MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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‘Do anything to make the whole word listen’
The great folk artist and activist PEGGY SEEGER is about to release a new album and here she talks to Lynne Walsh about its themes and the importance of speaking out about women's oppression, the environment and the survival of the arts post-Covid
Peggy Seeger and (right) with Paul Robeson in Trafalgar Square in 1960
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
BILLED as “probably” Peggy Seeger’s final solo album, First Farewell has plenty of the elements her fans love: humour that is wry but never unkind, sweetly crafted tunes that sound fresh and ancient and songs that could be lullaby and lament in one.
It is her 24th solo album in an unbroken 68-year career. It’s a tad mindblowing that this vivacious woman will be 85 in June.
Seeger prides herself on producing songs that are diverse. She owes the ability to write in a number of different styles to her late husband, folk artist Ewan MacColl.
With him, she founded The Critics Group for young singers to perform traditional songs or compose new ones using traditional song structures.
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