Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
James T. KeaneAugust 10, 2009

The New York Times reported today that Mike Seeger, the half-brother of folk legend Pete Seeger and an accomplished folk singer and music historian himself, died of blood cancer at the age of 75.

A founder of the New Lost City Ramblers and a collector of Southern musical treasures (like much of his extended family), Seeger also had a profound influence on Bob Dylan during Dylan's early attempts to make a name for himself as a folk singer in the early '60s.  The Times quotes from Dylan's 2004 partial memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, about Seeger, in typically Dylanesque phrasing:

"He was like a duke, a knight errant.  As for being a folk musician, he was the supreme archetype.  He could push a stake through Dracula's black heart.  He was the romantic, egalitarian and revolutionary type all at once."

You can read Seeger's obituary here.

Jim Keane, S.J.

 

 

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.
Stephanie SaldañaMarch 28, 2024