America's greatest living folk icon, Pete Seeger, who celebrated his 91st birthday on May 3rd, continues his life's work of spreading activism, tradition, and music with a brand new CD,  Tomorrow’s Children, now available for release through our website and in stores on July 27. The 19-song CD,  Seeger’s first studio recording since his Grammy-winning 2008 release, At 89, is a loving snapshot of Seeger recording with children and neighbors in his hometown of Beacon, NY.

Says Seeger, “The future of the entire human race lies in the hands of children so I felt this was an important collaboration.”

NEWER NEWS FLASH: Pete talks about Tomorrow’s Children, turning down BP’s hefty licensing offer to use one of his songs for an ad, and his thoughts on music in Joe Fassler’s blog in The Atlantic. 

NEWS FLASH: hear Pete talk about Tomorrow's Children on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" with program host Neil Conan in this August 12 interview.

Starting in 2008, Seeger became a regular visitor to a local Beacon elementary school where teacher Tery Udell had been working with her fourth graders to sing and write songs about what they were studying. For more than a week, Seeger interacted with every child in the school, sharing his own music and past history and encouraging the kids to do likewise; he brought along some of the kids to perform with him at local festivals and events.

Assembling in a local studio, Seeger, producer/musician David Bernz, some of the Sloop Clearwater staff, musical friends and neighbors and, most importantly, the schoolchildren known as “The Rivertown Kids” subsequently recorded about twenty songs (all with Seeger performing vocally and/or instrumentally) that show that the values of environmental stewardship and social justice have been embraced by the youngsters. Some of the songs are Seeger standards, such as “Take It from Dr. King” (which Pete performed on “Late Night with David Letterman” last year) and “Turn, Turn, Turn” (with new verses added by Pete’s wife, Toshi), others were written by some of the adults at the sessions, such as Bob Killian’s “There’ll Come a Day,” but most display “the folk process” that Seeger had imparted to the kids – that adapting the lyrics of older songs to fit current situations is the key to keeping music relevant and meaningful. Three of Seeger’s tunes are given new words by the children. There’s also a new song co-written by Pete, David Bernz and author/activist Harvey Wasserman, “Solartopia,” with Pete, special guest Dar Williams, and David Bernz trading verses about the need for a nuclear-free world that uses pollution-free energy sources.

The dictum, “Think globally, act locally,” has long been a guiding Seeger principle, and in recent years he’s attracted new warriors on the global level, partly due to a trio of multi-artist tribute CDs to Pete’s music released by Appleseed, which presented new versions of Pete’s songs as recorded by Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Jackson Browne, Natalie Merchant and other politically conscious performers. Springsteen subsequently assembled his Seeger Sessions CD, DVD and international tours to spread Seeger’s messages of music as entertainment, as education, and as social change. Last year’s 90^th birthday party for Pete at Madison Square Garden included musicians from Springsteen to John Mellencamp to Dave Matthews and helped raise money for Pete’s beloved Sloop Clearwater and the non-profit organization he founded to help preserve the Hudson River. Seeger’s previous studio album, At 89, was packed with songs that directly confronted issues of ecology, activism, economically-driven wars and the endangered state of the human race and earned a Grammy Award as “Best Traditional Folk Recording.”

The release of Tomorrow’s Children is cause for rejoicing. It shows Pete Seeger still doing what he does best – spreading ideas through music – and a new generation learning the lessons he teaches so lovingly and so well. Happy Birthday, Pete! Maybe this is the year for that much deserved Nobel Peace Prize!

 What with oil spills, other natural disasters, and economic and political turmoil in the headlines, what could be better news than “Hope is on the Way”? That’s the title of the digital single by Appleseed’s urban cowgirls, Angel Band, released exclusively on iTunes on June 1. The song’s anthemic exhortation to keep on keeping on is the dynamic lead-off track on the vocal trio’s upcoming Bless My Sole CD,  their second release on Appleseed following 2008’s widely acclaimed With Roots & Wings. The new disc is available now through our website and elsewhere on July 27th.

