A Special Concert by Folklorist/Musician MIKE SEEGER at the Creole Gallery

Sunday , June 05, 2005
07:30 pm
Location: Creole Gallery
concert ($13.00)

In town for the inaugural Midwest Banjo Camp held June 3-5, 2005, at MSU, six-time Grammy nominee/musician/folklorist Mike Seeger is presenting a special concert at the Creole Gallery, 1218 Turner Street (just off Grand River Avenue in Old Town). The concert begins at 7:30, and tickets are available at Elderly, Archives Books and online at www.creolegallery.com.

In 1995, Mike Seeger received the Rex Foundation's Ralph J. Gleason Lifetime Achievement Award established by The Grateful Dead. The award was presented to Seeger because he "...remains one of our great musical and cultural resources. To see him perform is to experience the richness of our traditions."

Seeger has devoted his life to singing, playing, and documenting southern traditional mountain music. He has toured throughout the world as a soloist and as a member of the renown old-time band The New Lost City Ramblers, which has influenced generations of musicians. The Seeger parents--musicologists and composers--sang with their children, and from his childhood Mike listened to their collection of early documentary recordings.

His solo music conveys the depth of feeling, sheer energy, and infinite variety and texture of authentic rural music. Mike shares the old traditional songs in a wide variety of old-time styles, accompanying himself with an array of instruments: banjo, fiddle, guitar, jaw harp, harmonica, quills, lap dulcimer, mandolin, and Autoharp.

He learned from musicians like his close friend Elizabeth Cotten and from master stylists like guitarist Maybelle Carter, banjoists Dock Boggs and Cousin Emmy, and autoharpist Kilby Snow. Seeger has produced documentaries and organized numerous tours featuring traditional musicians and dancers. He continues to compile scholarly projects like Southern Banjo Sounds (1998) and True Vine (2003) for Smithsonian Folkways.

Here's current wisdom about Mike Seeger from Bob Dylan in his 2004 autobiography Bob Dylan: Chronicles, Volume I: "He was extraordinary, gave me an eerie feeling. Mike was unprecedented.... What I had to work at, Mike already had in his genes, in his genetic makeup. Before he was even born, this music had to be in his blood. Nobody could just learn this stuff."

For more information on this special Sunday concert, visit www.creolegallery.com. For more on Midwest Banjo Camp, visit
www.midwestbanjocamp.com. For more on other events sponsored by Elderly, visit www.elderly.com/events/calendar.htm

Check out recordings we carry featuring Mike Seeger