Originally Posted on September 27, 2009
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.
Producer and Host Michael Pollitt with Co-producer Lance Smith
