Tag: pete seeger

Wayfaring Strangers: Spotify Playlist

Celebrating the second edition of Wayfaring Strangers: The Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia, our Spotify playlist offers a soundtrack for the migration saga chronicled in the book. Some of the artists included here are mentioned or quoted within the pages, and they combine to create an accompaniment well worthy of the epic story.  The running order follows… Continue Reading Wayfaring Strangers: Spotify Playlist

Doug Orr: A Young Pete Seeger Encounters Music of the Appalachians

Pete was seventeen years of age in 1936 when he accompanied his father to Asheville to attend Lunsford’s Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. During Fiona Ritchie and my Wayfaring Strangers book interview with Pete at his home above the Hudson River, Pete recalled that “ordinary working people were making fantastically good music.” The youthful Pete Seeger was mesmerized as Lunsford presided on the spotlighted stage over a parade of square-dance teams, family string bands, singers, fiddlers, and banjo players. There Pete had his formative exposure to the five-string banjo played by Samantha Bumgarner, from whom he acquired his first such instrument. Pete recalled that Lunsford patiently showed him basic banjo licks that Pete would practice and perfect over subsequent years. Continue Reading Doug Orr: A Young Pete Seeger Encounters Music of the Appalachians