Peggy Seeger

Seeger’s Indian summer is growing ever warmer.

SHE MAY BE 85 and the grande dame of folk song, but this doesn’t sound like farewell. Unfeasibly prolific in recent years, Seeger clearly still has much to say and, with a voice miraculously dodging the ravages of time and a close family circle of musicians working to her strengths, this is affectingly intimate. The entirely original material – a couple of songs composed with sons Neill and Calum MacColl and two with daughter-in-law Kate St John – tackles pertinent modern issues (growing old, suicide, social media, children in care and… love) without remotely sounding stern or preachy. Broadly set to piano arrangements, it references her mother’s classicism, with smatterings of concertina, accordion, organ, oboe, cor anglais and guitar which, with the odd comedic aside, adds warmth to its fragility. “We may not have a choice, but we still have a voice, the invisible gals love a fight,” she sings defiantly on her song for the aged, The Invisible Woman. Long may it be so.