Pete Seeger: Photos And A Great 1947 Film Tribute To The American Folk Great
– In this Aug. 28, 1948 file photo, former Vice President and 1948 Progressive Party presidential candidate, Henry A. Wallace, making a political tour of the south, listens to Pete Seeger, on a plane between Norfolk and Richmond. Seeger’s influence is incalculable. He’s the rare artist whose music and message transcends time, speaking to his children and their children and on and on. The son of a socialist musicologist and a violinist, he began leading others in song at 8 and was introduced to protest music around 12. (AP Photo, File)
LAST night in New York Pete Seeger died. He was 94. The patrician captured the mood of the masses. As it says on his website:
For nearly 70 years as a performer, Pete Seeger has embodied the ideals of folk music – communication, entertainment, social comment, historical continuity, inclusiveness. The songs he has written, and those he has discovered and shared, have helped preserve our cultural heritage, imprinting adults and children with the sounds, traditions and values of our global past and present. A fearless warrior for social justice and the environment, Pete’s political activism – from the Civil Rights movement and anti-McCarthyism to resistance to fascism and the wars in Vietnam and the Middle East – has become the template for subsequent generations of musicians and ordinary citizens with something to say about the world.
Folk singer Pete Seeger performs during an anti-hydraulic fracturing rally before New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers his State of the State address at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center on Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
In his 90s, Seeger gave the Occupy Wall Street movement a direction and a voice. He was there to castigate BP for the spill in the Gulf. In September 2013, Seeger performed the Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land at Farm Aid while being joined on stage by John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews and Neil Young. He said: “Friends, at 94 I don’t have much of a voice left. But here’s a song I think you know, and if you sing it, why, we’ll make a good sound.” He added the verse “New York was made to be frack free!”
The Weavers, a folk group first organized in 1948, perform in a 25th Anniversary Reunion concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Nov. 28, 1980. From left are: Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Pete Seeger and Willie Nelson on stage during the Farm Aid 2013 concert at Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Saturday, Sept. 21, 2013.(AP Photo/Hans Pennink)
Gov. Kenneth Curtis of Maine, left, skipper Alan Aunapu (center), and folk singer Pete Seeger at launching ceremonies for the sloop Clearwater at South Bristol, Maine in May 1969. (AP Photo)
File-This Oct. 14, 1994, file photo shows President Clinton presenting folk musician Pete Seeger with a 1994 National Medal of Arts, in Washington at the White House. The American troubadour, folk singer and activist Seeger died Monday Jan. 27, 2014, at age 94. (AP Photo/Joe Marquette, File)
Singer Pete Seeger, left, and Carly Simon sing an ecology Âprotest song during a benefit to save the nationÂs rivers and streams from industrial pollution and natural erosion, on Monday, Feb. 1, 1983 at New YorkÂs Studio 54. (AP Photo/Nancy Kaye)
Retiring U.N. Secretary General U. Thant listening to song by folk singer Pete Seeger at luncheon honoring that at the hotel Pierre in New York on Dec. 14, 1971. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)
Pete Seeger sings in Berlin-Pete Seeger, American Folksaenger, author and artist internationally known folk songs, entered into a one-off guest appearance in the Berlin Volksbuehne on 01/04/1967 on. Born in 1919, Pete Seeger is closely linked to the revolutionary art since his youth. He joined in recent years passionately against war and racial discrimination and sat for social advancement of all earners in.
Barcelona University students battled police with stones today after a concert by American Folksinger Pete Seeger was banned unexpectedly. Picture shows Seeger (right), with Catalan folksinger ÂRaimon during a news conference in Madrid on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 1971. (AP Photo/L. Gomez)
In this July 20, 1966, file photo, Pete Seeger conducts an instrument making session on Children’s Day at the Newport Folk Festival, in Newport, R.I. The American troubadour, folk singer and activist Seeger died Monday Jan. 27, 2014, at age 94. (AP Photo, File)
Mike Seeger, folk singer and auto-harp player as he entertained children on Children’s Day at the Newport Folk Festival on July 20, 1966. The special programs were designed especially for children. Mike Seeger is a half-brother of famed folk singer Pete Seeger and a founding member of the folk group “The New Lost City Ramblers”. (AP Photo/J. Walter Green)
American folk singer Pete Seeger, a banjo slung over his shoulder, is accompanied by his wife Toshi, on his arrival at the Federal Court, in New York, on April 4, 1961, for sentencing on a conviction of contempt of a Congress charge. He was given a one-year sentence for refusing to answer questions about possible Communist affiliations. Before he was sentenced, Seeger asked Judge Thomas F. Murphy for permission to sing a song. The judge declined. (AP Photo)
But let’s focus on Seeger in his youth. This 1946 film, To Hear Your Banjo Play, was written and narrated by Alan Lomax, features the 27-year-old Seeger. Seeger helped turn the banjo from a joke thing of fun into a serious instrument:
Posted: 28th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Music Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
