Born on 15 August 1933 in New York City, Mike Seeger grew up as the son of musicologist Charles Seeger and composer-author Ruth Crawford Seeger. Immersed in traditional music from an early age, he first picked up the autoharp at twelve and soon added guitar, mandolin, fiddle, dulcimer, mouth harp, and dobro to his instrumental range. Alongside his sister Peggy Seeger he performed with square-dance bands around Washington. His initial contact with country music occurred during a period of alternative service as a conscientious objector, when he collaborated with Hazel Dickens and Bob Baker at a hospital.
In 1958 Seeger joined John Cohen and Tom Paley to establish the New Lost City Ramblers, the same year he captured the banjo prize at Virginia’s Galax Old Time Fiddlers Convention. Throughout the late fifties he also began producing field recordings of other traditional performers, among them Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten and Dock Boggs. After lineup shifts within the Ramblers, Seeger increasingly worked alone yet continued to document the group for Folkways Records. He maintained close ties to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island and, from 1970 onward, served as a director of the Smithsonian Folklife Company. With Alice Gerrard, Lamar Grier, Dickens, and Tracy Schwarz he helped create the Strange Creek Singers; on 16 August 1970 he married Gerrard, though the union later ended in divorce.
Seeger has issued many solo and duo albums with his sister and has sustained an active festival schedule across the globe. His archival efforts as a collector have likewise ensured the survival of numerous southern traditional repertoires.
