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Country Blues => Weenie Campbell Main Forum => Topic started by: Cleoma on August 08, 2009, 01:34:31 AM
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I got the email below tonight from Mike's wife, Alexia. Mike went home from the hospital to be with family and receive hospice care during Blues Week this year. He was a dear friend and a mentor to both me and Eric; each of us met him during our teenage years as fledgling musicians and he was an inspiration and also personally helped us to pursue the "real deal" traditional music. Eric recorded and performed with him. He helped me to get the NEA grant to study with Dewey Balfa, helped me get the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention going, and I spent the last 2 years working on the New Lost City Ramblers documentary which was a challenging project and Mike was always gracious and thoughtful. We will miss him more than I can express.
Mike was one of the best friends that American traditional music has ever had; he helped so many musicians, in every kind of traditional music, including the blues. One of the most important things I learned from him was about how all the different kinds of vernacular old time music are connected: what we now call "old time" (fiddle & banjo music), country blues, Cajun music, bluegrass -- all are part of a continuum and are not as compartmentalized as some people think. This attitude about the music is for me one of the hallmarks of Port Townsend Blues Week, and I think it is, perhaps indirectly, due to Mike's influence.
Mike was always eager to hear new sounds, always working to advocate for homegrown regional music, always wanting to encourage younger musicians, and older ones too, to play the music of what he called "the true vine".
Suzy T.
Dear family, dear friends... Mike has completed his passage. He died this evening, August 7, some time before 9 pm. Family, home, peace. It's what he wanted, and he did it so gracefully. It went too fast for me to comprehend--but he always said "I don't want to linger!" Clear in what he's about, as always.
The love coming from you and from friends all over is just amazingly helpful, sustaining. Thank you. Love--------A
PS Please pass on this news as you wish.
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This is dreadfully sad news,a huge loss.My condolences to Mr.Seeger`s family and friends.
lyndvs.
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I had the good fortune of meeting Mike Seeger a few times. He was a true gentleman and a scholar. What really struck me was his enthusiasm and energy toward traditional music. He always seemed to be looking for something new and seemed energized by all of the young people playing old time music these days. Mike didn't put on airs, acting like he had seen and heard everything. He new that there were undiscovered gems still out there, he just needed to turn over the right rock.
Last year I did a restoration of an old Galiano guitar for Mike. He was very excited when I reported that I had found a signature in the guitar, identifying the maker as Antonio Cerrito. After visiting the shop, he ordered a new guitar, a parlor made out of all North American woods. He really liked the guitar and used it on an upcoming Frank Hutchison tribute. I was hoping to hear him play it in person someday.
It is a terrible loss for the American tradition music community. We were blessed to have someone who contributed so much, as a scholar, player and mentor.
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Was it 30 years ago? Mike came to Fresno State as a visiting scholar at the invitation of Gene Bluestein. The result of that was that I got to meet and hear Clifton Chenier, the Balfa Brothers, Elizabeth Cotten, the fife and drum folks from Senatobia, Jody Stecher, take a short course with Hank Bradley, and, one my all-time favorite memories, run into John Jackson at the student union, where he walked me through his version of Police Dog Blues.
You just can't buy an experience like that.
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I also feel privileged to have met Mike Seeger a few times. He was a brilliant person and one of the finest and most interesting musicians I've ever heard. He was inspiring to me when I started playing guitar back in the late 60s. I used to go to the college library in my hometown in Illinois and sit for hours listening to records. I heard the Harry Smith anthology, many of the early reissues of Hurt, Jefferson, House, and other bluesmen, but I really spent a lot of time listening to the New Lost City Ramblers (particularly Songs From the Depression).
Mr. Seeger's wide ranging interests and curiosity about all kinds of music helped shape my own attitude and, as Suzy said, gave the sense that all the various kinds of roots music that caught my ear were part of a continuum rather than so separate as the corporate record sellers would have us believe. I will always thank him for that education and I know that thousands of others have felt the same thing. He was truly, in his unassuming way, one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. RIP
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Sad news it is...
I just have to say, had it not been for Mike Seeger...
None of us would have ever got to hear Elizabeth Cotton.
and I thought it would be proper to say "thanks Mike" someplace...
So I am saying it here...
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John Salmon set Sugar in the Gourd to play Mike Seeger related songs and tunes. We listened for at least 8 hours and while much the material was familiar, the absolute breadth of it was astounding. We have lost a national treasure. Last week at Clifftop the news of his entering hospice cut through those who knew him like a knife. While he left us a treasure of great music and a lot of heavy lifting to keep it keepin' on. He was as has been said a gentleman and the most knowledgeable of scholars. A local show on UNC public television featured their concert of him just a week or two ago from perhaps a year ago. He was as entertaining as ever. He will be missed.
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I never met him but once. I was at Clifftop in 2005, helping Ray Alden with the Field Recorder's Collective booth. Mike bought the 2005 set with a check... I was too dumbfounded to even say hello - but had a guitar with me... as he walked away with Alexia, I sang "I Am A True Vine" - probably not very well... but he turned and smiled. I think he got it!
