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.