Karl Dallas, who has died aged 85, was a journalist, singer, songwriter and political activist who had a crucial role in the emerging folk scene of the 1950s and 60s. A colourful radical with a remarkably wide range of interests and eclectic musical taste, he went on to write about folk-rock and rock music. As a peace campaigner who became a Christian in his 50s, he joined the human shield group which travelled to Iraq before the start of the war in 2003 to “try to convince the world that you can’t bomb a country into democracy”.
Dallas’s political stance seemed predetermined from the day he was born, in Acton, west London, when his staunchly socialist parents, Nancy (nee Knowles) and Jack, registered him as a member of the Labour party and named him Karl Frederick (after Marx and Engels). As he explained in his song Necessity: “My father was an engineer, my mother was a clerk.” He showed a rebel streak from an early age, helped by Nancy, who took him on his first demonstration, against Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler, when he was seven. Evacuated to Northumberland during the blitz, he made his way back to Acton and remained in London for the remainder of the second world war.
His journalistic career started when he was still a teenager, when he began to write (as Fred Dallas) for a local London newspaper, the Marylebone Chronicle. Then followed a series of very different, but typically colourful, jobs, that included working as a PR for Billy Smart’s circus, Pan Books and the International Wool Secretariat. Covering the fashion scene, in the days before he sported his trademark beard, he wrote for the men’s magazine Style Weekly.
He was an avid fan of the jazz, skiffle and folk scene that was rapidly changing the face of British popular music in the 50s. He sang and played the guitar with the Original Riversiders skiffle group, in which his first wife, Betty, played the washboard, and wrote poetry and songs. His best-known composition, The Family of Man, an optimistic hymn to universal brotherhood (“I belong to a family, it’s the greatest on earth”), was written in 1955 after he had been moved by an exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall. It was recorded by the Spinners, translated into 13 languages and appeared in school songbooks and even hymn books. An earlier song, Derek Bentley, was an angry protest at the execution of a 19-year-old in London for his part in the murder of a policeman, and was recorded by Ewan MacColl, one of Dallas’s heroes.
His career as an influential music journalist began on 7 July 1957, when his first article appeared in Melody Maker. He wrote later that the editor told him: “I don’t like folk … but there are people out there who like this garbage and they advertise in our gigs guide, so I’m giving you a page to fill to keep them happy.”
These were the days when there was little or no coverage of such music in the mainstream press, and as the leading folk writer on the paper, Dallas played an important role in commenting on the rapidly changing scene in both Britain and the US. He knew about traditional music, but was equally fascinated by new developments and new artists. As Dallas himself put it, he “walked with giants”. He gave Bob Dylan a poor review when he first played in London in 1964 (“he was, frankly, just terrible”) but later became a massive fan, writing that “electric Dylan literally changed my life … if there had been no Subterranean Homesick Blues I might never have ended up interviewing people like Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa and Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.”
In Britain, he championed the emerging folk-rock scene, and such bands as Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, and new singer-songwriters including Steve Ashley, who described him as “very objective as a journalist – he’d say what he meant. And as a songwriter himself he appreciated the value of songwriting.” For Ian Anderson of fRoots magazine: “You valued his opinions, even if you didn’t agree with him.”
His first marriage ended in divorce, and in 1965 he married Gloria Whittington. Their flat near Tottenham Court Road in central London became a drop-in for many musicians. As his daughter, Molly, explained: “The doorbell rang and people were always welcome, even if he didn’t know them.” Among the visitors was the American folk singer Arlo Guthrie, who wrote part of his best-known song, Alice’s Restaurant, while staying there.
Dallas was always busy. He launched a series of independent folk magazines, including Folk News and Jazz Music News, and wrote books including Singers of an Empty Day (1971), which explored the idea of “dead rock stars as ritual sacrifices”. He wrote an excellent lengthy essay for The Electric Muse: The Story of Folk into Rock (1975). With Bricks in the Wall (1994), he switched to the history of Pink Floyd. Like his hero MacColl he was fascinated by theatre, and wrote a series of plays, including a drama on the life of Stalin.
He was also intrigued by new technology and computers, and his wide-ranging journalistic work included articles for British computer magazines. Rob Beattie, who edited PC User in the 80s, described him as bringing “the same enthusiasm and opinionated points of view to computers as he did to music”.
His long association with Melody Maker ended in the early 80s, and Dallas bitterly complained that “all the specialist jazz and folk pages were abolished in an unsuccessful attempt to turn the paper into a tabloid version of the enormously successful Smash Hits”. In 1983 this lifelong atheist converted to Christianity, to the astonishment of many who knew him, and in 1987 he moved to Bradford. According to his daughter: “He wanted a break from London, but he loved it so much that he never came back.” He kept writing for a variety of newspapers including the Morning Star, continued singing in folk clubs, and became chair of Bradford community health council.
A passionate opponent of the 2003 Iraq war, he took part in anti-war demonstrations before travelling to the country, with his guitar, as a human shield. He was stationed in schools and a water treatment plant, and attempted to promote a pop concert in Baghdad “so it would be seen as a city of love and music and the Americans wouldn’t bomb it”. Back in Britain, Gloria explained his motives in a series of interviews, including a robust televised encounter with Tony Blair. The ever-energetic Dallas wrote a song about the war, Not in Our Name, and his play about his experiences, the “musical tragi-comedy” Into the War Zone, was performed in 2005 in Bradford by the Writers Company.
He is survived by Gloria, his children, Stephen and Molly, stepson, Tom, and five grandchildren.
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