Perhaps no single person in the 20th century has done more to preserve, broadcast, and re-distribute folk music than Pete Seeger, whose passion for politics, the environment, and humanity have earned him both ardent fans and vocal enemies since he first began performing in the late '30s. His never-ending battle against injustice led to his being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, celebrated during the turbulent '60s, and welcomed at union rallies throughout his life. His tireless efforts regarding global concerns such as environmentalism, population growth, and racial equality have earned him the respect and friendship of such political heroes as , , and Cesar Chavez, and the generations of children who first learned to sing and clap to Seeger's Folkways recordings must number in the millions.
Rising above all of Seeger's political ideals and his passion for authentic folk music is his clear voice and chiming banjo which both sing out with a clarity that rings true.
Pete Seeger was born May 3, 1919, in Patterson, NY. The son of Charles and Constance Seeger, Pete grew up in a household filled with both music (his mother was a violinist and teacher, his father was a musicologist and conductor, both of whom had served on the faculty at Juilliard) and political activism (his father worked as a teacher at the University of California at Berkeley, where his pacifism earned him so many enemies that he resigned in the fall of 1918).
The youthful Pete initially rebelled against his parents passion for music, but upon hearing a five-string banjo for the first time at the Folk Song and Dance Festival in Asheville, NC, his dream of becoming a painter was pushed aside. He studied sociology at Harvard University beginning in 1936, but left just before his final exams two years later, choosing instead to roam the American South making field recordings with music scholar . These experiences were the foundation of Seeger's repertoire of work songs, lullabies, folk songs, and ballads that he would revisit throughout his musical career.
Seeger was drafted into the army in 1942, spending much of his time performing to troops in the South Pacific, and in 1943 he got married to Toshi Ohta (who has remained his wife for more than 50 years). After his discharge he continued his travels throughout the U.S.
, but as a performer instead of a scholar, performing wherever people were gathered, from taverns to churches. On March 3, 1940, he met at a migrant worker benefit concert, and soon after the two helped form , a loosely organized musical collective that included Lee Hays, Millard Lampell, Sis Cunningham, , , , ,
Upon the dissolution of the , Seeger, and Hays formed with and who found universal success with their bright renditions of folk songs and spirituals like "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," "Wimoweh," "Goodnight Irene," and "On Top of Old Smoky." Unfortunately, Seeger and Hays' leftist leanings had long been under the scrutiny of the FBI, and ironically, their straightforward and innocuous performances were drawing disdain from the diehard leftist press. In 1955 Seeger was brought before the House of Un-American Activities Committee and his testimony resulted in his being blacklisted for 17 years (and not officially cleared on charges of contempt until 1962).
Seeger left in 1958, for a solo career just as the seeds of the music they planted were beginning to take root on college campuses and in coffeehouses across the U.S. He spent much of the '60s in the South, marching in civil rights protests and arranging an old spiritual into what he named "We Shall Overcome," which has become the anthem of the pursuit for equality worldwide.
In 1962, he put the words to a portion of the book of Ecclesiastes to music, capturing the feel of the changing climate of the youth movement in his song "Turn! Turn! Turn!
(To Everything There Is a Season)." In addition to the countless social rallies he organized and participated in at this time, Seeger also had a hand in many of the Newport Folk Festivals in the early and mid-'60s. His adherence to the sanctity of folk music came to a boiling point with the advent of folk-rock, and this was visibly demonstrated when he tried to pull the plug on 's very electrified set with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1965.
His objection to the Vietnam War was made evident during an appearance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 where he attacked Lyndon Johnson's war policies during his performance of the song "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy."
Seeger focused his attention on environmental issues in the '70s and '80s, notably with the launch of the sloop Clearwater (a floating classroom, laboratory, stage, and speaker's forum) into the Hudson River in 1969. He also remained active on the festival circuit, appearing at outdoor folk concerts and organizing rallies for any number of causes, from labor unions to anti-pollution legislation.
The '90s saw Seeger on-stage receiving awards as often as performing music; with honors including receiving the nation's highest artistic honors at the Kennedy Center, gaining entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and earning the Harvard Arts Medal (despite the fact that he opted not to graduate from the university). He also won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album of 1996, and in 1999 he traveled to Cuba to accept the Felix Varela Medal (Cuba's highest honor for "his humanistic and artistic work in defense of the environment and against racism"). His ceaseless passion for reaching the hearts and minds of those who will listen is summed up by the inscription on his banjo which reads "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.
" Pete Seeger's music does not force hate to surrender with muscle or intimidation, but with Seeger's simple honesty and pure-hearted clarity which has truly changed the course of history during the 60-plus years that he has been performing. ~ Zac Johnson, All Music Guide
The American folksinger and activist Pete Seeger (born 1919) was associated with the Communist and Progressive parties in the 1940s and 1950s, but later focused on environmental issues. He was especially admired for his fight against the blacklisting of entertainers in the 1950s because of left wing political beliefs.
