Recently I went to see the remarkable Peggy Seeger, wife of Ewan MacColl, step-mother to Kirsty MacColl and half-sister to Pete Seeger, who is currently doing her final tour at the age of ninety. I saw her perform just down the road from where I grew up,
Seeing what she did with her voice, guitar, banjo and piano offers hope and inspiration to anyone who thinks they may be getting “past it”.
My mind was blown to learn that Peggy Seeger was coming to my home town on the edge of the Pennine hills. In 1983, as a young man of 19, I’d bought a 5-string banjo with £300 saved to buy a car. I had no knowledge of banjos or how to play them and everyone thought I was nuts. My dad’s record collection contained blues, folk and jazz but there was one banjo record among them: a 1959 single by Peggy Seeger. The sleeve notes told of a remarkable and talented young woman whose voice and playing was the real deal. And, when I listened, I heard a sound that seemed long ago and far away. I honestly don’t know how I’d convince my 19-year-old self that one day I would see Peggy Seeger playing here. It seemed as if my life had come full circle in the most surprising way. We bought tickets immediately.
Peggy performed with her two sons, Neill and Calum MacColl. They came onstage to introduce Peggy and we all applauded as she slowly made her way to her chair. She said we were the first audience to clap her all the way to being seated and she wondered whether the applause was just for that. The banter throughout the show was delightful, easy-going and on-point.
Peggy Seeger is the consummate folk artist, with a back catalogue of witty and beautiful songs on themes such as peace, relationships and social activism in a world that is often unjust to women and minority groups. Her sons, having performed with Ewan and Peggy since childhood, sang, played guitars, dulcimers and steel-guitars in a way that was beautifully executed but without any show of flash. I’d expected a show containing Peggy’s “hits” from down the decades but wasn’t expecting the high quality of song-writing from her sons – both alone and in collaboration with Peggy. Remarkably their collaboration only began about ten years ago, when she was coming into her eighties.
Watching Peggy play was a marvellous thing to behold. She mostly avoided discussing the problems of aging unless they particularly pertained to a song (The Invisible Woman is a hilarious take on how society ignores the presence of older women) at one point however, she said, “I feel I should explain my banjo playing.”
She talked through a list of ailments that now make playing banjo quite agonising for her: arthritic fingers, a damaged rotator cuff in her shoulder that is now half a rotator cuff, problems with her wrist movement and the pain she gets if the banjo presses on her breast – which is why she has to hold the banjo several inches away from herself. Nevertheless, she played with a kind of minimalist perfection. It was fascinating to watch her use whatever movement she has left from her years of music playing. The muscle memory is clearly still there.
She forgot lyrics in places (3 or 4 times in total) but never made an issue of it. The memory lapses didn’t affect the show in the slightest. Usually, she acknowledged the fact and waited a moment until the words came. One time her sons repeatedly told her the first line of the next verse but she wouldn’t believe them until it dawned on her to say, “I think you’re right; that’s the place where I took a verse out!”
Remembering to forget discarded lyrics is the eternal problem of any singer-songwriter. Those of us who worry about memory loss can take some comfort in seeing someone who at 90 is relaxed enough to do a whole show from memory without worrying unduly about forgetting a lyric here and there.
Peggy isn’t the performer she was in her twenties, or forties or sixties… she could easily have chosen to quit performing a long time ago because she’s not what she used to be. Instead, she continues with what she has – and what she has is exquisite. Of course there was an encore.
Before the show I’d expected her to sing that loveliest of love songs, First Time Ever I Saw Your Face written for her by Ewan MacColl, but with so much great music being played I had forgotten about it. It came up in the encore and she told of how she’d received the song from Ewan by him singing it over the phone to her while she was in America and he was in England. Now, when Peggy sang it, you could hear her whole life in her voice. One moment low and on the edge of cracking to suddenly lifting and soaring high with youth and vitality. It was very moving. Equally moving was her final song; the heartfelt, How I Long for Peace.
I had brought my dad’s old record along to the concert with me in a briefcase. But by the end I decided not to line up to get it signed. It had been an unforgettable evening and I didn’t need a “trophy” to prove I was there. I was content with my memories as we drove home through the rain.
Keep Strumming and Smiling,
Ralph