On August 10, the sassy, sweet-singing Angels and their backing band were captured on video at the Rockwood Music Hall in New York City by internet station NY1. To see and hear Nancy, Kathleen and Aly in action and interview, please follow this link.

Twelve of Bless My Sole’s thirteen songs are Angel originals, with an in-concert favorite, their soulful version of The Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down,” for seasoning. The CD, co-produced by head Angel Josephson and multi-instrumentalist/engineer Marc Moss, with some instrumental and production help from the Dixie Chicks’ mentor, Lloyd Maines, marks the first Angel Band recordings to include Aly Paige as the latest Angel (she’s the lead vocalist on “Hope is on the Way”).  Aside from Angels Josephson, Kathleen Weber and Paige and their stellar backing band, musical guests on the CD include roots-master David Bromberg, Josephson’s husband, who plays guitar on most tracks, and Maines on guitars and African banjo, among others.

“Hope is on the Way” was originally written by Josephson and Moss, during Barack Obama's run for the presidency “as a view of what might be.” The song became much more poignant after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti when "the band and I stepped up to do both individual and group fund raising efforts,” says Josephson, who has strong ties to the country’s cultural. “As a band we have been supporting a foundation on whose board I sit (Art Creation Foundation for Children). The kids at the foundation began singing ‘Hope is on the Way’ in the most broken English one could imagine. A local rap group, Trezo, which is loosely connected with the foundation, were working on their musical response to the earthquake. Through many people's efforts we were able to capture some of the ACFFC kids, Trezo and many photos taken by friends and family to work on a video that combines our tune, “Hope is on the Way” with Trezo’s ‘Gou Dou, Gou Dou.’ The name depicts the sound coming from the earth that day. The video, ‘Hope/Haiti’ can be viewed in the column to the right of this article.

“After the quake,” Josephson continues, “I went into a fund raising mode that, at last tally, looks to have brought in close to $100,000 for relief efforts. About $40,000 of the money raised (by the sale of most of my and a friend of mine's collection of sequin ‘flags’) went back to the folks who I wrote about in the form of money and materials. . .The cover for Bless My Sole was fabricated by one of the artists about whom I wrote in my book on the sequin artists of Haiti. I am very proud of all these efforts and look forward to continual support of the organizations.”

You can purchase “Hope is on the Way” by following this link to iTunes.

And some more DAVID BROMBERG news, too!

For the past year, Bromberg has been assembling the follow-up to his Grammy nominated 2007 “comeback” release on Appleseed, Try Me One More Time, his first CD since 1990. Unlike that disc, which was recorded entirely by himself, for his next album Bromberg has approached various songwriters in search of custom-written material for him to perform, with each songwriter producing and/or performing with David on the song he or she has written. An artistic inspiration but a logistical nightmare, we’re hoping David wraps up his recordings in time for release early in 2011. So far, David has recorded new tracks with John Hiatt, Levon Helm, Los Lobos and Tim O’Brien.

Whether or not the Nobel Peace Prize committee keeps waiting to honor Pete, on June 21 the WhyHunger (formerly World Hunger Year) organization bestowed its Chapin Award on the much-feted but thoroughly unassuming Seeger in recognition of his inspiring and ongoing work on the international issues of hunger and poverty.

WhyHunger is a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting world hunger. Thirty-five years ago, Seeger, the late Harry Chapin (after whom Pete’s award is named) and Tom Chapin played the first benefit concert to fund the then-fledgling nonprofit association.

To read more about Pete’s participation in this year’s WhyHunger awards ceremony in Manhattan, here’s an account on Rolling Stone.com.

Appleseed is proud to announce the recent signing of the internationally renowned South African musician and activist Johnny Clegg. For over three decades, Clegg has dazzled audiences around the globe with his live shows, his infectious and meaningful songs and his outspoken views on apartheid, meanwhile racking up millions of record sales and numerous awards. He led South Africa’s first multi-racial band, Juluka, in the Seventies. His Appleseed debut is currently scheduled for September of this year and we can’t wait. He’ll be touring the US and elsewhere in the spring of 2011.

