Peggy Seeger
Album: Live
Label: Appleseed Recordings
Tracks: 23
Website: http://www.peggyseeger.com

Recorded in 2010 on a stage in New Zealand to raise money for an arson-damaged local women's centre (hey, what a typically "Peggy" cause!), this latest release both entirely accurately represents and proudly celebrates the consummate entertainer, communicator and commentator that is Peggy Seeger. This performance, for all that it has been edited, forms an object lesson on how to engage and hold an audience's attention over a long timespan, in this case with the most varied possible selection of material, all delivered in that characteristically clear, genuinely ageless voice. Anyone who has seen Peggy live will know that she makes everyone feel at home with her from the start, and that we're all on the same side (whatever our politics) - although it's also a safe bet that she'll convert you to at least one extra cause before the evening's out!

The set-list reproduced on this 65-minute CD is a very typical one, in that it unashamedly includes and intersperses the most diverse of elements: on the one hand a sprinkling of contrasted traditional American folk ballads (Fatal Flower Garden, Mountaineer's Courtship), a song culled from the Lomax recording of a prison inmate (I Been A Bad Bad Girl), a banjo-song medley and the playful kids' song Bought Me A Cat, and on the other hand songs of woman-power (the right-on sarcasm of Everyone Knows) and deep political conscience both of mordant wit and earthy humour. These may be brief (activist Bob Bossin's priceless Deterrence Lullaby), or ultra-wordy (Peggy's celebrated I'm Gonna Be An Engineer, which gets its obligatory airing - she even lovingly refers to it as her "albatross" here! - as do a further generous helping of Peggy's own songs including the laconic You Don't Know How Lucky You Are, For A Job and Give 'Em An Inch, the curiosity Missing, and the genuinely moving, even heartbreaking observation Everything Changes (written for her mother, as recently as 2008).

Peggy's supreme skill as a songmaker is complemented by her skill as a raconteur, and there are plenty of jokes (and serious inferences to be drawn) snuggled cordially into the running-order, along with what the press handout brilliantly describes as "tart (spoken) hand grenades into sexist pomposity". Peggy herself moves easily and expertly between banjo, guitar and piano, and brings on harpist Bob Bickerton, mandolinist Nathan Torvik, and her own partner Irene Pyper-Scott for cameo contributions here and there. The whole CD perfectly reflects the concert experience, in fact.

David Kidman