American folksinger, composer, song collector and five-string banjo virtuoso Pete Seeger was born in New York City in 1919 into a family of music professors. He spent his early years in private schools and studied sociology at Harvard College. It was in 1938, when he dropped out of Harvard after two years to ride the rails and hitchhike all over the United States, that he immersed himself in folk music.
He traveled all around the country collecting songs, meeting the greats of American folk music: Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and Earl Robinson. Two years later he briefly served as an assistant in the Archive of Folk Song at the . He then helped organize the Almanac Singers in 1941.
The group campaigned against American entry into , until Germany invaded Russia. The Almanacs then sang on behalf of the Allies. Following the war Seeger worked for better relations between the United States and international Communism, most notably by campaigning for Henry Wallace for president in 1948.
During these early years Seeger was closely associated with the legendary folk singer and composer Woody Guthrie. He was also the national director of People's Songs, Inc., an effort to institutionalize left-wing music.
In 1948 Seeger organized another singing group, the , with whom he achieved his greatest popular success. They appeared on national radio and television and recorded a song, "Goodnight Irene," that was the number one hit in 1950. But with the rise of anti-Communist feeling in the nation, the Weavers were blacklisted, along with hundreds of other leftist or formerly leftist entertainers.
With the mass media closed to them, the Weavers disbanded. Seeger, who composed as well as performed and had a personal following, survived the blacklist by making recordings and giving concerts. In 1964-1965 he made a world tour with his family, performing in 24 countries.
In 1967, with the blacklist easing, he appeared on the Smothers Brothers television show. But Seeger had missed the folksong vogue which flourished briefly in the late 1950s and early 1960s and never recovered his earlier popularity.
Seeger was especially active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, appearing at rallies and fund-raising concerts.
The simplicity and directness of this cause were well suited to his musical talents. He customarily appeared in shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, accompanying himself on a banjo. Seeger did more than anyone else to revive interest in this American instrument.
Without entirely abandoning his other causes, Seeger became an effective environmentalist, water pollution being his particular object of concern. Using the sloop Clearwater as a dramatic prop, he was a leader in the struggle to reclaim that river. He also sang on behalf of similarly endangered bodies of water.
Though best known as a folksinger, Seeger was equally active as an organizer and promoter, not only of socio-political causes but also of purely musical events. Among these were the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festivals and appearances of the reconstituted Weavers. He took particular pride in having been one of the first white Northerners to recognize the value of Southern folk music, which he ardently encouraged for close to 50 years.
Dubbed "America's tuning fork" by Carl Sandburg, Seeger has written more than 100 songs in addition to manuals on playing the 5-string banjo and 12-string guitars.
The autumn of his life turned into an awards season for Seeger, as he received honors from places where he was once denounced. In 1955, after refusing to answer questions from the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Seeger was branded unpatriotic and blacklisted from television and major concert halls for 17 years; but in 1994 he returned to Washington to accept the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton.
In 1965, Seeger was accused of threatening to stop Bob Dylan's electrified rock performance at the Newport Folk Festival; in 1996, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In the late 1930s, Seeger had dropped out of Harvard after losing a partial scholarship; just before his 77th birthday, he was honored as a distinguished alumnus at that university's Arts First festival.
Seeger can be seen in a film of the last concert of the Weavers that is often aired on public television.
A fine biography is David King Dunaway's How Can I Keep from Singing (1981). Seeger is a walking history book of American music. Songs he wrote and popularized like "If I Had a Hammer," "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
" have become standards, and many of them are available on CDs and other sound recordings, such as The Almanac Singers: Their Complete Recordings. Seeger (along with Blood Seeger) authored Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Singer's Stories, Sings, Seeds, Robberies in 1993. Seeger has been featured on the Arts Entertainment (A E) television program Biography ( ).
as "Pete Seeger", is a folk singer and . As a member of , he had a string of hits, including a that topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. He was a and "Turn, Turn, Turn", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world.
"Flowers" was a hit recording for ( ), , who recorded it in English, " " was a hit for ( ) and ( ), while popularized " " in the mid-1960s.
Seeger was born in . His father was a and an early investigator of non-Western .
His stepmother, , was one of the most the , who influenced Bob Dylan. His uncle, , a noted poet, was killed during the . In 1936 he heard the five-string banjo for the first time at the Folk Song and Dance Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and his life was changed forever.
Pete Seeger attended the then until he left in 1938 during his sophomore year. In both cases, he was a scholarship student. In he married Toshi-Aline Ohta, whom he credits with being the support that helped make the rest of his life possible.
