Karl Frederick Dallas (29 January 1931 – 21 June 2016) Karl Dallas blog Retrieved 2 July 2013 was a British journalist, musician, author, playwright, peace campaigner, record producer, and broadcaster. He was described as "the most vigorous, influential, and informed folk music journalist in Britain".
Biography
Early life
Dallas was brought up in a communist household, and was named after
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
Whitley Bay
Whitley Bay is a seaside town in the North Tyneside borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It formerly governed as part of Northumberland and has been part of Tyne and Wear since 1974. It is part of the wider Tyneside built-up area, being around e ...
, Northumberland, and later attended Bec School in
Tooting
Tooting is a district in South London, forming part of the London Borough of Wandsworth and partly in the London Borough of Merton. It is located south south-west of Charing Cross.
History
Tooting has been settled since pre-Saxon times. Th ...
, London. He had a half sister Kathleen and like her joined the CPGB. writing poetry, and writing and performing songs in London in his teens, using the name Fred Dallas. His songs have been recorded by The Spinners (''
The Family of Man
''The Family of Man'' was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) Department of Photography. According to Steichen, the exhibitio ...
Ewan MacColl
James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989), better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the ...
,
June Tabor
June Tabor (born 31 December 1947 in Warwick, England) is an English folk singer known for her solo work and her earlier collaborations with Maddy Prior and with Oysterband.
Early life
June Tabor was born and grew up in Warwick, England. As ...
and others. He also contributed music reviews to the ''St Marylebone Record'' and ''
Musical Opinion
''Musical Opinion'', often abbreviated to ''MO'', is a European classical music journal edited and produced in the UK. It is currently among the oldest such journals to be still publishing in the UK, having been continuously in publication since ...
'' magazine.
Journalism and public relations
In 1957 Dallas began working as a full-time reporter, later becoming a freelance writer on music – including pop,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
, classical and
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
– and fashion. Many of his articles were published in the ''
Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...
''; he also wrote for ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'', ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'', and many magazines. He published his own magazines, including ''Folk Music'', ''Folk News'', and ''Jazz Music News'', and in 1967 wrote his first book, ''Swinging London: a guide to where the action is''. His other books included ''Singers of an Empty Day: last sacraments for the superstars'' (1972), ''The Cruel Wars: 100 soldiers' songs from Agincourt to Ulster'' (1972), ''One Hundred Songs of Toil: 450 Years of Workers' Songs'' (1974) and ''The Electric Muse: The Story of Folk into Rock'' (with
Dave Laing
David William Laing (9 January 1947 – 7 January 2019) was an English writer, editor, and broadcaster, specialising in the history and development of pop and rock music. He was a research fellow at the universities of Westminster and Liverpool ...
public relations
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...
agency, with clients including
Pan Books
Pan Books is a publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany.
Pan Books began as an independent publisher, es ...
,
Topic Records
Topic Records is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second British folk revival. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world.M. Brocken, ...
, and
Billy Smart's Circus
Billy Smart Jr. (born Stanley Smart, 15 October 1934 – 23 May 2005) was a British circus performer and impresario.
Biography
Smart, whose real name was Stanley, was the tenth child and third son of Billy Smart Sr. His father was a showman ...
. He worked as a record producer for the Transatlantic,
Island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An isla ...
and
Sonet
Synchronous optical networking (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) are standardized protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams synchronously over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diode ...
labels, and as a concert promoter. From the late 1970s he also wrote on information technology, and contributed articles to most British computer magazines.
Later life
He was a lifelong
atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
until converting to Anglican
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
in 1983.
He moved with his wife to live in
Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
in 1989, and retired from full-time journalism in 1999. He became chairman of Bradford Community Health Council, and, in 2003, travelled to
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
in a
double-decker bus
A double-decker bus or double-deck bus is a bus that has two storeys or decks. They are used for mass transport in the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, Europe, Asia and also in cities such as Sydney; the best-known example is the ...
as part of the group of campaigners intending to act as
human shields
A human shield is a non-combatant (or a group of non-combatants) who either volunteers or is forced to shield a legitimate military target in order to deter the enemy from attacking it. The use of human shields as a resistance measure was popula ...
in the event of
invasion
An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing ...
. Following his return, he wrote ''Into the War Zone'', which he described as a "musical tragicomedy" satirising his experiences as a human shield in Iraq. The play was performed by the Writers Company in Bradford in 2005.
He wrote several other plays, including a seven-hour play on the life of
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, as well as several books, including ''The Fourth Step'', described as "a
thriller
Thriller may refer to:
* Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television
** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre
Comics
* ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...
of the international drugs trade", and ''Good News for the Last Times'' (2010), a "prophetic vision for the 21st century" based on his religious experiences. A book of his critical writings, ''The Lie That Tells The Truth'', was published in 2012.''The Lie That Tells The Truth'' at ''Reality Now!'' Retrieved 2 July 2013 In later life he continued to broadcast regularly for Bradford Community Broadcasting, and reviewed books, music and films for the ''
Morning Star
Morning Star, morning star, or Morningstar may refer to:
Astronomy
* Morning star, most commonly used as a name for the planet Venus when it appears in the east before sunrise
** See also Venus in culture
* Morning star, a name for the star Siri ...
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' and the ''
Morning Star
Morning Star, morning star, or Morningstar may refer to:
Astronomy
* Morning star, most commonly used as a name for the planet Venus when it appears in the east before sunrise
** See also Venus in culture
* Morning star, a name for the star Siri ...
'', the latter including a fond reminiscence from
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Gu ...
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...