Mike Seeger

Interview with Oscar Brand

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On today’s show I speak with folk musician and pioneering radio host Oscar Brand, who celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this year.  Happy birthday Oscar!

Oscar Brand is the host of Folksong Festival on WNYC, a radio show which he has hosted since he got out of the army in 1945.  I believe Folksong Festival to be the longest running radio program with a single host in the world!  Oscar has had many many incredible guests on the show over these many years, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Jean Ritchie, Bob Dylan, everyone you can think of and more…an amazing program.  It was great to hear his reminiscences of these people and the history of his program as we recorded this interview at his home in 2008.

Brand is a man of many talents, he is a very well known folk singer and a great wealth of songs on every topic imaginable, including bawdy songs and campaign songs! He was a founder back in 1959 and then the MC of the Newport Folk Festival.  As an MC he was lucky enough to introduce both Jean Ritchie at her debut performance at the first ever Hootenany at Irving Plaza back in the 40’s, and then in 1959 introduced Joan Baez to a mass audience in her first appearance at Newport.  Oscar is an old old friend of Down Home Radio founder Henrietta Yurchenco.  They had the first folk music radio programs in New York back in the 1940’s.

A big thanks to Steve French for editing the audio of this interview.

You can hear Oscar Brand’s Folksong Festival program by clicking HERE.

George Pickow, Jean Ritchie and Oscar Brand, WNYC, 1947
[George Pickow, Jean Ritchie and Oscar Brand at WNYC in New York City, 1947]

A Special Treat:
On Thanksgivings over the years Oscar Brand would always have whatever traveling folk singers that happened to be in town over to his house for Thanksgiving dinner.  In 1966 he had Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, Jean Ritchie, Ralph Rinzler, Mike Seeger and Almeda Riddle and others at his house.  Oscar broke out his tape recorder and they made some really great recordings, posted here as an extra special treat! – He airs these recordings on his show every year at Thanksgiving, but here they are now, recorded from one of his broadcasts.


[Me and Oscar at the Alan Lomax memorial conference at Cooper Union in 2003.]

FolkStreams.net

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Here is a brief excerpt from the film “Homemade American Music” made by Carrie and Yasha Aginsky in 1980, featuring Mike Seeger and Alice Gerrard as they pay a visit to Roscoe Holcomb.   This film follows Mike and Alice as they visit Tommy Jarrell, Lily May Ledford, Roscoe Holcomb and Elizabeth Cotten and recount their own history as musicians and students of the music.

The complete 40 minute film is available for viewing at: http://www.folkstreams.net/film,153

This incredible incredible website features literally dozens of amazing folkloric documentary films, mostly on music but also on other folk art forms.  It is worth it to watch everyone of these films- visit www.FolkStreams.net today!

Mike Seeger (1933-2009)

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[Mike Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival 1966]

With sadness we mark the passing of one of the real true greats of American music in the last half century.  Mike Seeger was a master of the banjo, guitar, fiddle, autoharp, mouth harp, jew’s harp, quills, mandolin and essentially any instrument he laid his hands on as well as being a great singer.  He died at his home in Virginia on Friday after a long battle with cancer, he was 75. 

I’m writing from the road, out on tour with my old-time string band.  We’re here in Cincinatti, OH today, listening to Mike’s “Second Annual Farewell Reunion” album, a wonderful record he did with a number of friends back in 1973 and remembering this man who brought us so much amazing music both as a member of the New Lost City Ramblers, a solo performer and  as a promoter/field worker.  Mike Seeger’s influence on American music is untold.  He was an inspiration to nearly everyone involved in the field of traditional music in this country for the past 50 years and consistently brought to light amazing songs, musicians, musical styles and histories which we might otherwise never have heard about.  Although he had cancer for a number of years his final passing was quick and he left the world still busy performing and documenting the music that he loved.

I’m reposting here an interview I did with Mike Seeger back in 2003 and first posted on DHR back in 2008.  It was my first real radio interview!  Also included (the 2nd play button) is a recording of the live set that Mike played when I booked him at the Oberlin College Folk Festival in 2003.  Below are links to a lot more information about Mike Seeger and his work.

Here is a link to a nice obituary and rememberance done by Mike’s friend and fellow musician Paul Brown for NPR

Obit from Mike’s local newspaper

Mike Seeger. Photo by Ron Pen

Reposted from 2008:
This week I’ll be drawing from my “archives” for an interview with Mike Seeger, multi-instrumentalist, field-recordist, record producer and 1/3 of the New Lost City Ramblers. This interview is from a tape of one of my old radio shows from college. It was conducted in May 0f 2003 at WOBC, the radio station of Oberlin College in Ohio. This was my first real radio interview! I had booked Mike to come and play at the Oberlin Folk Festival and while in town he appeared on the weekly radio show I hosted with my friend Jacob Groopman. We talk about his parents Ruth Crawford and Charles Seeger, Elizabeth Cotton, Dock Boggs, Josh Thomas, Henry Thomas, Alan Lomax, the current state of folk music and more, and Mike plays some gourd banjo and jaw harp live on the air.

Included above are the interview with Mike, and a recording of his appearance at the Oberlin College Folk Festival, May 2003.
Special thanks to Tom Reid of Oberlin College for providing the live recording of Mike Seeger at the Oberlin Folk Festival.

Links:

Interview with Mike Seeger

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Mike Seeger. Photo by Ron Pen

This week I’ll be drawing from my “archives” for an interview with Mike Seeger, multi-instrumentalist, field-recordist, record producer and 1/3 of the New Lost City Ramblers. This interview is from a tape of one of my old radio shows from college. It was conducted in May 0f 2003 at WOBC, the radio station of Oberlin College in Ohio. This was my first real radio interview! I had booked Mike to come and play at the Oberlin Folk Festival and while in town he appeared on the weekly radio show I hosted with my friend Jacob Groopman. We talk about his parents Ruth Crawford and Charles Seeger, Elizabeth Cotton, Dock Boggs, Josh Thomas, Henry Thomas, Alan Lomax, the current state of folk music and more, and Mike plays some gourd banjo and jaw harp live on the air.

Included above are the interview with Mike, and a recording of his appearance at the Oberlin College Folk Festival, May 2003.