Peggy Seeger, definitely a most Visible Woman, is belting out protest songs. Her enduring passion about injustice is infectious. Her voice is strong, clear, and tuneful. Why shouldn’t it be? Well, because in June she reached the age of 89.
Billed as Peggy Seeger and Family – the revered songwriter delighted Stage One in the early afternoon, appearing with her two sons, the musicians Neill and Callum MacColl; someone else’s son, Ben Nicholls on double bass, and her daughter-in-law Kate St John on accordion and vocals.
Peggy, playing the guitar, the banjo, and the keyboard, described how she had written a song in 1968 when she was “doing the accounts”.
Her husband Ewan McColl had suggested she write a song for the Year of the Woman. She said: “The previous year it had been the year of the dog – and every other year was the year for men.
It was always the year for men.”
The delightful Peggy Seeger in sparkling form at Cambridge folk festival pic.twitter.com/hCPeQcX6NH
— John Elworthy (@johnelworthy) July 29, 2024
She added: “Ewan was upstairs. I don’t know what he was doing but he wasn’t doing the washing up.”
She wrote I’m Gonna Be an Engineer, which is about how a woman’s career is thwarted at every turn not just by being a wife and mother but the persistent and pervasive sexism in the world and the workplace.
She said: “I wrote the song in two hours and then I went back to doing the accounts.”
She sang us the song – eloquently. Later she sang the prescient Song of Choice, which she wrote in 1967 – about turning our face away from the bad things going on because they seem to affect other people.
The refrain is: “Later you can say you didn’t know.”
She mentioned in passing how she had met her future husband, the songwriter Ewan MacColl. “I didn’t look like I do now. I was in my 20s. I had a beehive (hairdo) and earrings that could decorate a Christmas tree.”
She sang The Invisible Woman which she said she felt like these days: “Here comes the Invisible Woman/She’s been on the planet for years/She has plenty to say/She won’t go away/ We may not have a choice, but we still have a voice.”
Most moving of all was her song I Long for Peace. The chorus was joined in with gently by her family on stage and the audience in the tent. It meant a lot to people.
Other traditional acts on the last day of the festival included Katherine Priddy, from Birmingham guitarist and songwriter, accompanied by George Boomsma on Stage One. On Stage Two we heard the beautiful, clear voice of American Lizzie No who played the guitar and the harp.
A trio of an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman played together – master musicians: Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker, and John Doyle.
With McCusker on fiddle, whistle and harmonium, Doyle on vocals, guitar, and bouzouki and McGoldrick on flute, whistle, bodhran and Uillean pipes, this was a perfect blend of consummate musicianship with singing by John Doyle who is also a brilliant guitarist.
The Ferengi, those ruthless businessmen from Star Trek, had rules of acquisition. Rule 239 is: Never be afraid to mislabel a product.
Yes, Cambridge Folk Festival is CALLED a folk festival but these days that is a very wide term indeed. We are broadminded.
So why should we be surprised to walk in and find someone playing Chopin?
There she was on a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon, a young woman sitting at the piano on stage in the Stage 2 tent playing Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu in C minor Op 66. This and Debussy’s Claire de Lune. We listened in raptures.
1/2 Sarah Hagen at Cambridge folk festival pic.twitter.com/5DkZy1CYAZ
— John Elworthy (@johnelworthy) July 29, 2024
It was the most beautiful start to the day’s festival that I could have imagined. Sarah Hagen, from Canada, plays exquisitely.
She played The Minute Waltz, which she said was now longer than a minute “due to inflation”. It lasted for exactly one minute 20 seconds.
2/2 Sarah Hagen at Cambridge folk festival 2024 pic.twitter.com/GXpP4srnjH
— John Elworthy (@johnelworthy) July 29, 2024
In her continuing mission to bring classical piano to unexpected stages, on Sunday, August 4, she will be playing Goldberg Variations in a show at St Mary’s in Kensington in a show called Bagels and Bach.
I definitely recommend it.
Next year’s folk festival will be over the last weekend in July.