He is a hero to me.
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I knew I admired Mike a ton and was so glad to have seen him perform and exchange a few words, and I knew in recent days this was coming but it really hit me today how much he meant to me.
I've been running a tribute show of sorts at http://sugarinthegourd.com if anyone care to tune in.
John :(
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here's a fine piece posted on the NPR site
Mike Seeger Cleared Paths, Showed Us The Way (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111693752)
"He was a star, but a quiet, faintly flickering one."
Amen.
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A couple of links to Smithsonian Folkways:
http://www.folkways.si.edu/about_us/news_press.aspx
http://folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/mike_seeger.aspx
I watched the film Suzy mentioned, "Always Been A Rambler," today. Highly recommended:
http://www.alwaysbeenarambler.org/
http://www.arhoolie.com/titles/204dvd.shtml
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Just heard a great version of Frank Hutchison's Worried Blues by Mike Seeger on the tribute show at www.sugarinthegourd.com. Complete with Hutchison's weird timing and all.
I came to an understanding of Mike Seeger's importance much later than many of the folks here, being more familiar with his more famous half-brother. Here's hoping a much deserved national tribute is forthcoming.
Thanks to John for the www.sugarinthegourd.com show.
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Here's one small example of the many many projects that Mike Seeger got involved in that represents the highest level of cultural preservation:a film called "Talking Feet", http://www.folkstreams.net/film,121.
John Dee Holeman shows off his dance chops about 40-45 minutes into the film.
So much to be grateful for from Mike Seeger, and organizations like Centrum, too.
Lindy
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Just heard a great version of Frank Hutchison's Worried Blues by Mike Seeger on the tribute show at www.sugarinthegourd.com. Complete with Hutchison's weird timing and all.
Andrew:
Mike first did this on his "Old Time Country Music LP" (1962)
http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=505
And again on his "Early Southern Guitar Sounds" (2007)
http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=3182
And he walks us through it on his Homespun DVD "Early Southern Guitar Styles"
http://www.homespuntapes.com/shop/product.aspx?ID=1502
Patronizingly Yours,
Uncle Stuie
P.S. Ditto on the big thank you to John for the great show.
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Thanks Stuart. I believe it was the Early Southern Guitar Sounds version I caught. Having fooled around a little with this song myself (with much, much less success), I admired the refusal to smooth out the crooked edges.
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At folkstreams.net: Homemade American Music (http://www.folkstreams.net/pub/FilmPage.php?title=153) by Carrie and Yasha Aginsky
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Great tribute - thanks for posting Frankie.
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http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/mike_seeger.aspx
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Some beautiful recent photos here:
http://www.mikemelnyk.com/MikeSeeger8_7_09/
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his Homespun DVD "Early Southern Guitar Styles"
I *highly* recommend this DVD for Weenies. I learned "Smoketown Strut" from this video (just posted my version on the Back Porch).
Here's a screen shot from the same video of him playing "Fishing Blues" with quills & a 1930s Kaycraft guitar
(https://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpic20.picturetrail.com%2FVOL1600%2F965874%2F21155202%2F346799484.jpg&hash=4d9ca651348c75eb7543b5125b36e3cf9a3ead7a)
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Tony Russell's obituary of Mike in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/aug/10/obituary-mike-seeger) - can't say it any fairer than that.
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Hi all,
I was very sorry to hear of Mike Seeger's passing, as I was returning from England. I knew he was in hospice care and the end was imminent, but it's not possible really to prepare yourself for the inevitable conclusion.
Mike was such a huge example for and influence on me in what he did with his life. He was an ace musician who continued to evolve his entire life, something that is really quite rare. He was a good Scruggs-style banjo player early on, later one of the very finest of the "brother-style" mandolinists, a strong singer who kept refining and focusing his style, an excellent guitarist in a variety of styles, a miraculously versatile banjo player later on, a great harp player on a rack, good Old-Time fiddler and an adept at various specialty instruments, like autoharp and quills.
In addition to the music he made, Mike worked so hard to make the music available to people who might otherwise never have heard it, and worked to honor the practitioners of the music who preceded him and to see that they received the recognition he knew to be their due. People like Dock Boggs, Libba Cotten, Maybelle Carter, The McGee Brothers and Arthur Smith would very probably never have performed for audiences around the country in the '60s and '70s had it not been for Mike's efforts. He had a real love for the music and the people who made it, as well as respect for the traditions out of which it arose. As accomplished as he was, he always seemed to maintain a genuine sense of awe towards the music and humility and gratitude for the opportunity he was afforded to participate in the tradition.
I will very much miss seeing where he would have gone next in the music, his new enthusiasms and discoveries. He really loved the music and the people who made it and I so appreciate that.
All best,
Johnm
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And, today in The Telegraph as well.
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And the New York Times obituary (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/arts/music/10seeger.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=mike%20seeger&st=cse).