BBC Radio 4 Extra

Peggy Seeger: In Her Prime

Factual: Life Stories

Music: Folk

19/10/2010

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Peggy Seeger: In Her Prime

Returning to live in Britain, Peggy Seeger reflects on a life full of family and music.

American folk singer Peggy Seeger talks to Sara Parker about her loves, losses and a life full of music. From 2010.

Sara Parker presents a radio portrait of Peggy Seeger, the American folksinger and political activist who was Ewan MacColl's long-time partner.  

This year, Peggy returns to live once again in Britain, to be near her extended family and to explore new creative avenues. For many years her own 'song-making', as she calls it, was overshadowed by MacColl's, with whom she lived for three decades in this country. Together they produced three children, countless recordings (including the iconic 'First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' with MacColl wrote for her) and, with Sara Parker's father Charles, the celebrated 'Radio Ballads'.

Her creative life has also been lived in relation to the success of her folk-singer brothers, Pete and Mike, and partly in the shadow of her parents, the avant-garde composer Ruth Crawford Seeger and the ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger.  

Now, in her prime, she tells Sara what's brought her to this point, about her growing and creatively energetic family, how she feels about the loss of loved ones and about the strength she gets from her new partner, the Irish singer Irene Pyper-Scott.

Producer: Alan Hall

A Falling Tree Production first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2010

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