Mike Seeger

Mike Seeger (Born: August 15, 1933 in New York City, New York Death: August 7, 2009 in Lexington, Virginia) was an American folk singer, musician (autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro) and folklorist. He devoted his life to singing, playing, and recording old-time and bluegrass music, including; producing the first bluegrass long-play album, American Banjo Tunes & Songs In Scruggs Style (Folkways, 1957); co-founding The New Lost City Ramblers (1958); recording numerous live performances of seminal first-generation bands in the 1950s; writing one of the first definitions and explanations of bluegrass (1959); and advocating for bluegrass bands to perform at the Newport Folk Festival.

Seeger's father was Charles Seeger (1886–1979), an important folklorist and musicologist; his mother was Seeger's second wife, Ruth Crawford Seeger, née Ruth Porter Crawford (1901–1953), a modernist composer who was one of the first women to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. Peggy Seeger is his sister, and Pete Seeger is his half-brother.

In 1970, Mike married musician Alice Gerrard. Knowing each other from the folk music circuit since 1956, Mike and Alice became a couple after the death of Alice’s husband in 1964 and the end of Mike’s marriage with Marjorie Ostrow in 1966. They raised Alice's four children and Mike’s three children from their previous marriages together. Due to their shared interest in old-time music, Mike and Alice collaborated on performances, recordings, and projects, such as the formation of the Strange Creek Singers. Alice’s bluegrass skills expanded Seeger’s own to go beyond old-time and traditional music and explore other avenues of the genre. The couple separated from each other in 1981.

Inducted into the IBMA Hall of Fame in 2018. And also The Bluegrass Hall of Fame. Received six Grammy nominations.