He was the subject of a famous 1957 radio ballad (The Ballad of John Axon), the first of the series, written by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger and produced by Charles Parker.
Seeger's father was Charles Seeger (1886–1979), an important folklorist and musicologist; her mother was Seeger's second wife, Ruth Porter Crawford (1901–1953), a modernist composer who was one of the first women to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Pete Seeger | Peggy Lee | Peggy Guggenheim | Peggy Seeger | Peggy Rockman Napaljarri | Peggy Olson | Peggy Noonan | Peggy Ashcroft | Peggy Thorpe-Bates | Peggy Hopkins Joyce | Peggy Guggenheim Collection | Peggy Griffin | Peggy Sue Got Married | Peggy Sue | Peggy Glanville-Hicks | Peggy Ann Bradnick | Charles Seeger | Stefan Seeger | Pete Seeger's | Peggy Shippen | Peggy Parratt | Peggy Michel | Peggy McCay | Peggy Lee Leather | Peggy Lee (cellist) | Peggy Fortnum | Peggy Fleming | Peggy Eisenhauer | Peggy Connelly | Peggy Bulger |
# "Ballad of Spring Hill (Spring Hill Disaster)" (Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl)
A founder member of the company was former BBC radio producer Charles Parker, who with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, created the radio ballads, award-winning musical documentaries broadcast by the BBC in the 1960s and now available via Listen Again on
Jerry Garcia also performed the song, as have a number of other performers, including Peggy Seeger, Sandy Paton, the New Christy Minstrels (Miss Katy Cruel, 1965), Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes), Gingerthistle, Linda Thompson, Moira Smiley, Molly Tuttle (The Tuttles and AJ Lee), Joe Dassin and Bert Jansch (with Beth Orton and Devendra Banhart).
Almost all Child Ballads were recorded by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger or Burl Ives, but in this case we have one of the rarest Child ballads.