The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger

Subject: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Acorn4
Date: 11 Nov 19 - 07:02 PM

The Big Issue run a weekly feature called "Letter to my Younger Self" where a mature individual writes a letter to themselves when they were a teenager.

This weeks featured writer is Peggy Seeger - some interesting observations - if you can't find a seller the articles normally go online a week later.

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Acorn4
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 03:40 AM

Just for clarification to those in US. "Big Issue" is a magazine sold on streets of UK to help unemployed people earn a small income.

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 04:25 AM

There's a similar Big Issue sold on the streets of Sydney. I think it's not the UK publication, but I don't know.

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 10:27 AM

Thanks for heads up. Got my copy today.

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 10:31 AM

Will get one!

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 03:11 PM

Mudcatter Brian May is the featured writer
one week.

No luck linking to Peggy Seeger's contribution, though.

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In the first post, I added a link to the "Letter to my younger self" page for the magazine. I think the Peggy Seeger article will show up there next week. -Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Acorn4
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 11:21 AM

I think the articles go online a week after they've been on sale on the streets as soon as the new issue comes out on Monday.

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 09:45 PM

I never usually take a magazine. Just give a couple of quid or so. this is the Christmas issue. £2.50 cover price. So I gave the lady a five.

Very very interesting article.

i always thought of the seegers as a wealthy family - as they had servants like Liba Cotton. Apparently they were in debt a lot, which sort of explains how the Seeger/ MacColl managed their microbusiness of selling albums, magazines, doing gigs, playwrighting, songwriting with such attention to detail. I guess we all end up determined not to make our parents mistakes.

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 12:53 AM

Australia's Big Issue started in 1996 & was based on UK magazine of the same name.

Street newspapers are in many countries & some are listed here here in Wikipedia article about Australia's Big Issue. In Australia, vendors are homeless, marginalised and disadvantaged people from a range of disadvantaged backgrounds, including those suffering from mental health conditions or gambling addictions

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 02:04 AM

Ewan and Peggy never had enough money until Roberta Flack recorded The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, and the royalties started coming in.

Dave H

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 06:23 AM

The Peggy Seeger article is now available.
https://www.bigissue.com/latest/peggy-seeger-recounts-when-she-realised-men-had-destroyed-the-earth/

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: GUEST,CJB666
Date: 16 Nov 19 - 05:46 AM

Great insight into a wonderful person.

Hey - can't we Mudcatters get Joan Baez and Peggy together for a gig? Surely some of us know the right people (agents?) to work this miracle?

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Nov 19 - 06:07 AM

" and the royalties started coming in."
Much of which was spent on producing the best albums they ever made - top of the list 'Blood and Roses'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 18 Nov 19 - 08:14 PM

Back about 10 - 15 years ago,
I had a brief conversation with Peggy Seeger after a gig,
It was an instant rapport, she made me feel as if we'd known each other for years..

Is that her special power..
is she like that for every new person she meets...???

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 03:19 AM

Yes, she is very people friendly,ever interested in what they have to say, I had a brief conversation with Peggy at Ripponden Folk Club a few years ago, I mentioned that I had seen her and Ewan at The Singing Jenny Folk Club in Huddersfield, she told me exactly where and when.

Very nice person IMHO.

Dave H

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 06:49 AM

There is a lot of material on Peggy in Harker's biography of MacColl. At one point he remarks that it was usually Peggy who did the work!

She comes across as very competent. You wonder where MacColl might have ended up without her.

Interesting link: thank you.

For those of you with access to the BBC iplayer, the folk section has several programmes with mention of Peggy including a 2010 interview with Sara Parker, a programme on MacColl by John Cooper Clarke and another by Martin Carthy. These can be found by searching for 'folk'.

I hope these links are of interest.

Subject: RE: The Big Issue: Peggy Seeger
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 08:47 AM

Peggy and Ewan were a synchronised team dependent on one another for different things
I had twenty years to come to that conclusion, including a short period of living with them
To see them spark off one another in Critics Group meetings was a joy to watch - particularly when she took the piss out of him for his tendency to exaggerate
Their work together produced some of teh finest examples of traditional singing, particularly of thee Ballads - go listen to the American-British ballad swapping in The Long Harvest or the magnificent Blood and Roses series
Jim Carroll