For Tim Eriksen, going back to his roots is a journey that has taken him from the loud “folk noise” of his groundbreaking band, Cordelia’s Dad, to the original folk instrument – the voice. Known for the sparse intensity of his two solo acoustic recordings and contributions to soundtracks including Cold Mountain, Tim’s newly released Soul of the January Hills takes his authentic, stripped down approach to traditional folk music to its logical conclusion: fourteen unaccompanied songs for solo voice recorded in one take with no edits.

The CD encompasses a new arrangement of the familiar “Amazing Grace,” as well as several other hymns (“Son of God,” “Wrestling Jacob”), dark accounts of incest and murder (“Queen Jane,” “Two Babes”), the pleasures and pain of love (“Lass of Glenshee,” “A Soldier Traveling from the North,” and “John Randolph,” probably the oldest song here, dating back to the 15th Century), and even optimism in harsh times (“Hope,” “Better Days Coming”).  Perhaps most timeless and, sadly, most relevant is Tim’s a cappella rendition of “I Wish the Wars Were All Over,” an original based on an 18^th Century ballad.

“I’m finally throwing down the gauntlet” laughs Massachusetts-based Eriksen, acknowledged as “the best ballad singer of his generation” by the BBC and many fellow musicians and record producers. “Not really. I’m not looking for a battle, but it would be nice if this record was taken as a friendly challenge to get people into hardcore singing, especially the old ballads and hymns and stuff. That’s what so much American music comes out of, but it’s kind of been swept under the rug.”

As you can tell by our website’s home page, as part of the worldwide “Hope for Haiti” fundraising campaign by the entertainment industry to aid earthquake-ravaged Haiti, Appleseed is donating all digital download sales of two highly appropriate songs when ordered from iTunes though our website. On the January 22 multi-channel “Hope for Haiti” fundraising telethon, Bruce Springsteen and his (Seeger) Sessions band performed (click to view their performance) “We Shall Overcome” The gospel-based anthem of endurance and activism was recorded by Bruce11 years ago as one of the songs Appleseed boss Jim Musselman requested he work up for our first Pete Seeger tribute, Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger, Vol. 1”, where this version first appeared. No song could be more apt in representing the need for determined hope and strength – by the Haitians – and direct action – by the better-off countries around the world.

We are also donating proceeds from digital downloads of the collaboration between Haitian-born rapper and producer Wyclef Jean, who is heavily involved in the relief efforts, and Eric Andersen on “White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land” from Eric’s Waves CD.

Jesse Winchester’s Appleseed debut, Love Filling Station, released in April 2009, has been receiving the recognition it so richly deserves in various media. The CD was featured on the CBS Sunday Morning TV show just prior to Christmas when VH1 vice president Bill Flanagan included the CD in his segment on “The Best CDs of the Year.” The ripple effect of the recommendation landed Love Filling Station on Billboard’s “Heatseekers” chart, which is for CDs that haven’t previously appeared in Billboard’s “Top 100” chart, based on sales in the final week of January.

The Boston Herald’s main music writer, Daniel Gewertz, named Love Filling Station as one of the year’s Top 10 CDs.

Jesse also reaffirmed his reputation as a “songwriter’s songwriter” in mid-December 2009 with his appearance on the Sundance cable TV channel’s “Spectacle: Elvis Costello with . . .” The music/interview show alternates live performances by its guests and brief interviews by Elvis, who also performs. The show with Jesse also included Sheryl Crow, Canadian songwriter Ron Sexsmith, and current alt.rock heroine Neko Case. The highpoint came when Jesse performed the tender “Sham-a-Ling-Dong-Ding” from Love Filling Station – his characteristically low-key but moving performance concluded with a camera panning to a single tear rolling down Neko’s cheek, as you can see on this video from the show. Costello, who has included Jesse’s rocking “Payday” in some of his own set lists, is clearly blown away as well.

