Leon Rosselson

Leon Rosselson (born 22 June 1934, Harrow, Middlesex) is an English songwriter and writer of children's books. After his early involvement in the folk music revival in Britain, he came to prominence, singing his own satirical songs, in the BBC's topical TV programme of the early 1960s, That Was The Week That Was. He toured Britain and abroad, singing mainly his own songs and accompanying himself with acoustic guitar.

In later years, he has published 17 children's books, the first of which, Rosa's Singing Grandfather, was shortlisted in 1991 for the Carnegie Medal.

He continues to write and perform his own songs, and to collaborate with other musicians and performers. Most of his material includes some sort of satirical content or elements of radical politics.

Leon Rosselson was born and brought up in North London, lived in Tufnell Park and attended school in Highgate Road, adjacent to Parliament Hill Fields. His Jewish parents came to England as refugees from Tsarist Russia.

He joined the London Youth Choir, formed by John Hasted and Eric Winter, which went to a number of World Youth Festivals in the 1950s.

At the end of that decade, two Scotsmen, Robin Hall (1936–1998) and Jimmie MacGregor (b. 1930), came to London and teamed up with Shirley Bland (Jimmie's wife) and Leon Rosselson to form a quartet called The Galliards. Rosselson played 5 string banjo and guitar and did most of the arrangements. Their repertoire consisted of folk songs. They made an EP and two LPs for Decca ('Scottish Choice' and 'A-Roving') and one LP for the American label, Monitor. They also made a single for Topic of the Dave Arkin/Earl Robinson song 'The Ink Is Black'. The group broke up in 1963.

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