Peggy Seeger – Biography
Peggy was born June 17 1935 in New York City. Her
mother, Ruth Crawford, was a composer and piano
teacher; her father, Charles Seeger, was an ethnomusicologist
and music administrator. Peggy’s formal music
education was interwoven with the family’s
interest in folk music. She began to play the
piano at seven years old. By the age of eleven
she was transcribing music and becoming conversant
with counterpoint and harmony. She began to play
the five string banjo when she was 15, and also
plays guitar, autoharp, Appalachian dulcimer and
English concertina.
She attended Radcliffe College
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she majored in
music and began singing folk songs professionally.
In 1959 she settled in London
with singer/songmaker Ewan MacColl, lived in England
for 35 years, and has three children and seven grandchildren.
The MacColl/Seeger duo were at the forefront of the
British folk song revival for the ensuing three decades.
It is for Peggy that MacColl wrote the classic First
Time Ever I Saw Your Face.
Peggy has made 21 solo discs and
has collaborated with other performers (Tom Paley,
Mike Seeger, Guy Carawan, Ewan MacColl) on more records
than she can remember. She is considered to be among
North America’s finest female folk singers and
has taken a leading role in the British folk music
revival. She has collaborated on books of folk songs
with Edith Fowke, Alan Lomax and Ewan MacColl.
BBC Radio 2 interviewed Peggy with
a view to making a short series about her life. These
sessions resulted in a five-part series of radio programs
that won the Sony Silver Award in 1995. A sixth program
was recorded in 1996 and a seventh in 1997.
In September, 1994, Peggy moved
to Asheville, North Carolina, and in 2006 moved to
Boston. She spends a good portion of her year singing
and lecturing throughout the United States, with one
yearly tour of Great Britain. She has since put out
a book of her own songs––Peggy Seeger
Songbook, Warts and All (Oak Publications,
1998)––and a companion book of the songs
of Ewan MacColl, The Essential Ewan MacColl
Songbook (Oak Publications, 2001).
In 2003, Heading for Home (issued
in the USA by Appleseed, APR-CD-1076; and in England
by Fellside Recordings, FECD 181). Consisting of
12 North American folk songs and one song (the title)
of her own composition, this is Peggy’s
first recording of traditional songs in over 25 years.
This album is the first of three comprising the Home
Trilogy. The second volume, Love Call Me Home (Appleseed
APRCD 1087) appeared this year, with two songs of
Peggy’s composition. The third volume
is still in production, however the preview of her
banjo tune, She’s Coming Home, has
graciously been contributed to thebanjoman.com as
part of our feature on Peggy. You can hear it, and
learn to play it.
