Folk Singer Mike Seeger Dies at 75

Folk singer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Seeger lost his battle with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, on Friday, August 7. Seeger passed away at his Lexington, Virginia home, according to his wife Alexia Smith. He was 75.

Although Seeger's most prominent recent work was contributing autoharp on Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' 2007 Grammy-winning album, 'Raising Sand,' the folk multi-instrumentalist and archivist began his career in music some six decades prior. Having picked up the banjo and guitar at 18, Seeger rose to fame during New York City's 1950s and 1960's folk revival era, forming the New Lost City Ramblers in 1958 with John Cohen and Tom Paley.

Although the band disbanded in the mid-1960s, Seeger continued to work in music, his folk style centering on the traditional, bare string, rocking chair Americana style of the Great Depression, unlike his politically-charged half-brother Pete Seeger. His repertoire includes work on 40-plus albums, including over a dozen production credits, which garnered six Grammy Award nominations. Seeger's last solo album was released in 2007 on Smithsonian Folkways and was titled 'Early Southern Guitar Sounds.'

"Mike was unprecedented. As for being a folk musician, he was the supreme archetype," folk legend Bob Dylan said of Seeger in his 2004 autobiography 'Chronicles: Volume One.' "He could push a stake through Dracula's black heart. He was the romantic, egalitarian and revolutionary type all at once."