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Article: Roy Bailey: man of his words.
- Article from:
- Sing Out!
- Article date:
- January 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Sing Out Corporation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Folk music and politics have long gone hand in hand on both sides of the Atlantic. By their very nature, many folk songs are political. But however sincere the words, there's often a large gap between sentiment and action. Not so for Roy Bailey, one of the deans of English folk music. Now 70 ("nearly 71"), he made headlines in August by returning the M.B.E. (Member of the British Empire) he'd been awarded in 2000 in opposition to Prime Minister Tony Blair's actions regarding Israel in Lebanon.
"Tony Blair's support for these policies is for me a betrayal of all I took the Labour Party to stand for," he wrote. "I am not so foolish as to expect any government to be ...