Folk legend Peggy Seeger, sister to also famous Pete and Mike, will perform at the Phinney Neighborhood Center at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 26. It’s the first fall concert of the Seattle Folklore Society’s “Saturdays on Phinney Ridge” series.
Peggy was born into a very notable folk music family: Her mother was the composer and folklorist Ruth Crawford Seeger, her father Charles Louis Seeger, a pioneer of ethnomusicology. Her half-brother is Pete Seeger, and her brother Mike Seeger. Between the ages of 12 & 35, Peggy learned to play piano, guitar, 5-string banjo, autoharp, Appalachian dulcimer and English concertina. In 1959, after a time working as a touring musician, she settled in London with Ewan MacColl. The MacColl/Seeger duo were at the forefront of the British folksong revival for the ensuing three decades. The MacColl-Seeger work was seminal – its high point was the development of the revolutionary Radio Ballad form, a tapestry of field recordings of speech and sound effects melded with new songs in the folk idiom and complementary instrumental accompaniments.
Peggy Seeger created 22 solo discs and has taken part in more than 100 recordings with other performers. Her best-known songs are “The Ballad of Springhill” and “I’m Gonna Be An Engineer.”
The Seattle Labor Chorus will perform a short opening set. Tickets are $15 ($13 seniors/students, $7 youth 17 & under) through Brown Paper Tickets, or call 1-800-838-3006.
