded, some twenty of them for the Singing Kettle children's show.
He has acted as producer for two albums of new songs
of Fife issued by the New Makars Trust, of which he is a trustee.
From 2000 to 2005 he edited, for the USA Alan Lomax Foundation
and Rounder Records, three albums drawn from 1950s archive recordings
- of Scottish traditional singers Davie Stewart and Jimmie MacBeath,
of the famous 1951 Edinbuigh People's Festival Ceilidh, and
of children's songs and rhymes - and he worked on three more, giving
transcripts and notes for 1951 recordings of John Strachan, and of
Jimmie and Davie .
In 2006 he edited, for the
School of Scottish Studies and Greentrax Records, an album of
childrens's songs and rhymes drawn from the School's archives, Chokit
on a Tattie.
Ewan runs his own small recording
label, Gallus, which has issued many short run CDs
and cassettes of story, song and poetry.