Mike Seeger - RIP

Mike Seeger (b. August 15, 1933 in New York, New York - August 7, 2009) was an American folk musician and folklorist.

Seeger was a self-taught musician who began playing stringed instruments at the age of 18. At about the age of 20, he began collecting songs by traditional musicians on a tape recorder. He was exposed to traditional "old-time music" through his mother Ruth Crawford-Seeger and father Charles Seeger, who worked with musicologists John and Alan Lomax. Folk musicians such as Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, John Jacob Niles, and others were frequent guests in their home [1]. His musical family includes half-brother Pete Seeger and sisters Peggy Seeger and Penny Seeger.

He was an accomplished musician; a distinctive singer who plays autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, and dobro. At 25, along with John Cohen and Tom Paley, he became a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers. He received six Grammy nominations and was the recipient of four grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.[citation needed]

His influence on the folk scene is described at some length by Bob Dylan in his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.

Seeger died at home the evening of August 7, 2009, after stopping cancer treatment.

(From Wikipedia)