Pete and Toshi have three children, Danny, Mika and Tinya, and grandchildren Tao, Cassie, Kitama, Moraya, Penny, and Issablle. Tao is a folk musician in his own right, singing and playing guitar, banjo and NY and remains very politically active in the Region of New York, especially in the near-by , NY. He and Toshi purchased their land in 1949, and lived there first in a trailer, then in a log cabin they built themselves, and eventually in a larger house.
where he had been studying —he took a job in New York at the Archives of American Folk Music. In that capacity, he met and was influenced by many important musicians such as " " migrant workers concert on , and the two thereafter began a musical collaboration.
In 1948, Seeger wrote the first version of his now-classic How to Play the Five-String Banjo, a that many players credit with starting them off on the .
He went on to invent the Long Neck or Seeger . This instrument is three frets longer than a typical , and slightly longer than a at 25 Frets, and is tuned a minor third lower than the normal in the early 1950s, before being in the would violate his rights..
. "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, ; for some years, he had to keep the federal government apprised of where he was going any time he left the Southern District of New York.
He was convicted in a jury trial in March 1961, and sentenced to a year in jail, but in May 1962 an appeals court ruled the indictment to be flawed and overturned his conviction.
the Flowers Gone?," "If I Had a Hammer" (co-written with Lee Hays), " ," adapted from the , and " " (based on a ).
Seeger became influential in the folk revival centered in . He helped found and . To describe the new crop of folk singers, many of whom were politically minded in their songs, who by this time had become a legendary figure.
He has often sung and is associated with the song " ".
, , and , and many others. Thirty-eight hourlong programs were recorded at new station 's studios in 1965 and 1966, produced by Seeger and his wife with Sholom Rubinstein.
clearly hear the lyrics. There are many conflicting versions of exactly what ensued, some claiming that he actually tried to words more audible, he exclaimed "Goddamn it, if I had an ax, I'd cut the cable."
about whether the song's lyrics were objectionable.
Although the song was cut from the Smothers Brothers show in September 1967, Seeger returned in January 1968 and sang the entire song. It was clearly an allegory about the U.S.
under the leadership of which was in over its head in the . The song is included in Seeger's Greatest Hits collection CD, published in 2002.
Another slight against Lyndon Johnson can be heard in his singing of Len Chandler's seemingly juvenile song, "Beans in My Ears" from his album Dangerous Songs!
? in which he accuses "Mrs. Jay's little son Alby" (Alby Jay is meant to sound like LBJ) of having beans in his ears, or of not listening to the people.
to tell stories, these days mostly children's stories, such as Abiyoyo. He recently performed at April 27-30, 2006 in .
In April 2006, released a collection of songs associated with Seeger or in Seeger's folk tradition, .
He had recorded one Seeger favorite, "We Shall Overcome", on a 1998 tribute to the folk singer, and had covered songs by other folk singers like Guthrie and Dylan in live concerts in the past.
Seeger is known for his ardent political beliefs and his involvement with leftist political organizations, including the support of workers' rights. After Germany’s breaking of the pact, the pacifism of was hopelessly obsolete and copies were quickly removed from sale.
The remaining inventory was reportedly destroyed. Only a few copies exist to this day. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, Seeger returned to his earlier stance as combat unit, his job was to entertain the American troops with music.
When people later asked him what he did in the war, he always answered 'I strummed my banjo'. Seeger left the Communist Party in 1950, five years before 's revealed Stalin's alleged crimes and led to a mass exodus from the Party. "I realized I could sing the same songs I sang whether I belonged to the Communist Party or not, and I never liked the idea anyway of belonging to a secret in the and worked to clean it.
As part of that effort, the was launched in and regularly sails the river as , and with an all-volunteer crew. The Clearwater Festival is an annual two-day concert held on the banks of the Hudson in Croton Point, New York.
Seeger has been the recipient of many awards and recognitions throughout his career, including :
He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other."
He backed out around '38. I drifted out in the '50s. I apologize [in his recent book] for following the party line so slavishly, for not seeing that Stalin was a supremely cruel
But if by some freak of history communism had caught up with this country, I would have been one of the first people thrown in jail."
And who will say if either or both is wrong? Not I."
What Pete did, and what some other very powerful people who had the guts and the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the committee and say, "I'm gonna invoke the First Amendment, the right of freedom of association...
." "
.I was actually in law school when I read the case of Seeger v. United States, and it really changed my life, invoking the First Amendment, saying, "We're all Americans.
We can associate with whoever we want to, and it doesn't matter who we associate with." That's what the founding fathers set up democracy to be. So I just really feel it's an important part of
51, he failed one of his winter exams and lost his scholarship.
How to Play the Five-String Banjo, 3rd edition. New York: Music Sales Corporation, 1969. ISBN
, How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger, McGraw Hill (1981), DaCapo (1990), ISBN 0-07-018150-0,
" ", GRAMMY Magazine, 7 January 2005.
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