Mike Seeger
In Memorium
Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger, whose love of traditional songs and tunes inspired many other musicians, including Bob Dylan, to look for the rural roots of American music, died of cancer at his home in Lexington on Friday, August 8.
Mike Seeger has devoted his life to researching, singing, and playing the traditional mountain music of the southern United States. He was a major force in giving rural Southern musicians a wider audience. He played the guitar, banjo, fiddle, jew’s harp, quills, harmonica, dulcimer, and autoharp. Since 1960 he toured the United States, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. He produced more than 78 recordings for Rounder, Smithsonian Folkways, County, Vanguard, and other labels.
Mike was a founding member of the vanguard old-time-style string band, the New Lost City Ramblers. This trailblazing three-person string band combined the urban roots of its members with a deep regard for music of the countryside and small towns. Mike and fellow Ramblers John Cohan and Tom Paley mined old 78 RPM recordings and visited with senior players, bringing largely forgotten music to life with new yet traditional arrangements.
He was born into a prominent musical family. His half-brother Pete and sister Peggy are renowned musicians and social activists. His father Charles was a folklorist. His mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, was a music scholar, teacher, and classical composer.
Mike’s love of traditional music led him to begin playing in earnest in his late teens. He sought out, learned from, and recorded traditional musicians, starting in Washington, DC, where he was raised. He ultimately traveled all over the South to find artists long forgotten or undiscovered.
Mike was the recipient of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Smithsonian Research Fellowship Program, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Grateful Dead’s Rex Foundation. He received six Grammy Award nominations. He has been a part of the Virginia Commission for the Arts performing arts touring program since 1987 and has performed throughout Virginia. In 2001 he was the featured performer at the Art Works for Virginia conference in downtown Richmond.
Mike Seeger will be greatly missed.