Mike Seeger R.I.P.

Ben Elder · From: La Crescenta, California, USA

Friends:

Sorry to pass along the sad news that Mike died tonight, in hospice care at his home in Virginia, surrounded by the loving care of his wife, his sons and his sister. He was at peace and not in pain.

(Author redacted, but a close associate, well in the know.)
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"Gopher, Everett?"

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

So sorry to here that.

He choose hospice,
so went out in the manner of his choosing.
Still sad to see such a talent gone,
even if it's gone to meet his maker.
RIP Mike
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DLD, Chili farmer. Plus bananas and papaya too.

Real happiness has no strings attached.
But pedal steels have many!

Walter Stettner · From: Vienna, Austria

Sad news. My condolences to his family.

RIP, Mike.
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www.lloydgreentribute.com

Bill Bassett · From: Papamoa New Zealand

That is sad news. I got to meet Mike Seeger in 1970 at a little hippie coffee house in Bellingham WA called Toad Hall. It was in the basement of an old Victorian era bank building in the old Fairhaven District. I often sang at the open mic nights and hung around with the other hippie folkys.

I remember being there to hear The Tall Timber String Band with Fat Jack Hanson and in comes Mike Seeger. He did take the stage and played a short set using my very own Martin D-18. Pretty cool for me. (Odd I can remember that night when so many others from that time are just a blur.)

BDBassett
Rimrock AZ

Pete Finney · From: Nashville Tn.

From the Nashville Tennessean:

Roots music Rambler Mike Seeger dies

By Peter Cooper
STAFF WRITER

Mike Seeger, whose talents as a multi-instrumentalist, sound engineer, archivist and scholar made him a major figure in American roots music over the past half-century, died Friday night at his home in Lexington, Va.

Mr. Seeger was 75. He died of an aggressive form of cancer known as multiple myeloma.

The half-brother of folk legend Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger joined friends John Cohen and Tom Paley to form the New Lost City Ramblers in 1958.

That group revived songs of forerunners such as Charlie Poole, Uncle Dave Macon and The Carter Family without applying the mainstream gloss of many folk boom-era acts, and Seeger’s enthusiasm for music that many had considered archaic or quaint was both a lesson and an inspiration for young acoustic acts in the ‘60s, including Bob Dylan and Loudon Wainwright III.

“I was a kid in boarding school in the northeast, listening to the New Lost City Ramblers,” said Wainwright, whose new album is a tribute to Charlie Poole. “That’s the first place I heard this music.”

Dan Bottstein of Billboard wrote, “In brushing the dust of time from American folk music, Mike Seeger illuminates the roots of contemporary music and champions their strength.”

As thrilled to listen as he was to sing and play, Mr. Seeger often toted a reel-to-reel tape recorder to shows, recording artists including The Stanley Brothers, Mac Wiseman, Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs in their prime.

He sought, found and recorded banjo great Dock Boggs, after Boogs had been inactive for decades, and he helped revive the career of Nashville’s Sam McGee.

Mr. Seeger also engineered albums by The Country Gentlemen that became a template for new-era folk and bluegrass music, and he authored numerous liner notes for Folkways Records and other companies.

He recorded and produced American Banjo, Scruggs Style. In 1957, that became the first bluegrass long-playing record ever released.

“His deep knowledge and the way he expressed not only the facts but the importance and heart and soul of the music was the foundation for liner notes in bluegrass music, especially,” said WSM air personality and Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs, himself a musician and a liner note writer.

“His importance overall to so many aspects of old-time and bluegrass music are monumental.”

A six-time Grammy nominee, Mr. Seeger often called the music he loved True Vine, and defined it as music that came from American Southerners before the media age.

A native New Yorker, he was nonetheless smitten by sounds and instruments from rural hills and hollows, and he brought those sounds to places such as The White House and Carnegie Hall.

While Mr. Seeger never lived in Nashville, his work is an underpinning for many Music City performers, and he collaborated with Nashville artists including John Hartford and Tim O’Brien.

Recently, he was a part of the Grammy-winning Robert Plant and Alison Krauss album, Raising Sand. He played the autoharp on Doc Watson’s “Your Long Journey,” once again finding a new place for the old tones.

Doug Childress · From: Orange, Texas

Sorry to hear of Mike's passing. I was on a show with Mike and the "New Lost City Ramblers" at the El Paso Coleseium in the 60's.

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

I was always a great fan of Mike and the New Lost City Ramblers, and also his sister Peggy, with whom he recorded from time to time. They were some of my earliest influences. A great loss to folk music.

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