First Time Ever

Review "A quirky, unique, and fabulously memorable memoir."--STARRED Kirkus Reviews "I loved this book - it is deeply personal and idiosyncratic and generous, and evocative of so many different eras and moments. Peggy Seeger is a master of traditional song who's life has spanned many important and fascinating eras of musical and cultural life on both sides of the Atlantic. Her memoir brings all of this to life in a distinct voice: eloquent, feisty and wise."--Sam Amidon "This whirling memoir follows the folksinger and activist through international tours, crises in her famous musical family, and a long, all-consuming relationship with the British singer Ewan MacColl. Seeger's conversational prose has a flair for capturing the common (a 1938 Chevy 'had a vertical fish-mouth and a fat lady's rump') and the cataclysmic; remembering her mother's early death, she writes, 'I try to see and hear things for her, to lure her spirit back from the lost body.' Colorful characters flit in and out, and, remembering them, Seeger, who is now eighty-two, is often wistful. Of one friend, she writes, 'He died, but he is still in my present tense.'"--New Yorker Product Description A SUNDAY TIMES AND TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE THE BOOKSELLER'S Most Picked Book in General Non-Fiction Round Ups of 2017 Peggy Seeger is one of folk music's most influential artists and songwriters. Born in New York City in 1935, she enjoyed a childhood steeped in music and left-wing politics - they remain her lifeblood. After college, she travelled to Russia and China - against US advice - before arriving in London, where she met the man with whom she would raise three children and share the next thirty-three years: Ewan MacColl. Together, they helped lay the foundations of the British folk revival, through the influential Critics Group and the landmark BBC Radio Ballads series. And as Ewan's muse, she inspired one of the twentieth century's most popular love songs, 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'. With a clear eye and generous spirit, Peggy writes of a rollercoaster life - of birth and abortion, sex and infidelity, devotion and betrayal - in a luminous, beautifully realised account. Review A gloriously open and generous autobiography. ― Guardian 'Best Music Books of the Year An epic journey . . . An extraordinary story, beautifully told. ― i newspaper Peggy Seeger's life is the stuff of a rip-roaring blockbuster . . . This is an illuminating, witty, revelatory and unflinchingly candid account, presented in vivid vignettes and nonchalant anecdotes, often funny, sometimes shocking. ― Mojo Peggy Seeger's substantial and absorbing memoir First Time Ever is fabulous, taking us back through British folk and reminding us of why we love her songs. -- Jackie Kay ― Observer Books of the Year This amazing life reads more like a novel . . . [An] elegy for folk music. ― Irish Times A music memoir like no other. ― NME Book Description A superbly wrought memoir from one of folk music's most respected and influential musicians About the Author Peggy Seeger is a singer of traditional Anglo-American songs and activist songwriter, with 200 songs under her belt, one a major anthem of the women's movement. She is a multi-instrumentalist - playing piano, guitar, 5-string banjo, Appalachian dulcimer, autoharp and English concertina - has recorded 23 solo albums, and has contributed to more than 100 others. In 2014, she was awarded the inaugural Women in Music Award for Creative Inspiration, and in 2015 she and her son Calum won Best Original Song at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. She has an Honorary Doctorate in Art from the University of Salford and lives in Oxford. Her memoir First Time Ever was a Guardian, Sunday Times, Observer, Telegraph and Financial Times Book of the Year; it was also shortlisted for the Penderyn Prize.