Mike Seeger remembered

Mike Seeger died in his home under hospice care on August 7, 2009 at age 75. One way or another, I and so many others can be thankful and grateful for his work in preserving and making available the songs, stories, dances and instrumental playing styles that are so much a part of the history and continuing evolution of the music we hear today. There are not many shows of Spinning Tales From All Walks of Life on which I do not play music by Mr. Seeger or by musicians that he introduced, re-introduced or in some way helped make known to us.



Mr. Seeger searched for musicians whose music he had heard - musicians that had gone into obscurity once music became 'professional', was recorded in hi-tech studios and had to appeal to a larger radio audience. He brought these musicians and others he came across onto stages and into festivals all around the U.S.. He recorded their music and stories on portable tape players that he carried into their homes and to wherever they were. And he brought the musicians into the recording studios to put there songs onto LPs and CDs for Asch Recordings, Folkways Records, Smithsonian Folkways, Rounder Records and probably others as well.
He also learned to sing and play the old-time songs and ways of playing from old 78s and from the musicians that he met along the way, mostly in the Southern Appalachians. He played their songs on many instruments: banjo, fiddle, guitar, trump (Jews Harp), harmonica, quills (panpipes), lap dulcimer, mandolin and autoharp. And he taught what he learned in workshops and schools.
The music, hard to categorize but often called 'Old-Time', Mike Seeger called the 'True Vine' of American music. This True Vine of American music has led to what we know today as Bluegrass, Country, Cajun, Zydeco, Blues, Rock & Roll and Folk music. And the True Vine continues to do what vines do - grow into, around, over, through - just like water flows, just like music does.
The New Lost City Ramblers was a folk group dedicated to the older songs and ways of playing that Mike Seeger co-founded with Tom Paley and John Cohen in 1958. They played as a group well into the 1970s.
He recorded almost 40 albums, solo and with other musicians, and has been nominated for grammys three times. For a haunting banjo accompaniment to Bob Dylan's song The Ballad of Hollis Brown listen to the 1994 Rounder release titled Third Annual Farewell Reunion- Dylan does the singing.

Mr. Seeger came from the very musical Seeger family of Ruth Crawford Seeger and Charles Seeger and was a half brother to Pete Seeger and full brother to Peggy, Barbara and Penny. And he has a nephew, Anthony Seeger, who continues the ethnomusicalogical work today that has been so much a part of that family.

Following are some web site links you can go to to learn more:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Seeger -has some great links to other sites; www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111690155 for some audio clips; http://mikeseeger.info/; http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/mike_seeger.aspx -for great music & audio clips.

Last Friday the 25th of September I aired a show to remember a little of what he brought to us. As I get time I will put that show on this blog as an audio clip if I can figure out how to do it so that any one of you unfamiliar with his music can get to know it a little.

Lowell Folk Festival

The Lowell Folk Festival has happened one weekend in the month of July annually for 23 years. And yes it happens each year in Lowell, Massachusetts, a mill town built on the Merrimack River to catch the river's current to power the making of cloth from cotton thread until that industry moved down south.

In the years after the Vietnam War, a large number of immigrants from Southeast Asia were settled in Lowell with government help. Lowell became a town that welcomes people from many places: Nigeria, Columbia, Cameroon, Puerto Rico, Philipines, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia - the list could go on. It is truly a melting pot. And as a result Lowell has experienced a re-awakening of its spirit, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, to become a lively destination for arts, crafts and cultural activities.

So on a Friday evening, all day and evening Saturday, and Sunday till 6, usually on the last full weekend in July each year, Lowell thrives with people and music, master craftspeople and many different ethnic foods made by local citizens for the most part. The streets are alive with kids and families, visitors of all ages and backgrounds. And all against the backdrop of beautiful mill town brick. Oh and did I mention that this festival is free. It's actually the largest free folk festival in the U.S. And it moves with about a thousand volunteers.

And let me not forget to tell you about the composting program at the festival. Each of the food vendors supplies their hungry customers with plates, cups, knives and forks that are compostable. All this material is collected and composted and each year you can pick up a bag of the previous year's festival garbage now turned to earth. Cans and bottles etc. are also collected and recycled.

