ISBN First Time Ever book Paperback 464 pages

A Memoir
A Sunday Times and Telegraph Book of the YearShortlisted for the Penderyn Music Book PrizeThe Bookseller's Most Picked Book in General Non-Fiction Round Ups of 2017Peggy 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.

Peggy Seeger is an activist songwriter. She has recorded twenty-three solo albums and has contributed to more than a hundred others. In 2014, she was awarded the inaugural Women in Music Award for Creative Inspiration, and she has an Honorary Doctorate in Art from the University of Salford. She continues to write and perform prolifically: she often tours with her musician sons, Neill and Calum, and in 2015, she and Calum were awarded Best Original Song at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. She lives in Oxford, England.