Peggy Seeger is a member of one of the pre-eminent families of music in America. The Seeger clan and their collaborators (and sometimes antagonists) the Lomaxes, together are largely responsible for the survival and revival of American folk music in the middle of the 20th century. Peggy is the daughter of Charles Seeger Jr., a musicologist, professor and composer of music, and Ruth Crawford Seeger, a noted modernist composer and Charles' protege. As told in Judith Tick's biography of Ruth Crawford , the Seegers during the Depression became champions of folk music, and spent much of the rest of their lives working to see that generations of American children continued to learn and participate in this vital aspect of their heritage. Out of that family were spawned Pete Seeger (by Charles' first marriage) who is perhaps better known but no more important a musician than his half-siblings Michael and Peggy. Peggy extended the dynasty back across the Atlantic when she married English folksinger Ewan MacColl, and several of their offspring have continued in traditional music pursuits as well.
It'd been quite a while since Peggy recorded an album of songs, when she and her sons in 2001 set up a home studio and began recording what became a home-themed trilogy of albums, of which Heading For Home is the third installment. It's as lovely and sparkling a collection of traditional folk songs as you'll hear in this or any year.
It's bookended by two more contemporary songs. First is the title track, Seeger's gentle meditation on growing older. Accompanied only by herself on a gently plucked banjo, with subtle washes of chords from a harmonium, she celebrates the winter of a life that has seen joy and sorrow in all seasons: "My face to the sky, my back to the wind, winter is in my bones," she sings in her unadorned, clear and honeyed voice. "I am old, I am young, I am all that I have been, and I'm thinking of heading for home." It's a performance that reflects a lifetime of training in song, totally without artifice, as welcoming and warming as a favorite old sweater on an early winter's day.
The album ends with "Girl of Constant Sorrow," a distaff take on the well-known song. This version, with words by Sara Gunning, reflects the hard life of women in the coal mining regions of the American South.
In between is a virtual songbook of American traditional works. She sings a capella on "Generous Lover," an impressive performance full of trills and gracenotes. On the rest, she accompanies herself on guitar, banjo, autoharp and dulcimer, with assistance from sons Neill and Calum MacColl, daughter Kitty MacColl and a handfull of other musicians. Brother Mike plays second banjo on the sprightly but sad "Soldier's Farewell." Many of the songs reflect the hardships of lovers separated by war or the inequities of the lives of working people; others deal with the timeless subject of the conflict between the sexes. Most are American versions of older ballads from the English or Celtic traditions.
None of that description does justice to the simple and elegant beauty of Peggy Seeger singing these timeless songs. This is an album that all lovers of traditional Anglo-American folk songs should own.