Over the years it seems to me it has become more and more of a world music (and world food) festival even though most of the performers (and cooks) live in the United States. And it is folk music in the sense of traditional music. The musicians (and dancers at times) perform from out of their own backgrounds, their ancestry, whether its Jewish, Senegaleze, Greek, French-Canadian, appalachian, Brazilian, Cambodian, Native American, Balkan, Armenian, Southern blues, tex-mex and on and on.

There are 6 stages set up on the streets and plazas around town and so for two and a half days there is a continual walking to and back between the stages and food courts to catch the different acts and eat the different foods. There is also lively dancing in several of the music locations. Shattuck is a street full of kids games and activities. There are cafes and restaurants with tables and music outside. Street musicians entertain passers-by. There are great museums and art galleries to visit. One of them not to be missed is the New England Quilt Museum with an astounding collection and special displays of older and contemporary quilts. This year they exhibited quilts discovered all over Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Documentation Project.

Following is a list of the performers at this year's festival. And if you want to see and know more, clik on the link to the Lowell Folk Festival website.

Alash
Tuvan Throat Singing

Alex the Jester
One-man physical comedy

Boston Bhangra
South Asian Punjabi dance

Branches Steel Orchestra
Caribbean American steel pan ensemble

Glen David Andrews Band
New Orleans R&B and brass band

The Brotherhood Singers
African American A Cappella Gospel

D.L. Menard with Terry Huval and the Jambalaya Cajun Band
Cajun

Double Vision
Juggling, Mime

Capoeira Luanda
Brazilian capoeira dance

Eddie Forman Orchestra
Polka

Genticorum
Quebecois

Sierra Hull and Highway 111
Bluegrass

Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Playboys - CANCELLED
Zydeco

Frank London’s Klezmer Brass All-Stars
Klezmer

Grupo Canela
Puerto Rican jìbaro

The Lucky Stars
Western Swing and Honky Tonk

Trudy Lynn
Blues and R&B

Maeandros Ensemble
Greek

Wayne Martin
Puppeteer

Niamh Ni Charra
Irish

Samba Ngo
Congolese dance music

Yomo Toro
Puerto Rican cuatro master

Sana NDiaye
Senegalese ekonting

Two Fiddles and The Sugar River String Band with Bob McQuillen
Old-time New England barn dances

Dr. Michael White and the Original Liberty Jazz Band
Traditional New Orleans Jazz

More stories and music

Following the 6 stories by Kendy of her travels in Africa, we had 3 by Dorrie Merriam about her time in Alaska as a young nurse, nurse practitioner and fisherwoman and one by Alicia about a different kind of bus trip in Brazil. The two most recent shows were devoted to recordings made at this year's Lowell Folk Festival - just the music, no stories - my insincere apologies to those who looked forward to Jaime de Angulo's stories and others'. I felt the music in itself was the story of a folk festival.
This week we will return to the stories with one told by Demeny, Nick and Graham about a tubing adventure on the Deerfield River this summer after much rain. And if you want to know what the reference is to "the garage owners card" go to www.girlingtongarage.com. And of course we will have the next story by Jaime de Angulo.
Coming up in the not too far future are 3 more stories by local storyteller Jay Goldspinner and one about skateboarding I hope.
Stay tuned each Friday to Spinning Tales From All Walks of Life, 4p-6p, you never know what might be up.

Circumnavigating with David, Mango and the Shearwater

For those of you who have not been following the show - almost each week, unless not possible, David Pollitt calls in to the show at 5pm from wherever he happens to be, in port or out at sea, via Skype or SAT phone. He brings us up to date on his travels and adventures, hair-raising trials and breathtaking successes. He and his wheaton/sheepdog Mango and crew Zach left West Palm Beach in mid-June, late in the season to be sailing into the Caribbean. Storms and difficult winds dogged their progress all along, forcing them to change course for a safe harbor in Cuba along the way. His crew have come and gone and he is now in Cartegena, Colombia. He called in last week (8/28/09) but on Colombian time so the show had just ended as I picked up the phone in the studio. Too bad. We will have a chance to hear from him hopefully this Friday (9/4/09). In the meantime I cannot urge you enought to check out his blogsite. He has just downloaded a film clip of a band of musicians called Quinto Bar taken in Santiago De Cuba. Its fabulous. But dont let me convince you, go to www.mangoandme.net to see for yourself. Plus you can locate where they are, read how he describes the sailing legs and follow along on their journey via Google Earth.

