Latest news with #PeggySeeger
RTÉ News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Something For The Weekend: Peggy Seeger's cultural picks
We're honoured to welcome a true music legend to these pages... Peggy Seeger's 25th and final solo album, Teleology released this month before her 90th birthday, marks over 70 years as a working musician, feminist and activist. Her 7-date Irish concert tour in June will be her very last. After the tour, Peggy will retire from recording and live performance. This is no apologetic or quiet farewell – her voice and songwriting are still major forces to be reckoned with. Peggy says: "It is unavoidable that at 90 I am preoccupied with life, love, loss, old age and death but I've never abandoned politics or the compulsion to speak up when something isn't right. How I got here is still a bit of a mystery, but I'm exactly where I should be right now, and I'm at peace with that." We asked Peggy for her choice cultural picks... FILM My favourite film that I've seen six times is O Brother Where Art Thou?, directed by the Coen brothers. The acting is superb, the whole concept is superb, using creatures and storylines from Greek, Roman and folk mythology. The allegories are cleverly hidden within the three main characters. Even though it lasts for almost three hours, I could watch it again right now and see something that I hadn't seen before. It also uses music that I grew up with and I can just get lost in it. MUSIC I'm fixated on Grit Laskin's song My Turn. It's seven minutes long, and it's a story of a man during the Second World War who, because of his political stance as a pacifist, was sent to an internment camp far in the north of Canada where they sent dissidents and Japanese people. He makes a deal with the devil that if he lives for eighty years, he'll have no regrets. In the camp he meets and falls in love with a Japanese woman, but they were shunned by both his and her family. Despite that, they lived together and loved and laughed for 50 years. It's a philosophical song about how at every turn, he is thankful. No regrets, even at the end. It makes me think of my brother, Pete Seeger, and his half-Japanese wife; all of her family were interned during the Second World War – they only let her father out because he was brilliant at decoding. BOOK I listen to audio books while I'm walking or doing my chores. I loved The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared, which I would recommend to anyone of any age. I also loved The Covenant of Water. It follows three generations of one family in Kerala, India. It spans almost 100 years of the same family who are plagued by the curse of drowning. I kept wondering where the story was going, but it almost doesn't matter because I learned so much about the history of medicine, the hardships of segregation, the enduring nature of dignity and simple humanity. I won't give you a spoiler, but the ending is stunning. TV The Vicar of Dibley. Without a doubt, it's just a hoot. I watch it again and again on iPlayer as I don't have a television. The whole cast is superb, and Dawn French is wonderful. The opening episode is set in the council of a little town, where they're waiting for a new vicar. In flounces Dawn French, she sits down at the table, and the mayor says, "I'm sorry, that's for the new vicar". And she says, "Well, I'm the vicar. I'm the new vicar." As his face falls, she says, "oh, you didn't expect a woman" and hoisting her considerable breasts up onto the table says, "These do rather give it away." It's wonderful. I'm a creature of habit and I'm happy to watch the same things that I love over and over. I've done it with songs all my life. I sung the same songs over and over and every time I sing them I see something different. GIG When I was about ten, my mother taught me to read orchestral scores. She took me to a classical recital and had obtained the score in advance. Now that score was about fifteen inches high, because it has all the instruments and what they're playing, so we could follow from page to page. My mother whispered, "Now the oboe's coming in, look down there." And so I'd listen for the oboe coming in. We started being 'shushed' by other people in the audience so she just pointed, and we went right through the piece with this score. I've never forgotten that. What an education for a child! So rather than recommending just one concert, I recommend taking children (yours, or other people's) to concerts of all sorts, and helping them to understand what's going on. It's an experience they will never forget and will help them to love music of all sorts. TECH I have two apps on my phone that I use all the time. Picture This is invaluable on my daily walks. You can aim it at a flower, take a photo and it'll tell you what the flower is with all of its possible names. Ewan MacColl, my first life partner, was a flower freak. He taught me so many British flowers and their colloquial names but I tend to forget them now, so it's great to remind myself. The other one I use all the time is the Merlin Bird app. If there's a bird singing in the garden you just turn Merlin on and it tells you what that bird is. I've discovered so many birds that I just didn't know were there as they don't always come to the bird table but hide in the trees and bushes. THE NEXT BIG THING... I'm not sure this is the next big thing, because it's been going for a while, but find a green space that is what has wildlife in it and find ways to preserve it. Treasure the green spaces and defend them. Defend trees, defend rivers. I love the idea of wildflower bombing – where people throw wildflower seed down by lampposts or small patches of unremarkable ground. I send cards that have flowers seeds in them to kids and hope that by encouraging children to grow things they'll find a lifelong joy in watching nature thrive.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Folk music legend loving life in 'iconic' village
