Peggy Seeger | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | Margaret Seeger (1935-06-17)June 17, 1935 (age 90) New York City, U.S. |
| Genres | Folk |
| Occupations |
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| Instruments |
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| Years active | 1955–present |
| Labels | |
Spouse | Ewan MacColl |
Margaret "Peggy"Seeger (born June 17, 1935) is an Americanfolk singer and songwriter. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years and was married to the singer-songwriterEwan MacColl until his death in 1989. She is a member of theSeeger family of musicians.
Seeger's father wasCharles Seeger (1886–1979), a folklorist and musicologist; her mother was Seeger's second wife,Ruth Porter Crawford (1901–1953), a modernist composer who was the first woman to receive aGuggenheim Fellowship.[1]
The family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1936, after Charles's appointment to the music division of theResettlement Administration.
One of her brothers wasMike Seeger, andPete Seeger was her half-brother. PoetAlan Seeger was her uncle. One of her first recordings wasAmerican Folk Songs for Children (1955).
In the 1950s, left-leaning singers such asPaul Robeson andThe Weavers began to suffer professionally because of the influence ofMcCarthyism and its resulting restrictive influence on performance venues signing leftist artists. Seeger visited the People's Republic of China and as a result had her US passport withdrawn.[2] In 1957, the US State Department had opposed Seeger's attending the6th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow,[3] where the CIA had monitored the US delegation and was vigorously critical about her having gone to China during that trip against official "advice".[4] The authorities had warned her that her passport could be impounded, which would bar her from further travel were she to return to the USA.[4] Seeger decided to tour Europe and later found out that she was on a blacklist sent to European governments.[4]
Seeger first metEwan MacColl in 1956, when she went to London, after being offered a job byAlan Lomax to perform as a singer andbanjoist with a folk group called The Ramblers. She fell in love with MacColl and started an affair with him even though he was then married to his second wife, Jean Newlove. Seeger moved back to the US and worked on a radio show in Los Angeles in 1957. Whilst she was there, MacColl wrote "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" for her. Seeger again met MacColl at the festival in Moscow. They later reconnected in France, in May 1958, and decided to have a child together.[5] Previously married to director and actressJoan Littlewood, MacColl left his second wife, Jean Newlove, to become Seeger's lover.[6]
While in France and without a UK work permit, a plan was concocted by MacColl and Seeger, in which she married the Scottish folk singerAlex Campbell, in Paris, on January 24, 1959, in what Seeger has described as a "hilarious ceremony". This marriage of convenience, which lasted three years, allowed Seeger to gain British citizenship and continue her relationship with MacColl.[7] MacColl and Seeger were married 18 years later (on 25 January 1977), following his divorce from Newlove. They remained together until his death in 1989. They had three children: Neill, Calum, and Kitty. Seeger also became stepmother of singerKirsty MacColl, MacColl's daughter from his previous relationship.[8] They recorded and released several albums together onFolkways Records, along with Seeger's solo albums and other collaborations with the Seeger Family and the Seeger Sisters.[citation needed]
Seeger was a leader in the introduction of the concertina to theEnglish folk music revival. While not the only concertina player, her "musical skill and proselytizing zeal ... was a major force in spreading the gospel of concertina playing in the revival."[9]
The 1971 documentary filmA Kind of Exile was a profile of Seeger and also featured Ewan MacColl. The film was directed and produced by John Goldschmidt for ATV and shown onITV in theUK.
Together with MacColl, Seeger foundedThe Critics Group, a "master class" for young singers performing traditional songs or to compose new songs using traditional song structures (or, as MacColl called them, "the techniques of folk creation"). The Critics Group evolved into a performance ensemble seeking to perform satirical songs in a mixture of theatre, comedy and song, which eventually created a series of annual productions called "The Festival of Fools" (named for a traditional British Isles event in which greater freedom of expression was allowed for the subjects of the king than was permitted during most of the year). Seeger and MacColl performed and recorded as a duo and as solo artists; MacColl wrote "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" in Seeger's honour (and did so during a long-distance phone call between the two, while Seeger was performing in America and MacColl was barred from traveling to the US with her due to his radical political views). None of the couple's numerous albums use any electric or electronic instrumentation.
Whilst MacColl wrote many songs about work and against war and prejudice, Seeger (who also wrote such songs) sang about women's issues, with many of her songs becoming anthems of thewomen's movement. Her most memorable was "I'm Gonna Be an Engineer".[10] There were two major projects dedicated to theChild Ballads. The first wasThe Long Harvest (10 volumes 1966–75). The second wasBlood and Roses (5 volumes, 1979–83). She visited theGreenham Common Women's Peace Camp, where protests against UScruise missiles were concentrated. For them she wrote "Carry Greenham Home". Seeger also ran a record label, Blackthorne Records, from 1976 to 1988.[11]
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After the fall of theSoviet Union, US authorities began to soften their attitude towards Seeger. She returned to the United States in 1994 to live inAsheville,North Carolina. Seeger has continued to sing about women's issues. She recordedLove Will Linger On in 1995. She has published a collection of 150 of her songs from before 1999.
In 2011, Seeger editedThe Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook. Her introduction gave a detailed account of her life with MacColl. She expressed some difference of political perspective between MacColl and herself.[12]
As a buddingeco-feminist, I find the subject matter of many of the songs in this book very hard to deal with. A developed eco-feminist would probably not have undertaken this book at all. Ewan was a Marxist, a militant, gut-political product of the tail-end of the industrial revolution. In most of his songs, men are digging, slashing, cutting, building, re-shaping, raping, controlling, humanising the earth and being praised for doing so for the good of mankind. Humanity and the class struggle were Ewan's main preoccupations but his songs deal with men: men's work, men's lives, men's activities and many veiled (and not so veiled) references to the power of the penis. Even where it is obvious that both sexes are being referred to, Ewan (like myself in my early songs and like most people in our patriarchal society) employs masculine pronouns.
In 2006, Peggy Seeger relocated toBoston, Massachusetts, to accept a part-time teaching position atNortheastern University. In 2008, she began producing music videos pertaining to thePresidential campaigns, making them available through a YouTube page.
After 16 years of living in the United States, Seeger moved back to the United Kingdom in 2010 to be nearer to her children; since 2013, she has been living inIffley,Oxford.[13][14]
In 2012, she collaborated with experimental dance producer Broadcaster on an album of her songs set against dance beats.[15]
Seeger isbisexual and contributed an essay toGetting Bi: Voices of bisexuals around the world. In it she details a relationship she began with the traditional singer Irene Pyper-Scott (who lives inNew Zealand) after Ewan MacColl died.[16]
Seeger performed "Tell My Sister" on a live tribute album to the late Canadian folk artistKate McGarrigle entitledSing Me the Songs: Celebrating the Works of Kate McGarrigle. The album was released in June 2013.
Seeger's memoir,First Time Ever: A Memoir was published byFaber and Faber in October 2017.[17] A double CD of songs to accompany the memoir was released at the same time.
Since early 2022, Seeger has been doing her "First Farewell" tour of Britain and Ireland.[18][19]
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