This Friday, 6/26, we hear a 4th African story from Kendy. She is moving, "zig-zagging" down the East interior through many national parks and game reserves - finding herself and fellow travelers in some surprising, sometimes funny, animal situations in camp. This is not your usual traveler.
Next week: Kendy and tracking lions.

David, Zack, Mango on board the Shearwater have begun their journey around the world. They have successfully crossed From West Palm Beach, FL to the Bahamas - "Grand Bahama Bank....an immense area of blue blue waters in depths of less than 10 feet......will hopefully pass the position where we aborted our first attempt due to the engine failure." (This quote from their recent posting on www.mangoandme.net -- check it out - includes interactive google earth map!! to help follow along on their journey.)
Up to now we have been in easy contact with David Pollitt and Zack via cell phone while they were docked. Tomorrow on Spinning Tales at around 5pm, now out of cell phone range, we try contact via Satelite (SAT) phone. Will this really work? Tune in to find out and catch up on how their crossing from West Palm Beach, FL to the Bahamas went and where they might be at the time. Plans are to sail to Columbia - still?

Jaime De Angulo story at 5:30. 1949 recordings of Indian Tales, also known as Old Time Tales.

And of course the music bringing to life the stories, harmonies & rythms of people spreading out before us - of their lives brought across the seas and lands to this northern part of the Americas.

Stories on Spinning Tales...

Last week we had the 2nd of a series of stories by Kendy. She is one of those few travelers who follows her "heart space" - has a few plans but travels according to what life she comes across wherever she happens to be in her journey. With this kind of traveling the possibilities are countless.
On the show she is telling us about 8 months of traveling she did in the interior of East Africa from Egypt to South Africa. Along the way she describes the people, cultures, places, things she sees and experiences and how she feels about this way of traveling. - spontanteity at its best - or what I call spontaneous immersion traveling.
Her first story, two shows ago, detailed the end of her journey when she contracted bilharzia (sp?), went home to Australia, and cured herself. Her sickness became her journey. Last show she talked about following along the Nile, climbing up Mt. Sinai and camping in the desert with Bedouins and their camels. What she sees and experiences are not the expected tourist sights and activities. Hers are wholly different, sensual and close to the life of the peoples/places around her.
This week, Friday 6/12, we will have a 3rd story by Kendy. I am not sure what it will be about but it may be her travels by boat along Lake Tanganyika.
Each week we are also following David Pollitt on board the Shearwater, a 47 foot cattamaran with faithful crew Mango as they prepare (and currently search for crew) for a 2 to 3 year sailing journey around the world. He is docked presently in West Palm Beach. You can find out more by going to his blog site www.mangoandme.net or
www.sailblogs.com/member/mangoandme/.
You will be able to follow his journey via an interactive map on that site.
Stay tuned.

This blog is created on Sunday, April 26, 2009 (temperature hit 90 I think and full sun) to track 'Spinning Tales From All Walks of Life', my radio program aired on WMCBlp 107.9 FM (and soon to be streamed!) on Fridays, 4p-6p.
1. Old time music of all sorts. Music predominantly from the 1920s and 30s and before - string band, Southern mountain music, rust belt, Ozarks, country blues, cajun, border music from Texas and southern Arizona, sea songs and shantys - all sung and played by musicians from the 1920s and 30s and before as well as contemporary musicians.
2. Stories - stories from people anywhere and anytime but mostly people I meet around here. Everyday stories, the usual and the not so usual,today's and yesterday's stories - its all part of the life and times we live.
We will have weekly playlists and hopefully updates about musical and story happenings plus music recommendations of all sorts.