"I rent in an iconic village in south east Oxford and I've become part of the community." Folk music legend Peggy Seeger, 89, is about to hit the road for one last tour of the UK and Ireland with her 25th solo album Teleology. She said while she misses the stage, she now enjoys walks in Iffley, Oxfordshire, where she has been living since 2013. After more than 70 years of music-making and activism, Seeger said she "never tried to be famous" but just "do what I do, as good as possible". "I've had some absolutely wonderful feedback from people and they seem to really know how to listen to it because it's not an easy album," she said of her latest album. Teleology contains nine new songs and two reinterpretations, one of which is The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - a timeless love song that folk singer, broadcaster and activist Ewan MacColl wrote for her in 1956. The pair went on to make more than 40 albums together, marry and have children. She said: "It's a strange thing because people think that my husband and I both fell disastrously in love with each other, but we didn't. "I ran away from him for three years, he was not my idea of what I wanted to do with my life." But despite her resistance and a 20-year age difference, they got together and Seeger said the truth about it was written in her memoir. "The first kiss I got from him just curled my toes," she said. Peggy Seeger on her husband Ewan MacColl Peggy Seeger: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face How Folk Songs Should Be Sung But in a Radio 4 interview, she said she had become "weary" of talking about the past. After MacColl's death in 1989, she moved back to America where she decided that "really, my true home where I wanted to live until I die, was the UK". "My children and my grandchildren are here and I know this country better than I know the United States," she said. "I love this country - all four nations of it." She said that in Iffley, it was the "first time I've been really part of a community", adding: "I'm now on the village committee and my job is to raise money." She also continues to be involved in environmental concerns, joining a campaign against building on two green fields. She has made a film called The Mother, which she said will be shown around Oxford "because it's important to save as much of Oxford's green land that we can". Seeger said she "loves" walking along the River Thames, going down to the Iffley lock, meeting "some absolutely wonderful friends" and visiting the village shop. "But I don't get up to much in Oxford because I'm not very fit," she said. "I love the Christ Church garden but, generally, I will go outside of Oxford because I can't park [in the city], so I'll maybe go out to Waterperry Gardens or drive up to Burford." Seeger said her upcoming tour "is going to be fabulous". She said: "Part of it grieves me because there's going to be so many friends there and I won't have time to see them. "I miss the stage but I'm not physically up to it anymore." Her message to budding musicians, she said, would be: "Examine your reasons. "It's almost impossible to make living from it - venues closed down one after the other when Covid hit ... the competition is fierce and you have to really be something different to capture the audience." Seeger said that when she came to the UK, she had "the right combination of who I was". "I was female, young, reasonably good-looking," she said. "I was American and I played a longneck banjo and I was greeted by one of the main folklorists in the world. "I've never tried to be famous, I don't want to be, I just want to do what I do as good as possible." You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. Fishing industry play inspired by 1960s radio show Folk anthem's lost verse to be revealed after 75 years The trespass and the folk legend
BBC News
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Peggy Seeger loving life in 'iconic' Oxfordshire village
"I rent in an iconic village in south east Oxford and I've become part of the community."Folk music legend Peggy Seeger, 89, is about to hit the road for one last tour of the UK and Ireland with her 25th solo album said while she misses the stage, she now enjoys walks in Iffley, Oxfordshire, where she has been living since more than 70 years of music-making and activism, Seeger said she "never tried to be famous" but just "do what I do, as good as possible". "I've had some absolutely wonderful feedback from people and they seem to really know how to listen to it because it's not an easy the album," she said of her latest contains nine new songs and two reinterpretations, one of which is The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - a timeless love song that folk singer, broadcaster and activist Ewan MacColl wrote for her in pair went on to make more than 40 albums together, marry and have said: "It's a strange thing because people think that my husband and I both fell disastrously in love with each other, but we didn't."I ran away from him for three years, he was not my idea of what I wanted to do with my life."But despite her resistance and a 20-year age difference, they got together and Seeger said the truth about it was written in her memoir."The first kiss I got from him just curled my toes," she said. Peggy Seeger on her husband Ewan MacCollPeggy Seeger: The First Time Ever I Saw Your FaceHow Folk Songs Should Be Sung But in a Radio 4 interview, she said she had become "weary" of talking about the past. After MacColl's death in 1989, she moved back to America where she decided that "really, my true home where I wanted to live until I die, was the UK". "My children and my grandchildren are here and I know this country better than I know the United States," she said."I love this country - all four nations of it."She said that in Iffley, it was the "first time I've been really part of a community", adding: "I'm now on the village committee and my job is to raise money."She also continues to be involved in environmental concerns, joining a campaign against building on two green has made a film called The Mother, which she said will be shown around Oxford "because it's important to save as much of Oxford's green land that we can". Seeger said she "loves" walking along the River Thames, going down to the Iffley lock, meeting "some absolutely wonderful friends" and visiting the village shop."But I don't get up to much in Oxford because I'm not very fit," she said."I love the Christ Church garden but, generally, I will go outside of Oxford because I can't park [in the city], so I'll maybe go out to Waterperry Gardens or drive up to Burford." Seeger said her upcoming tour "is going to be fabulous".She said: "Part of it grieves me because there's going to be so many friends there and I won't have time to see them. "I miss the stage but I'm not physically up to it anymore."Her message to budding musicians, she said, would be: "Examine your reasons."It's almost impossible to make living from it - venues closed down one after the other when Covid hit ... the competition is fierce and you have to really be something different to capture the audience."Seeger said that when she came to the UK, she had "the right combination of who I was"."I was female, young, reasonably good-looking," she said. "I was American and I played a longneck banjo and I was greeted by one of the main folklorists in the world."I've never tried to be famous, I don't want to be, I just want to do what I do as good as possible." You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
