Mike Seeger

Mike Seeger, a younger brother to Pete Seeger who just turned 90, died over the weekend. In my opinion Mike was more influential as a musician than Pete. He started out in the 1950s as one of the three founders of the New Lost City Ramblers. The NLCR was an ensemble that brought a lot of us into the string band music of the 1920s and 1930s. When Tom Paley left the group they added Tracy Schwartz and continued for a couple of more years. (The picture with Mike in the middle has Tracy Schwartz in it.) Mike then went into a very creative period that lasted more than 30 years. MIke went on to explore the bounds of old time music in a number of collaborations and solo albums.

Pete Seeger certainly has had an influence in music and politics. Mike stuck to music. Pete seems to have stuck his performance in the 1960s. Certainly his support for civil rights music was important but the recent concert he did for his 90th seemed to me a lot like one more continuous retrospective. Mike continued to experiment. For example in 1999 David Grishman, John Hartford and Mike Seeger produced Retrograss which took some old time music and some modern stuff (for example Chuck Berry's Memphis) and recast the tunes. The album has a sense of fun for people who know this genre of music well and for those who have never heard it. Some of his later albums had music which I could never wrap my arms around - but each had a couple of classic reinterpretations of music that would blow me away.

Pete Seeger did a book and record called How to Play a Five String Banjo - Mike did a series of great DVDs that show different styles of banjo. (He also did DVDs for other instruments including the Autoharp but I was interested in the banjo DVDs). So again Mike continued to grow in his music. I am reasonably sure that Pete has sold more albums than Mike did - but Mike remained true to his creative spirit. For me Pete is a fixed point in time and Mike continued to move and invent. He was a musician's musician.