First Farewell Reviews
REVIEWS - PEGGY SEEGER, FIRST FAREWELL
MOJO 4 stars (Colin Irwin) - Mojo Magazine #1 Folk Album of 2021
Seeger’s Indian summer is growing ever warmer. The entirely original material tackles pertinent modern issues with remotely sounding stern or preachy. Affectingly intimate.
The Guardian 4/5
Lively, blunt and irreverent songs from folk’s first lady. Her spry, lively vocals and her writing burrow into many territories …songs slip-slide gorgeously between magical realism and memory
Americana UK
Peggy Seeger is more than just a fixture on the folk scene – at 85 she is releasing what may be her final album, although as a title ‘First Farewell‘ concedes a certain amount of hedging of bets, and represents over sixty years of recorded music which is a phenomenal achievement which, amongst American born singers only the likes of Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, and Dylan come anywhere close to equalling.
Uncut Magazine 9/10 (Jim Wirth)
Foundation folkie in her prime at 85.
Informed by austere modern classical music as much as traditional song, First Farewell is wistful as well as smart and engaged. Encore.
Songlines Magazine, 5/5
A remarkable album by a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, activist and writer who grows more impressive as the years go by. Arrangements are often sparse but bravely original. Her singing is as intimate and gently powerful as ever. One of the albums of the year.
The Sunday Times, 4/5
If this is her valedictory album, the folk matriarch is bowing out on a high note. In her mid-eighties, her voice still sounds spry; there are droll flashes of humour and a lyrical quality to the arrangements. We Are Here is a wry, semi-spoken commentary on our social media fixations; Gotta Get Home by Midnight pokes fun at the march of time. Sons Calum and Neill MacColl and daughter-in-law Kate St John all play their part.
The Times, 4/5
An inspiring late-life high point
Backstreet Mafia 9/10
It’s hard to describe the place that Peggy occupies in the history of UK and USA folk without resorting to tired clichés and mythic descriptions, but she really is a legend of the folk scene and is one of the most inspiring, uncompromising, and important artists of any genre in the past 60 years. She has made an indelible mark on the pages of folk history and it is great to see her, with the new album, continuing to write more of her own history.
Morning Star
First Farewell has plenty of the elements her fans love: humour that is wry but never unkind, sweetly crafted tunes that sound fresh and ancient and songs that could be lullaby and lament in one.
The Arts Desk
First Farewell, is hardly the sound of an octogenarian. “Be relevant” is the advice Seeger gives to young songwriters – and she herself remains as relevant as ever.
Spiral Earth
Peggy Seeger is an irrepressible tour de force of an artist. The intimacy created by the sparse production and family surroundings makes this a rather special record. The quality and variety of the music being up there with her finest work.
PRS -M for Music Magazine
Always innovating, and always ahead of the curve.
Uncut Magazine
Seeger is setting standards, digging deep into her own culture, showing the way. She’s continuing to build her own musical ecosystem, and it’s magical. Absolutely magical.
Martin Carthy (in Uncut)
She can’t half bloody write.
RocknReel Magazine (RnR issue 87) - Ken Hunt
"First Farewell is a joy ride, sometimes white-knuckle."
No Depression
Peggy Seeger Caps Career with Stunning ‘First Farewell’. If First Farewell is indeed Seeger’s sign-off, as her PR statements suggest, it’s a stellar conclusion to an eminent career.
God is in the TV
‘The Invisible Woman’ is a really important, beautiful, and powerful song that reflects on aging and gender, exploring the way that many women can be rendered invisible as they grow older. This is a song deep with candour that stirs the emotions and raises important questions about why society tends to erase and push certain people towards the margins, when they should not be. https://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/2021/02/05/news-peggy-seeger-announces-the-release-of-new-single-the-invisible-woman/
Fresh on the Net
The Invisible Woman (from First Farewell). Well this track has been both a talking point and a pleasant surprise. 85-year-old American Folk legend Peggy Seeger, now recording for indie label Red Grape, must be (and Tom or Steve can correct me if I’m wrong) our eldest artist both to make the Listening Post and to be emphatically voted into our Fresh Faves. Peggy’s past history is a matter of record. She was married to Ewan MacColl and clashed with McCarthy and the US establishment with her forthright ideas about politics and women’s rights. So much so that it was not until 1994 that she returned to the States. She is also the inspiration for Ewan’s song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, which happens to be my wife’s favourite song of all-time. Wind the clock on to 2021 and we find Peggy delivering sardonic humour as she wonders aloud about exactly when she became so invisible, even claiming to have danced down the street in lacy underwear and still failed to be noticed! The song is skilfully written, lyrically clever in that it is humorous but makes its point and adds a touch of defiance in its final verse. A delightful pot of organically fresh ingredients stirred into an unfussy and very tasty casserole. Her voice certainly shows no signs of age-related deterioration, and the picking acoustic guitar sparkles throughout. Don’t write her off just yet.