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Scotsman
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Album reviews: Suzanne Vega Peggy Seeger The Supernaturals
Suzanne Vega offers plenty of food for thought on her varied new album, writes Fiona Shepherd Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Suzanne Vega: Flying With Angels (Cooking Vinyl) ★★★ Peggy Seeger: Teleology (Red Grape Music) ★★★★ Andy Bell: Ten Crowns (Crown Recordings) ★★★ The Supernaturals: Show Tunes (Last Night From Glasgow) ★★★★ New York singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega says her first album of exclusively new material in over a decade is themed around struggle. Listening to it, however, is no chore as the ideas, sentiments and musical styles pour forth with the easy practice of an expert performer. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The reassuring chug of acoustic rhythm guitar and Vega's soothing voice are embellished with tremolo guitar trills and cooing backing vocals on peppy opener Speakers' Corner. The song flows freely but the lyrics caution that free speech is a right that comes with accountability. Suzanne Vega | Ebru Yildiz From here, Vega shoots off in myriad directions, taking in the slower, spacious, soaring title track, chunky rock reverberations of Witch, familiar half-spoken pen portrait of Lucinda and the wholly unexpected Eighties sunshine funk groove of Love Thief. She effortlessly rides the tonal contrasts between the freewheeling folk pop waltz Galway and the scampering garage rock'n'roll of Rats and also within songs, channelling Leonard Cohen on Last Train From Mariupol, an undulating lament for the huddled masses of the Ukraine, which then ramps up dramatically with crashing percussion and martial drums. Not everything is quite as arresting as this but there's enough food for thought to go round. US folk legend Peggy Seeger goes out on a musical high, celebrating her 90th birthday by releasing her 25th and final album, forged in the company of her sons Calum and Neill MacColl and daughter-in-law Kate St John. Teleology rages against the dying of the light in part. Seeger remains alive to the troubles of the day, calling out hardship, inequality and greed on Sing About These Hard Times and making a call to protest and direct action on Sit Down, with harmony voices in accord. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Driftwood is her solo ode to refugees, with her voice echoing against the sound of wind, while autoharp, piano and a sighing harmony chorus back her song for the displaced, No Place Like Home. She favours bare balladry throughout, from the poignant valediction of Apple Tree to a touching rendition of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, written for her by her then husband Ewan MacColl. Her work here is maybe not quite done as she shares a final impish wish on I Want to Meet Paul Simon, a sweet ode from one musical icon to another, populated by his characters and speckled with his lyrics: 'I've got fifty ways to meet him but I'm running out of time'. Andy Bell | Sean Black Erasure frontman Andy Bell is on a galactic dance odyssey on latest solo album Ten Crowns, kicking off with celestial trance track Breaking Thru the Interstellar, before applying bells and whistles to the hi-NRG-inflected disco of Dance For Mercy. He is bolstered by the mighty alto strains of US singer Sarah Potenza on pumping electro pop number Lies So Deep and by his vocal shero Debbie Harry on middling affair Heart's A Liar. Bell mostly paints in broad brushstrokes with a handful of pomp flourishes, none more so than the church organ solo which opens Latino electro pop plea Dawn of Heavens Gate. The Supernaturals | Contributed Glasgow indie outfit The Supernaturals were pulled along in the Britpop slipstream of the late Nineties, making it on to Top of the Pops and numerous advert soundtracks with their most enduring track, Smile. The group have released three albums since reforming in 2012, their latest inspired by their original guitarist Derek McManus's direction that the band should write 'show tunes'. In practice, this means everything from the dreamy synth arpeggios of Clockwork Orange to the grungey Burn the Witch, alternative lullaby The Dread to the rollicking regret of If You Can't Love Yourself, all dispatched with seasoned panache. CLASSICAL Bruckner: Symphony No 9 (Hallé) ★★★★ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad To compete or not to complete: that's the question posed by many of history's unfinished symphonies. Bruckner's Ninth figures among them, his last great symphonic utterance left after his death as substantial drafts, but requiring skilled and sympathetic archeological work to be turned into a convincing conclusion. Several have done so, most recently the editorial team led, in this latest 2022 revision, by John A Phillips. The impact of the Finale - now a bold statement of brazen self-belief rather than the sublime resignation of the foregoing Adagio that ends most 'unfinished' performances - is powerfully expressed in this fascinating recording by the Hallé Orchestra under its new chief conductor Kahchun Wong. The Finale aside, Wong asserts his own broadly-paced view of the entire symphony, the patience he applies to unfolding its gargantuan structure marked by an unexpected sensuousness. Mostly it works, sometimes it challenges natural instinct. It's definitely thought-provoking. Ken Walton FOLK Flook: Sanju (Flatfish Records) ★★★★