’Tis the season to buy music (aren’t they all?) – for gifts, for personal pleasure, and to add to the festive spirit of this time of year. We want to make things easy for you, so we have two tempting new releases available this month and a new and timely sale to add to last month’s special sale (see news item below), which is still ongoing.

Appleseed opened 2009 with a “Best Traditional Folk Album” Grammy for folk icon Pete Seeger’s At 89 release, and we’re bringing the year to a close with a previously unreleased, full length, two-CD Live in ’65 set capturing Pete in concert at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Music Hall in February 1965. Already acclaimed as “arguably the best concert representation of this legend ever captured on disc” (Philadelphia Daily News), Live in ’65 presents a joyous, exhilarating program of classic and contemporary folk songs – from “Oh Susanna” to Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” – including a full helping of Seeger’s “signature songs” – “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” This Land is Your Land,” “Guantanamera” and many more. Remind yourselves or teach your children – this is what folk music should be. Just follow this link to read more about this ideal holiday release.

The implacable beauty of nature, and particularly the winter season, serves as the backdrop for many of the songs on award-winning singer, songwriter, and poet Anne Hills’ long-awaited new release, Points of View. The first CD in a decade to feature Anne’s own original compositions after several creative projects adapting the words of others to music, Points of View is true to its name – the 11 Hills originals explore the themes of individuality, diversity, love, loss and resilience in a changing world through the different characters and their conditions that she creates. Anne brings the situations in her songs to life with understated lyrics, a glorious soprano voice, and a “knack for writing heartfelt original songs [that has] brought her to the upper echelon of her craft” (AllMusic Guide). To read more about Anne and her Points of View, please follow this link.

In August 2009, Appleseed released the 100th CD release in the company’s 12-year history: Running for the Drum, the first recordings in 13 years by the legendary singer-songwriter-Native American activist newly signed to our label: the multiple-award-winning Buffy Sainte-Marie.

Running for the Drum not only includes 11 Buffy originals and a revamped version of "America the Beautiful" -- the gorgeous digipack also includes an hour-long biographical documentary, Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Multimedia Life.

Here is a video of Buffy performing the CD's opening track, "No No Keshagesh" a mixture of swirling electronica, "pow-wow" backing vocals and a forthright lyrical attack on corporate greed by Buffy. ("Keshagesh" is a Native American word meaning "greedy guts.")

Since the CD’s release, it has earned Buffy her second Juno Award (the Canadian Grammy) for Best Aboriginal Album, the Aboriginal People’s Choice Music Award (ABCMA) for Best Album, and within the last month Buffy took home four Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards for Best Female Artist, Best Album, Best Single (“No No Keshagesh” – watch the video below) and Best Songwriter. Buffy also became the first person to win the APCMA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and was the 25th inductee into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.

We want to include our website visitors and CD customers in our 100th release celebration through a great new SALE OFFER that covers all of the titles, new and old, in our catalogue. Follow this link for details.

We are enormously proud to relay the information that Let the Circle Be Wide, our 2009 release by the great Irish folksinger Tommy Sands, his daughter Moya and son Fionán, was selected by the nationally syndicated public radio program “Celtic Connections” as their Album of the Year. The program, hosted by Bryan Kelso, is broadcast on about 140 stations in 30 states around the US.

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Tom Rush’s new “comeback” CD after more than 30 years between studio albums, What I Know (http://www.appleseedmusic.com/tomrush/whatiknow.html), was the most played CD of 2009 by the 195 folk/roots-oriented radio program hosts who report airplay to the international FOLKDJ-L listserve. Based on airplay, Tom himself was rated as the #5 Top Artist of the Year, with the #1 spot appropriately occupied by – who else – Pete Seeger.

