I was lucky enough to be in D.C., where I had already planned to be for a business trip (from Maine) for the week. So I attended not only the inspiring Folklore Society concert so fittingly described by the folks above, but also the film showing and parts of the symposium sponsored by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress on Thursday evening and all day Friday.

The film fest was incredible--movie footage taken by Pete and Toshi in the 1950s and '60s, and recently donated to the Archive of Folk Culture at the LoC. There were "home movies" of Libba Cotten playing Freight Train--and of a young (16-ish) Peggy playing the same song and describing how Libba had taught it to her. Of a very young Odetta making music on the porch. There was wonderful footage of Bill Broonzy at a summer camp in Michigan the day before he had surgery for throat cancer. He never sang again, and died a year later. There was film of the most amazing hand-jive I've ever seen. And incredible stuff from a 'round-the-world tour Toshi and Pete made in 1963-64. It included singing fishermen in Ghana; dancers in Indonesia accompanied by a gamelan; a prison gang chopping down a grove of trees with huge axes in (careful) sequence, swung in time to their singing (don't try this at home!!!); a Japanese bluegrass band singing Orange Blossom Special; the entire McPeake Family in Ireland; Ewan MacColl reminiscing with his mother and singing with her "A Wee Drappie O't" and other songs she'd taught him; and the elderly Australian (whose name I don't recall but maybe Mary LaMarca or George Stephens will)who in 1905 authored "Shearing in the Bar" (an incredible singer even at an advanced age). Following the films, Pete, Peggy and Mike got up on stage and talked about their lives, and about the footage shown in the film we saw. This collection not only is going to be preserved at the Library, but is going to be available to researchers. What a goldmine!!

And then there was Friday, filled with academic presentations (some more entertaining than others, but all useful and interesting) about the Seeger clan, beginning with patriarch Charles. Pete is Charles' son from his first marriage, to Candace. Mike and Peggy are the progeny of Charles and Ruth Crawford Seeger. Judith Tick, a professor from Northeastern U. gave a fascinating presentation about Ruth Crawford Seeger, whose biography she has written. Peggy Seeger, who moderated that presentation, said she had learned things about her mother (who died at 52) from Tick's book that she'd never known. Most interesting presentations for me as a folkie were talks about the Seeger materials in the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, and about all the Folkways recordings by the various Seegers that are still available as custom CDs. (I'm buying my lottery ticket!) These presentations included readings of letters home (and to a favorite aunt) written by Mike and Peggy when they were kids, a "show and tell" of an original letter from Woody Guthrie to one of the Seegers (he typed it on the inside of the jacket of a book by--I think it was--Alan Lomax). What riches.

I wish everyone with an interest in the history of the folk revival could have been at this amazing celebration. In addition to Pete, Peggy, and Mike, Pete's two older brothers (Stetson and John) were in the audience. Both, but especially John Seeger offered some wonderful off-the-cuff comments about family history during the Q&A times.

The FSGW concert was the icing on the cake. What a series of events!
So many of those pictured in the film footage are no longer with us, but thanks to the Seegers they live on in sound and pictures and correspondence. What a gift they've given all of us by giving this stuff to the Library. I especially thought of you, Art, when I saw the films. You've done the same thing with your amazing archive of still photos. You would have loved this event. Wish you could have been there!