Last modified on Fri 9 Apr 2021 05.15 EDT
First Farewell is a wilfully playful title for Seegerâs 24th solo album. It hints towards the song her late husband Ewan MacColl famously wrote for her, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, and the way she laughs on its cover, her eyes to the sky, suggests sheâs not done yet at 85.
Peggy Seeger: First Farewell album cover. Photograph: Vicki Sharp
Itâs apparently her last album of originals, written and recorded with her family (musician sons Calum and Neill, and Neillâs partner, composer Kate St John). Her spry, lively vocals and her writing burrow into many territories: digital communication, environmental collapse, feminism, love and time, the latter nestling closest to the folksongs for which she became known. Dandelion and Clover presents a little girl waiting for a little boy to come round to play; a year later he dies, but then later he marries her. Other songs slip-slide gorgeously between magical realism and mem
Album: Peggy Seeger - First Farewell | reviews, news & interviews Album: Peggy Seeger - First Farewell
Album: Peggy Seeger - First Farewell
Carrying the torch - at 85, Peggy Seeger still can t keep from singing
by Liz ThomsonWednesday, 07 April 2021
At 85, Peggy Seeger has lived in Britain for most of her life, arriving in 1956 as a Radcliffe dropout at the invitation of folklorist Alan Lomax, who had plans for a British equivalent of the Weavers. That didn’t work out, but the visit brought her together with Ewan MacColl, folk singer, song collector, actor and left-wing firebrand.
At 85, Peggy Seeger has lived in Britain for most of her life, arriving in 1956 as a Radcliffe dropout at the invitation of folklorist Alan Lomax, who had plans for a British equivalent of the Weavers. That didn’t work out, but the visit brought her together with Ewan MacColl, folk singer, song collector, actor and left-wing firebrand. They wouldn’t marry for years, but they