Even with the brutal winter weather that’s smothering most of the United States, it’s still possible to hear great live music without leaving your home. The NPR-syndicated “Mountain Stage” live performance radio program can be heard on hundreds of stations around the country, and its archives can be accessed by computer. You can find out what local radio stations carry “Mountain Stage” and at what time by following this link and, if you miss the broadcast, you can hear the music on “Mountain Stage’s” archives via computer, where some additional music omitted from the shows for reasons of time is included.

The two-hour broadcasts, featuring four or five separate artists, are scheduled for the week following the dates below before being archived. Here are the upcoming broadcast details on some recently taped “Mountain Stage” segments by Appleseed artists:

The week following March 12: Tom Rush

The week following April 2: an acoustic “dream team” pairing of our own folk-blues master David Bromberg and his well-matched counterpart, former Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna and solo artist Jorma Kaukonen.

The week following April 9: Jesse Winchester

Our 2009 releases found favor with many radio hosts and journalists, as well as “civilian” music fans. Here’s a partial list of our CDs that made various “Best of 2009” lists, aside from the CBS Morning News and FOLKDJ-L acclaim for Jesse Winchester’s Love Filling Station described in the news item elsewhere on this page:

RADIO:

Sirius XM Satellite Radio’s “The Village” channel 15: Jesse’s “Bless Your Foolish Heart” (from Love Filling Station), Tom Rush’s “What I Know” from his CD of the same name, and “Joan of Arc” from Darrell Scott’s 2008 Modern Hymns CD were among the channel’s Top New Release Spins from more than 9000 new songs played in 2009.

WFMT-FM (Chicago, IL) – Rich Warren, longtime host and producer of “The Midnight Special” folk show, played “Holy Now” and “Gardens” from Anne Hills’ Points of View on his “Favorites of the Year” broadcast. “This CD . . . covers a wide range of topics with Hills’ expected political consciousness and perceptive lyrics. Her lovely voice has never been better and this is her best release in years,” Rich recommended.

WFDU-FM (Teaneck, NJ) – Bill Hahn, one of the hosts of the station’s “Traditions” show, included Pete Seeger’s Live in ’65 on his 10 favorite CDs from 2009 list.

WOMR-FM (Provincetown, MA) – Bob Weiser, host of “The Old Songs’ Home,” played “Abiyoyo” from Live in ’65, Pete Seeger’s new archival 2-CD set in his overview of significant 2009 releases.

Celtic Connections (syndicated) – as noted elsewhere, this nationally syndicated show based in Illinois chose Let the Circle Be Wide by the great Irish folksinger and activist Tommy Sands, his daughter Moya, and son Fionán, as their Album of the Year.

KALW-FM (San Francisco, CA) – Kevin Vance, host of “A Patchwork Quilt,” played Darrell Scott’s “American Tune” from Modern Hymns and Pete Seeger’s “Bring Them Home” from Seeds: The Songs of Pete Seeger, Vol. 3 on his “Best of the Aughts” show.

WAMC-FM (Albany, NY) – “Hudson River Sampler” host Wanda Fischer played tracks from Anne Hills’ Points of View and Tom Rush’s What I Know on her “2009 Retrospective” broadcast.

WXOU-FM (Auburn Hills, MI) – Anne Hills’ Points of View and Pete Seeger’s Live in’65 each had three songs played on Maggie Ferguson’s “Favorite Albums from 2009” broadcast of her “Old Front Porch Radio Show.

WSCL/WSDL-FM/Public Radio Delmarva (Salisbury, MD) – “Just Folks” program host John Kalb played tracks from Jesse Winchester’s Love Filling Station and Tom Rush’s What I Know in his “look back at some of ‘Just Folks’ favorite new releases on 2009.”

WRUW-FM (Cleveland, OH) – Jimmie Wilson, host of “Roll Away the Dew,” played Tom Rush’s “Fall into the Night” and Jesse Winchester’s “Lonely for a While” from their respective CDs on his “Some of the Best of 2009” show.

KTRU-FM (Houston, TX) – Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!” from Live in ’65 was included in “Chickenskin Music” host David John’s “Favorites of the Year” show and he reported the CD as the year’s #1 Reissue/Historic Album to the Freeform American Radio (FAR) year’s end charts that appear in the Texas-based periodical “Third Coast Music.”

