Anyone that receives Peggy Seeger‘s newsletter will know how active she still is – even during lockdown she has been lending words of support to those struggling, humouring us and highlighting human rights and environmental issues such as the clearing of Ancient Woodland in the UK to build HS2. So when I read that she is about to release what is ‘likely’ to be her final album of original material…I took that with a pinch of salt and judging by the album title and cover, I think she may do as well.
Anyhow…here’s the latest press:
‘First Farewell’ is to be released on April 9, 2021 via Red Grape Music. Mellowing, however, is not Seeger’s style and she’s not going quietly. Her remarkable 24th solo album underscores her importance & continued relevance as a songwriter and performer, cementing her place as one of the most uncompromising and inspiring female artists of any genre and age. Peggy today releases ‘The Invisible Woman’, the first track to be lifted from ‘First Farewell’ – which will be accompanied by a 26 UK tour including London’s Cecil Sharp House on May 27, 2021.
A co-write with her musician son Neill, ‘The Invisible Woman’ scrutinises the ways in which society pushes its older generations into the margins. Thrumming with Seeger’s gift for both off-beat wit (making reference to walking the high street ‘In clown shoes and lace underwear’ seeking acknowledgement) – and wry self-knowledge (Don’t know how I became so unseen / when my tangible self was put on the shelf), the track is delivered with a vitality that belies an artist approaching their swan song.
Speaking about the track, Peggy recalls; My older son Neill MacColl was hesitant for ages about co-writing with me. He turned up at my home one day, laid his 6’1” self along my two-seater sofa and laconically offered a possible subject for a song. ‘The Invisible Woman’ strolled in gradually, wearing clown shoes and lace underwear. We ended up with a song that expressed an uncomfortable new feeling that was creeping up on us both but that echoed the folk songs that I’d sung to him since birth.
There is so much to say about Peggy Seeger: a monumental figure in folk music in the UK and USA, still writing and touring at age 85, an unbroken 68-year career, a constant musical innovator (aged 77 she was a vocalist on dance single ‘England’ by Broadcaster, a Radio 1 Record of the Week), a style icon (Bella Freud naming a sweater after her in 2019), numerous international awards, and an active campaigner on the environment alongside social and feminist issues.
Foremost, Seeger is a passionate advocate of the ability of music and community to change lives. With storytelling running through her bones and an unshakable belief that music is activism, ‘First Farewell’ delivers powerful tales both personal and political, squaring up to life-long love, loneliness, young male suicide, modern slavery and social media addiction. ‘First Farewell’ nonetheless expresses Peggy’s indefatigable optimism, inquisitiveness and lust for life.
The album is the first to be written and recorded entirely with Peggy’s immediate family members – sons Calum and Neill MacColl (established musicians & songwriters) and daughter-in-law Kate St John (Dream Academy). It’s also her first album to reference her roots as a classically trained pianist rather than entirely as a folk musician. The simple piano arrangements hark back to the avant-garde compositions of her mother, the Guggenheim fellowship composer Ruth Crawford Seeger.
Read our 2014 Interview with Peggy Seeger here.