MIKE SEEGER PERFORMS AT THE HURDY GURDY ON MAY 5
The Hurdy Gurdy Folk Music Club is honored to present MIKE SEEGER in concert this coming Saturday, May 5, at 8pm. The Hurdy Gurdy presents concerts at the Central Unitarian Church at 156 Forest Avenue in Paramus, NJ.
Mike Seeger has devoted his life to singing and playing “Music fromTrue Vine” — the home music made by American southerners before the media age. “Music from True Vine” grows out of hundreds of years of British traditions that blended in our country with equally ancient African traditions to produce songs and sounds that are unique to the United States. For the peoples of the rural South, their great variety of music, song and story provided their Shakespeare, their dance music, their news, and the fabric of their daily lives. This music in time became the roots of today’s country, bluegrass and popular music, andremains as ever, enduring and refreshing listening.
Fidelity to traditional sounds has set Mike Seeger apart from other performers since he began touring the United States and abroad in1960. Mike’s music conveys all the depth of feeling, the sheer energyand the infinite variety and texture of true rural music. Likeearlier musicians, Mike seeks out his own vision of the music by creating within its traditions, making his music uniquely his own. As he sings the old songs, he plays in a wide variety of old-timestyles, accompanying himself on an array of instruments, including banjo, fiddle, guitar, trump (jaw harp), mouth harp (harmonica),quills, lap dulcimer, mandolin and autoharp.
The Seegers sang with their children most Saturday nights. At agefive Mike learned the old ballad “Barbara Allen” from hismusicologist/composer parents. Soon he was listening to and learning from their collection of early documentary recordings. He began playing instruments in his late teens, learning first from nearby musicians such as his close friend Elizabeth Cotten, and laterseeking out other master stylists like guitarist Maybelle Carter, banjoists Dock Boggs and Cousin Emmy, and autoharpist Kilby Snow.
Eventually Mike’s love for traditional music led him to produce documentaries — more than twenty-five field recordings and videos –and to organize many tours and concerts featuring traditional musicians and dancers.As a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, Make played an integral role in helping to revive interest in a variety of traditional musics, now played by thousands of young musicians across the country. Since his first recordings with the Ramblers in the late nineteen fifties, Mike has gone on to record almost forty albums, both solo and with others. Mike Seeger has been honored with three Grammy nominations, most recently in 1991 for Solo: OldTime Country Music and in 1994 forThird Annual Farewell Reunion. In 1995 Mike received the Rex Foundation’s Ralph J. Gleason Lifetime Achievement Award, established by the Grateful Dead to recognize “those who exemplify the qualities of talent, vision, innovation that Ralph so tirelessly supported.” In the word of the award citation, Mike Seeger “…remains one of our great musical and cultural resources. To see him perform is to experience the richness of our traditions.”
Tickets for the concert are $25 or $22 for members. You can join theHurdy Gurdy either online at our website or at the door the night ofthe concert.
The Hurdy Gurdy Folk Music club presents concerts at theCentral Unitarian Church, 156 Forest Ave., Paramus, New Jersey. Our series offers great entertainment in a comfortable atmosphere at a reasonable price. All shows are at 8 pm. Refreshments are available.Advance tickets are available through our website at www.hurdygurdyfolk.org , or you can pick up tickets at Brier RoseBooks,450 Cedar Lane in Teaneck, New Jersey (201-836-5500).
For more information you can also call the Hurdy Gurdy at (201) 384-8465.
(Some of the information above comes from the artists official press release)