Remembering Mike Seeger

There was already a cloud on the day with the news of the passing of Les Paul. Then word came from a friend that Mike Seeger had died today too.

"That" I wrote my friend "is a real gut shot."

I worked with Mike a couple of times when I was booking the folk festival in Vancouver. The first year, I brought him out solo and I made damn sure there was time each day to sit and have a cup of tea with him... one of the few smart things I've done in the last 5 or 10 years.

It was one of those times when being a presenter feels like the best gig on earth. To be able to sit and speak with a man who's love of music had changed the sound of my world, and many other people's too... to know that the audience that year, and the other performers were having the chance to hear a man who knew more about music than the rest of us put together, and who could play and sing and give you chapter and verse on each verse and chorus in every song he was singing.



In the course of our conversation, I asked him if he thought it might be possible he could come back the next, and bring John Cohen and Tracy Schwarz with him, because we would be honoured to present the New Lost City Ramblers if they wanted to come. He said he'd speak to them about it, and he did and we did and a year later, they were a part of the festival.

Over the course of the weekend, John Cohen told me that they hadn't had a gig since they'd been given a Lifetime Achievement Award several years ago. He laughed, but it wasn't a good laugh, and his story has stayed with me to this day, especially this day, because I'm sad and I'm too pissed off to even count my blessings that I was able to meet and to work with Mike Seeger and with the Ramblers

Is it ageism or ignorance or illiteracy or what? Why is it that Mike Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers couldn't get the time of day, let alone a gig at folk festivals anymore? And it's not just them... there are a lot more senior artists out there in exactly the same situation. In many cases, they are artists who were there when festivals were young and they were too. Now if they want to get close to any of those stages they helped to build, they better be prepared to buy a ticket.

It's not chops. Instrumentally, vocally and all the way to I've seen elders take youngers more known and acclaimed to the woodshed. Ever hear of Faith Petric? Google her sometime. I watched her clean Billy Bragg's clock in front of a thousand people. She had no malicious intent- she's just that good.

I know it's not the do-re-mi. What it cost me to bring Mike in, and the Ramblers as run-outs - a music biz term that means they didn't have a tour or any other gigs, so they flew in to Vancouver and then went home - wouldn't get you any of the young and the groovy flavours of the month.

I think it's a shame. I think it's a damn shame. In a cultural zone where there's a lot of palaver about "community" and lots of hugs and blah, blah, blah, I think there are people who ought to know better that have a bad case of Folk Shame.

I think there are people who are ashamed of the old Folk. It's not cool enough for them. They think it's boring. They think somehow that some baby band who's never been closer to Maybelle Carter than a YouTube clip is cooler than the New Lost City Ramblers because some dumb-ass music rags say so... and let me be clear here, I don't have a bone to pick these young bands.

I think their love for traditional music is both serious and sincere, and their desire to get into it and bring all the juice they can to it is a blessing, well worthy of admiration and support. I love to listen to them, and I presented a lot of them. I also think that the literate among them would be the first to say they'd be honoured to sit on a stage with elders like Mike and the Ramblers, and would take the memory to their grave.





One of the young bands I like a lot is Po'Girl, and it's been my pleasure to work with them a few times. One year I was chilling out at the Calgary festival, and Alison from Po'Girl came up to me there and told me a story. It seems the week before, in Vancouver, I'd programmed them on a stage with Odetta and during that session, she'd been sitting beside her when Odetta told the audience she was going to sing an old folk song called Kumbaya. That's right. Kumbaya.

And Alison, bless her, told me straight up that her eyes rolled back in her head and she was thinking to herself "Oh no... not THAT song". But Odetta was in earnest, and she proceeded to sing that song. Then Alison said to me "and I realized, I had never really heard that song, not like Odetta sang it and I want to thank you for putting me on that stage with her."

This story means a lot to me. Certainly, all the good feelings I had about Po'Girl were justified beyond measure, and they are a band I'll always have faith in... but beyond my stuff here, I think it shows what can happen when an artistic director or any oher presenter brings young artists into contact with senior artists. At the same time, it speaks to what is lost when that doesn't happen. It's not a problem with the bands. The problem is elsewhere.

I'm pissed off tonight because this is one of those lose-lose propositions. When our elders, masters of their craft like Mike Seeger and the Ramblers don't get hired anymore, everybody loses. The audience doesn't get to hear artists who have devoted decades to getting deeper and deeper into their art and their craft. Young artists don't get to sit beside these masters and hear how good they are, and how they have learned to bring an audience together.

Our elders, these senior artists, don't get to perform in front of large audiences. They are not welcome at festivals that they help get off the ground and they don't get paid the kinds of fees that festivals could offer them... money that would mean a lot more to them than it would to the young and the hip, who could get it anywhere.




And perhaps the saddest, stupidest part of it all is the cool points. There are any number of festivals where it seems like Mike Seeger and others of his generation aren't cool enough any more.... but there are others who disagree. Ry Cooder, Ralph Stanley and Bob Dylan played on his records. John Hartman and David Grisman made a reecord with him. Alison Kraus and Robert Plant sought him to to help with their album Raising Sand. Dock Boggs owed him a solid or two, and Maybelle Carter welcomed him into her home.



I belive that Mike Seeger had a rich full life, and his passionate curiousity ensured he would never want for things to do. I don't know that he felt slighted or felt the loss because he didn't get booked at one festival or another. It's too bad more people didn't get to hear him and the Ramblers and it's too bad more young bands didn't get to play with them, or have a cup of tea backstage.

I'm thankful there were elders around me who taught me well. I'm thankful I got to shake Mike Seeger's hand and show him respect for his work, and I'm proud that I presented him, and Faith Petric and Utah Phillips and others like them. There's other elders out there, though, who've more than paid their dues, who've spent years developing skills and repertoires and who could use a good paying gig or two. It breaks my heart to think the odds are so long against them.

-30-