Mike Seeger performs "Walking Boss" in the Smithsonian Folkways Studio

Please visit www.folkways.si.edu for an appreciation of Mike Seeger (1933-2009).

http://folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/mike_seeger.aspx

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For over fifty years, Mike Seeger has been a musician, documenter, and tireless advocate of American folk and traditional music. As a musician he recorded as a solo artist and member of folk revival ensemble the New Lost City Ramblers. As a collector he has captured and produced sounds by iconic artists such as Elizabeth Cotten and Dock Boggs. And finally, as a historian and preservationist of the music he calls "old time," Mike Seeger gives us the stories behind the music that is such an essential part of American culture. Here he performs and gives the history of "Walking Boss," a tune Thomas Clarence Ashley learned from African American railroad workers at the turn of the 19th century.

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Category:

Music

Tags:

• banjo
• Seeger
• railroad songs
• blues
• folk
• old time
• Smithsonian Folkways
• Moe Asch

[SirCoughsalot]

I really regret not being able to meet him.

[clawolbap]

thanks mike, we miss you

[banjopaolo]

thank you Mike!

[CurtisMateer]

Great, was just listening to this on a comp of Ashley and Doc the other day. Love the close ups of the banjo playing and Mr Seeger's rising voice.