JUST AROUND THE BEND
Survival and Revival in Southern Banjo Sounds, Mike Seeger’s Last Documentary
Jean-Pierre Bruneau
Half-brother of Pete Seeger, multi-instrumentalist, co-founder of the New Lost City Ramblers, Mike Seeger was also a tireless collector of traditional music.
He produced some 30 records of field recordings and played and sung on more than 40 albums.
He died of cancer in 2009 just two months after doing a last collecting journey accompanied by his wife Alexia Smith and the filmmaker Yasha Aginsky (of "Cajun Visits" and "Les Blues de Balfa’s" fame). A trip that took them through Appalachia and beyond (North Carolina, the two Virginias, Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee) with the intent to document the vitality and variety of Old Time music that Mike defined as "the home music made by American Southerners before the media age".
Ten years after, Smithsonian Folkways has finally released a package containing two CD’s, a 110 minute long DVD and a rich 80 page booklet centered on 19 banjo players of all ages and walks of life, all amateurs with the exception of Rhiannon Giddens, now a star in her own right, Leroy Troy and Riley Baugus discovered in the movie "Cold Mountain".
A remarkable celebration, an invitation to discover a music that goes way back in time but is still vibrant and ongoing, captured in the the intimacy of musicians' homes and porches and also during jam sessions.
Smithsonian Folkways. CLIC