Cami Moore-- Peggy Seeger

Cami Moore
Peggy Seeger

Thursday, April 10, Anglo-American Folk singer Peggy Seeger, spoke to USU students and faculty as the chosen spokeswoman for the 2008 Fife Honor lecture, which was put on by USU’s folklore program.

“Peggy Seeger has been of immense importance to the international folk music scene for over 40 years,” said Professor Lisa Gabbert. This was, essentially, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for my students.

Seeger gave the audience a background of what folk music is, and where it has come from. Throughout the years people have argued over what makes a song a folk song, or how old one must be before it can be called one.

Seeger said, “An ideal folk song community is one where there are no other musical influences.”

To Seeger, a folk song cannot be written by one person, but rather it is something to be passed along and added to and changed every time it is sung. To prove her theory to somebody one time she sang the same song to them ten times in a row, each time changing the words to make it something different.

“Many of the folk songs are just fairytales set to music,” said Seeger, “They deal with family, position of women, they express history.”

The most important part of a folk song is the words, it can be set to any tune, but the words are what matter. They tell a story, unraveling history, and connecting emotion to the words.

“As a listener, if a song is sung really well, I can see all the history behind it,” said Seeger.

After Seeger’s performance/lecture she also attended one of Gabbert’s classes and spoke to her students. Gabbert was hoping to have Seeger perform some traditional “child ballad’s” for her class, and showing them the difference in the types of ballads that exist.

“Child ballads are very different than rock ballads and that they are important and interesting and beautiful,” said Gabbert, “I believe she was very effective, as many students stayed after class to talk to her and several cried during her performance.

Seeger comes from a very musically gifted family, but she believes anyone can sing folk music. The equipment is inexpensive, and singers don’t have to have a classic pretty voice. Folk music, she says is meant for everyday people, and meant to be performed in front of small audiences.

“I’m not what I call a folk singer,” Seeger said, “I’m a singer of folk songs.”