KPFZ-FM (Lakeport, CA) – “Denim Alley” program host Linda Guebert reported Jesse Winchester as the #1 Male Artist and #1 Songwriter to the “FAR and Away” best of the year list.

CHES-FM (Erin, ON, Canada) -- Jesse Winchester’s Love Filling Station and Tom Rush’s What I Know were listed by “Acoustic Planet” host Steve Clarke as among his favorites of the year.

WVPE-FM (South Bend, IN) – “Back Porch” program co-hosts Al Kniola and Norm Mast listed Tom Paxton’s Comedians & Angels (actually released in 2008) on their “Best Albums of 2009” list. Good music is timeless.

KEOS (College Station, TX) – “Random Routes” host Joe Angel played a track from Pete Seeger’s Live in ’65 on his annual “Favorite Releases of the Year” show.

PRESS:

Mike Regenstreif, well-respected music reviewer, Folk Routes/Folk Branches blogger (http://frfb.blogspot.com/) and part-time music host on Montreal’s CKUT, placed Jesse Winchester’s Love Filling Station as #7 in his “Top 20 folk-rooted or folk-branched albums of 2009” list, complimenting Winchester for “nine finely-crafted original gems and three excellent covers which blend the Memphis R&B tradition he grew up hearing with country, folk, early rock ’n’ roll, jazz and bluegrass influences.

Boston Herald, MA – as noted elsewhere, the Herald’s Daniel Gewertz listed Jesse Winchester’s Love Filling Station as #4 in his Top Ten Releases of the Year round-up.

Iowa City Press Citizen, IA – music writer Jim Musser included Jesse Winchester’s Love Filling Station in his 12th annual year’s end Top 20 column.

We want to thank all of the radio hosts and music writers – not just those listed above – for their generally excellent taste in playing and praising our releases. Particular props to all of the radio hosts who, with few exceptions, compile and broadcast their shows as an unpaid labor of love and dedication to an often-ignored genre of music.

2009 was a year of milestones for Appleseed. After nine previous nominations, an Appleseed CD bagged a long overdue first Grammy Award – “Best Traditional Folk Recording” for Pete Seeger’s At 89. After celebrating our first decade in 2007, this year we released our 100th CD, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Running for the Drum. And, best of all, we were privileged to present outstanding new albums by some hugely talented and long-unrecorded additions to our roster and by our several of our beloved longtime artists.

Returning to the recording studio for the first time in between 10 and 35 years has yielded rapturous results for Tom Rush , Jesse Winchester, and Buffy Sainte-Marie, each of whom brought a superb new record to our label. Although all three artist have maintained active touring schedules since their last recordings, Tom’s What I Know, Jesse’s Love Filling Station and Buffy’s Running for the Drum offer vivid proof that their talents have expanded well beyond a perfection of stagecraft.

Tom Rush has been known since the Sixties for his golden ear in discovering little-known songs and songwriters (including Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne back in the day) and bringing them to a wider audience through his often definitive recorded versions. His own compositions have been infrequent but of equally high caliber (“No Regrets” can safely be called a classic). What I Know boasts five Rush originals that hold their own against his selection of material both familiar (“Drift Away”) and obscure (“All a Man Can Do,” “What an Old Lover Knows”). Every song Tom sings becomes his own, thanks to his warm, comfortable and thoughtful baritone voice and phrasing.

Jesse Winchester is better known for the songs he writes, which have become country, pop, and R&B hits and album highlights when recorded by Wynonna Judd, Jimmy Buffett, Elvis Costello, Joan Baez, and the Weather Girls, among others, than for his own versions of those songs. Love Filling Station is, as usual, filled with original, gently perceptive vignettes of small town life and love served in tasteful country/folk/gospel-tinged arrangements, and the few cover songs he delivers fit right in (including a gorgeous version of R&B standard “Stand by Me”). But, like Tom Rush, what really bring these songs to memorable life are Jesse’s vocals, an airy tenor with a Southern drawl and a twinkle in its core, wry and sly but sincere, a cooling mint julep of music.

