[78-L] More On Mike Seeger

[Bill Knowlton]

I'm passing this award certificate along to show folks who know little or nothhing about "Pete's Half Brother" to give the sadly ailing Mike Seeger his due:

 

1995 International Bluegrass Music Association Certificate of Merit Award to Mike Seeger

Presented September 21, 1

 

MIKE SEEGER
by John Rossbach
 

Were it not for a handful of passionate visionaries from the greater Washington DC area in the late fifties, bluegrass music as we know it today might not have survived the onslaught of Elvis and the Romanticism of the ensuing hootenanny craze. 

Mike Seeger, Ralph Rinzler, and Pete Kuykendall’s endeavors made it possible for subsequent generations to come to know and love bluegrass music. Kuykendall and the late Ralph Rinzler’s efforts have been most deservedly acknowledged by the bluegrass community through IBMA’s Certificate Of Merit Awards. It is time we pay tribute to Mike Seeger’s long overlooked and historically significant contributions to the propagation of bluegrass and old time American music. I hereby nominate Mike Seeger as a candidate for a 1995 IBMA Certificate of Merit.

 

What follows is a modest outline of Mike Seeger’s achievements.

 

AS A DOCUMENTER AND ARCHIVIST: 

 

He recorded and produced American Banjo Scruggs Style for Folkways Records in 1956. In 1957, it became the first bluegrass album ever released.

 

It was historically significant, as it introduced bluegrass music to a new urban generation. Urged by Pete Kuykendall, Seeger documented the historically significant contributions Snuffy Jenkins made to Earl Scruggs’ and Don Reno’s banjo styles. In addition to Jenkins, this seminal recording also included performances by Earl’s older brother, Junie Scruggs, Larry Richardson, Smiley Hobbs, Donnie Bryant, Pete (Roberts) Kuykendall, Seeger himself, and others.

 

He recorded and produced Mountain Music Bluegrass Style for Folkways in 1959. 

 

It served as a major reference source for those who didn’t yet know where to find bluegrass music. Seeger’s liner notes and discography identified all the established bluegrass groups of the day and gave information on how to order their recordings. It featured Don Stover, Chubby Anthony, Earl Taylor and the Stony Mountain Boys as well as younger revivalists such as Eric Weissberg and Bob Yellin.

 

AS A RECORD PRODUCER AND RECORDING ENGINEER:

 

He taped countless live shows and did many studio and on-location recordings of bluegrass and old time performers such as The Lilly Brothers and Don Stover, The Country Gentlemen, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, The Stanley Brothers, Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, Sara and Maybelle Carter, Eck Robertson, Sam McGee, Leslie Riddle, Libba Cotten, Cousin Emmy, Dock Boggs and many others. He wrote well-researched liner notes and took cover shots for several other important recordings of bluegrass and old time country music.

 

AS AN ADVOCATE AND EDUCATOR:

 

It was Seeger who urged Ralph Rinzler to go out and listen to Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. By the early sixties, Monroe’s career was at an all-time low, ironically being obscured by the popularity of his admirer, Elvis Presley. On the folk revival scene Monroe’s former disciples, Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs were eclipsing his contributions to American music. Monroe was reduced to traveling around the country in a station wagon with the bass tied on top, and to gathering pick-up bands at various jobs. Rinzler and Seeger sought Monroe out and talked him into having a feature article printed about him in Sing Out magazine. Their continuing efforts turned things around and created for Bill Monroe a justly deserved place in American musical history.

 

Seeger has remained a tireless pioneering advocate for traditional American rural musics in the areas of public funding and acceptance in the fine arts community. 

 

>From 1968-76 he was the Director of the Smithsonian American Folklife Company. He headed the American Old Time Music Festival which was supported by the National Endowment For The Arts.

H

e was on the Board of Directors for several important festivals and organizations which helped teach Americans a newfound respect for their own musical culture including:

 

The Newport Folk Festival 1963-67

The National Folk Festival 1972-78

The Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project 1973-86

Trustee, John Edwards Memorial Foundation 1962-present

Panelist for National Endowment For The Arts 1973-77

 

He was a Special Consultant to:

 

The Smithsonian Institution

The International Communications Agency

New World Records

Many more major folk festivals that exposed bluegrass for the first time to new audiences.

 

Many Awards Received:

 

Mike Seeger became the first traditional folk artist to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He received a Grammy nomination in 1991 for his release Solo Oldtime Country Music and for his latest release, The Third Annual Farewell Reunion. He received the 1995 Ralph J. Gleason Award from the Rex Foundation.

 

 AS A PERFORMING ARTIST:

 

He played bluegrass banjo with Bob Baker and the Pike County Boys and with Hazel Dickens throughout the late fifties in the DC area. He won the Galax banjo contest in 1958. 

He became a founding member of The New Lost City Ramblers in 1958. Their recordings and performances introduced an urban audience and a new generation to old-time and early bluegrass in a new way. This band was a major catalyst for the folk and bluegrass revival of the late fifties and early sixties.He formed The Strange Creek Singers (1968-1976) with Hazel Dickens, Alice Gerrard, Lamar Grier, and Tracy Schwarz. He made seminal recordings in the late fifties and early sixties with Bill Clifton. He also recorded with Don Stover, Tex Logan, The Country Gentlemen and others. More recent collaborators include Ralph Stanley, Norman Blake, Tim O’Brien, and David Grisman. 

 

As a Solo Artist Mike Seeger has continually shown us the roots of bluegrass music in performance. 

Among the many styles and many instruments he has mastered, he was one of the earliest of the urban revivalists to play the the mandolin in the Monroe style and the five-string banjo in the Scruggs style. 

 

He has performed around the world at many prestigious venues including:

 

The White House, Carnegie Hall, in 16 foreign countries, and at all the major folk festivals.

He’s appeared on all the major U.S. radio and television networks including A Prairie Home Companion, and on specials in England, Germany, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Switzerland.

 

IN SUMMATION:

All of us in the bluegrass community owe Mike Seeger a huge debt for his lifetime of dedication and service in all areas of our industry. I strongly urge that Mike Seeger be chosen as the next recipient of the IBMA Certificate Of Merit. I suggest that either Bill Clifton or Pete Kuykendall be offered the opportunity to present this award. I would be delighted to further assist in pursuing this goal in any way.

 

ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS? <G>

 
BILL KNOWLTON, "Bluegrass Ramble," Sundays: 9 pm to midnight (EST) over WCNY-FM (91.3) Syracuse, WUNY (89.5) Utica, WJNY (90.9) Watertown NY, also: www.wcny.org      PO Box 2400, Syracuse NY 13220-2400. 315-457-6100
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37th (!) BLUEGRASS RAMBLE PICNIC, Sunday, Aug. 2nd, Dwyer Memorial Park (Cortland Repertory Theater), Little York NY. FREE!! 10 a.m to 6 p.m. Info: 315-457-6100, or udmacon1 at hotmail.com







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