Please visit www.folkways.si.edu for an appreciation of Mike Seeger (1933-2009).
http://folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/mike_seeger.aspx
Please share your thoughts, memories, and stories at the Smithsonian Folkways Facebook page or email them to SmithsonianFolkways@SI.EDU
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For over fifty years, Mike Seeger has been a musician, documenter, and tireless advocate of American folk and traditional music. As a musician he recorded as a solo artist and member of folk revival ensemble the New Lost City Ramblers. As a collector he has captured and produced sounds by iconic artists such as Elizabeth Cotten and Dock Boggs. And finally, as a historian and preservationist of the music he calls "old time," Mike Seeger gives us the stories behind the music that is such an essential part of American culture. Here he performs and gives the history of "Walking Boss," a tune Thomas Clarence Ashley learned from African American railroad workers at the turn of the 19th century.
Born in 1933 to parents Charles and Ruth Crawford Seeger, both prominent composers and ethnomusicologists at the vanguard of this emerging field, Mike was one of several children raised on a steady diet of folk traditions. Mikes siblings include sister Peggy Seeger and half-brother Pete Seeger.
To find more Mike Seeger recordings visit: http://www.folkways.si.edu/searchresults.aspx?sPhrase=Mike%20Seeger&sTyp...
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"Old-time rural music remains at the center of my life. It's a tactile, emotional, aural pleasure — the words are my Shakespeare and my mysteries, the music is my Bach, my pastime, and it makes me want to dance...Classic, timeless qualities in this music endure. For me, there ain't no way out but nature, and I'll make the most of it."
-Mike Seeger (from the liner notes to the 1997 album There Ain't No Way Out by The New Lost City Ramblers)
Mike Seeger, who devoted his life to documenting, teaching, keeping alive, and carrying forth the sounds of traditional music of the American South, died from cancer August 7th at the age of 75. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist and singer, Seeger's 50-plus-year career included recordings as a solo performer, as a founding member of the influential group The New Lost City Ramblers, and as a documenter of many of the finest 20th-century performers of the genre including Dock Boggs, Elizabeth Cotten, and Kilby Snow.
We invite all fans of Mike to share thoughts, memories, and stories on the Smithsonian Folkways official Facebook page or email them to SmithsonianFolkways@SI.EDU. Selected submissions will be posted on www.folkways.si.edu