Even though she’s stayed away from the recording studio for more than a dozen years, Buffy Sainte-Marie can hardly be accused of sloth. Her activism in Native American affairs, her computer art, and her international concert tour schedule are unceasing, but she did break her recording silence with Running for the Drum, a dazzling multi-genre display of swirling electronic pow-wow music, sociopolitical commentary, heartbursting love songs, a bit of rockabilly and R&B, and a new version of her one of her early signature songs, “Little Wheel Spin and Spin.” Her fascinating past, musical and otherwise, is documented in an accompanying DVD, “A Multimedia Life.”

Anne Hills is no stranger to Appleseed’s discerning customers and other knowledgeable contemporary folk fans – we’ve issued her collaborations with Tom Paxton (Under American Skies), with Paxton and Bob Gibson (Best of Friends), and with Steve Gillette, Cindy Mangsen and Priscilla Herman (Fourtold). We’ve now released Anne’s Points of View, not only her first solo album for us but also her first album in a decade to spotlight her original songs, which had been set aside while she applied her creativity and glorious soprano voice to other musical projects. Anne’s 11 original or co-written songs and two cover versions lyrically mix human nature and with images of Mother Nature to create scenarios from a variety of viewpoints.

Appleseed’s year started and has ended with new CDs by old friends of ours and each other. In January we released Let the Circle Be Wide by one of Appleseed’s very first signings, the great Irish singer, songwriter and peace activist Tommy Sands. Accompanied by his daughter Moya, son Fionan and other members of the famed Sands Family, Tommy recorded 15 mostly original songs steeped in Irish and Celtic culture. The songs are filled with contemporary observations, tall tales, celebrations of life, and tributes to bygone heroes. There’s also a unique “translation/ transcreation” of the most famous Irish ballad of all, “Danny Boy” (here retitled “Young Man’s Dream”), that originated more than 500 years ago, drawing us to “an island dreaming where the heart is free,” where “the dream of love, it belongs to all.”

Sarajevo/Belfast, Tommy’s 1999 collaboration with fellow peace activist Vedran Smailovic, “the cellist of Bosnia,” was among our first dozen releases.

Finally, what better way to enter the winter holiday season (and to combat the dreary weather beyond) than with the joyful noise stirred up by Pete Seeger in front of an appreciative audience on our new archival 2-CD set of a previously unreleased Seeger concert, Live in ’65? This is vintage Pete (not too different from the currently 90-year-old Pete), bursting with traditional, international and contemporary folk songs, anecdotes, humorous tuning battles with his instruments, almost two invigorating hours from the absolute epitome of entertainment and education through music.

And What’s Next for Appleseed in 2010?

Well, we don’t want to spoil any surprises, and we do want you to visit our website for release updates, purchasing CDs, and our special sales, but our release schedule for the coming year includes new recordings by Pete Seeger (the follow-up to his Grammy-winning At 89) and David Bromberg, who is working with a variety of well-known contemporary songwriters on some custom-made material. So come back and visit – more details will follow.

Although Bruce Springsteen has always recorded for Columbia/Sony Records, his ties to Appleseed stretch back at least a dozen years, when Appleseed founder and president Jim Musselman approached him with a request that Bruce record a Pete Seeger song for the first of Appleseed’s three tributes to Pete’s music.

Bruce recorded a somber, powerful version of “We Shall Overcome” that appeared on our Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger, Vol. 1 2-CD set in 1998, years before it became the title track of his own 2006 CD, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, inspired by Bruce’s long-term immersion in the Seeger music Musselman introduced him to.

Springsteen has subsequently appeared on three more Appleseed CDs, including two historic song collaborations with Pete Seeger, and also recorded and performed a version of Seeger’s “(If You Love Your Uncle Sam) Bring Them Home,” adding his own politically charged verses to the additional lyrics by Musselman that updated the 1965 anti-Vietnam War song to address the 2003 US bombing of Iraq.

You can read more about the relationship between Springsteen and Appleseed elsewhere on our website.

The latest link between superstar-with-conscience Springsteen and our idealistic label was Musselman’s participation in a three-day gathering in New Jersey, “Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium.” The symposium, from September 25 to 27, featured more than 130 presentations by more than 130 writers, musicians, and Springsteen scholars representing thirty states and eight countries. Musselman delivered a keynote speech on “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” at Monmouth College and also moderated two panels devoted to Springsteen’s politics over the course of the weekend.

The three-day event was spread out between New Jersey locations Monmouth College in West Long Branch, the Sheraton Center in Eatontown, and the venerable Stony Pony club in Asbury Park, one of Bruce’s prime performance spots early in his career and in later guest visits. Some of the other speakers at the symposium included Grammy Museum President Robert Santelli (longtime editor of the Springsteen-centric periodical Backstreets); original E Street Band drummer Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez; and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Vice President for Education and Outreach Lauren Onkey

The first “Glory Days” symposium, held in September 2005, drew 330 educations, journalists, historians, musicologists and fans interested in scholarly analysis of Bruce Springsteen and his influence on many aspects of American culture. The symposium received national and international press coverage in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Learning, and on the BBC, and Parade Magazine named the event as “The College Weekend of 2005.”

The weekend of February 7, 2009, was a memorable one for Appleseed and its artists.

On Friday, February 7, the February 19 issue of Rolling Stone carried a two-page spread devoted to Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, as well as several candid shots of Pete at the pre-inaugural “We Are One” concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

On Saturday, Appleseed artist Tom Paxton was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Science (NARAS), which bestows the Grammys. The award honors creative contributions of outstanding artist significance to the field of recording.

And on Sunday, during pre-TV-broadcast ceremonies, Pete Seeger received a “Best Traditional Folk Album” Grammy for his late-September release on Appleseed, At 89.

Appleseed CDs have previously been nominated for ten Grammys, and this was our first award.

Paxton is the second Appleseed artist to receive Grammy’s Lifetime Achievement Award; Pete Seeger was previously honored in 1993.

Seeger’s “Best Traditional Folk Album” award for what he’s called his final album, At 89, was his third Grammy nomination and second win. His 1996 CD, Pete, was a winner in the same category, and the 2003 2-CD set by Pete Seeger & Friends, Seeds: The Songs of Pete Seeger, Volume 3, on Appleseed was a nominee in the “traditional folk” category as well.

Singer-songwriter Paxton, who has been creating topical, satirical, and heartfelt music for adults and children throughout his 45 year career, adds this honor to previous Lifetime Achievement Awards presented to him by the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance in 2006 and by BBC’s Radio 2 in 2005.

Tom’s Grammy nomination for Comedians & Angels was his third; his 2001 Your Shoes, My Shoes release was a finalist in the “Best Children’s Music Album” category, and his first CD for Appleseed, 2002’s Looking for the Moon, was nominated as “Best Contemporary Folk Album.”

The Grammy nomination for Peggy Seeger’s Bring Me Home CD was the first in her illustrious career as a songwriter and interpreter of traditional American and British folk music. She also served as the inspiration for her late husband Ewan MacColl’s “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which was Grammy’s “Record of the Year” in 1972 in a version recorded by Roberta Flack.

“We are proud to have three nominations, a true honor and testament to the label and the fine musicians we have the privilege to work with,” said Appleseed’s Jim Musselman. “I feel the music we release has an importance both historically and keeping the wonderful tradition of folk music alive. It is also wonderful to have the recognition for well known artists like Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton,” Musselman continues. “It is an honor to work with all these musical legends. And I am so glad to see the recognition of Peggy Seeger, whose music has been so influential to so many well known artists over the years. Many times we take artists for granted and do not recognize them until they are gone. I am glad to see Peggy recognized while she is alive.”