Because I think God is everything. Let no one else ever take his place Right in the same nasty place. “One Grain of Sand” Seeger used the metaphor of a seesaw with a giant rock on one end (representing … Although the Almanacs were accused – both at the time and in subsequent histories – of reversing their attitudes in response to the Communist Party's new party line, "Seeger has pointed out that virtually all progressives reversed course and supported the war. Seeger continued performing at theaters and colleges in his later years, often touring with Woody Guthrie's son Arlo. Singing mostly traditional folk songs, The Weavers performed at night clubs and major theaters, including New York City's prestigious Carnegie Hall. Mike Seeger was a founder of the New Lost City Ramblers, one of whose members, John Cohen, married Pete's half-sister Penny – also a talented singer who died young. Seeger was one of the folk singers responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists) that became the acknowledged anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. Comment Report abuse. In January 2009, at the age of 89, Seeger performed alongside Bruce Springsteen at a Lincoln Memorial concert celebrating the inauguration of President Barack Obama. On the weekend before Barack Obama's inauguration in January 2009, Seeger, at 89, appeared at a concert and performed beside Springsteen at the Lincoln Memorial. "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" was followed by a tour that produced a live album. He had a chance to make At the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan, Seeger appeared before the committee, but only to refuse to answer questions and to accuse the committee of being un-American. He was hired to sing in a dorm living room at Vassar College, where my girl-friend at the time was a student. At that time, stretches of the Hudson River were essentially dead, as the dumping of chemicals, sewage, and garbage meant no fish could live in the water. In 1949, Seeger worked as the vocal instructor for the progressive City and Country School in Greenwich Village, New York. To civil libertarians, Seeger had become a hero, but he still had trouble earning a living. The Weavers were blacklisted. All four of Pete's half-siblings from his father's second marriage – Margaret (Peggy), Mike, Barbara, and Penelope (Penny) – became folk singers. But you never can handle situations of this kind democratically by mere suppression. He met and became friends with the legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie while performing at a benefit for migrant farm workers. call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it. But people undoubtedly get feelings which are not explainable and they feel they're talking to God or they're talking to their parents who are long dead. The Smothers Brothers ended Seeger's national blacklisting by broadcasting him singing "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" on their CBS variety show on February 25, 1968, after his similar performance in September 1967 was censored by CBS. Pete Seeger covered Streets of Laredo, Mule Skinner Blues, John Riley, Penny's Farm and other songs. That fall, Seeger took a job in Washington, D.C., assisting Alan Lomax, a friend of his father's, at the Archive of American Folk Song of the Library of Congress. A free five-day memorial called Seeger Fest took place on July 17 to 21, 2014, featuring Judy Collins, Peter Yarrow, Harry Belafonte, Anti-Flag, Michael Glabicki of Rusted Root, Steve Earle, Holly Near, Fred Hellerman, Guy Davis, DJ Logic, Paul Winter Consort, Dar Williams, DJ Kool Herc, The Rappers Delight Experience, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, David amram, Mik + Ruthy, Tom Chapin, James Maddock, The Chapin Sisters, Rebel Diaz, Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, Elizabeth Mitchell, Emma's Revolution, Toni Blackman, Kim & Reggie Harris, Magpie, Abrazos Orcchestra, Nyraine, George Wein, The Vanaver Caravan, White Tiger Society, Lorre Wyatt, AKIR, Adira & Alana Amram, Aurora Barnes, The Owens Brothers, The Tony Lee Thomas Band, Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, Ney York Sity Labor Chorus, Roland Moussa, Roots Revelators, Kristen Graves, Bob Reid, Hudson River Sloop Singers, Walkabout Clearwater Chorus, Betty & The baby Boomers, Work O' The Weavers, Jacob Bernz * Sarah Armour, and Amanda Palmer. [116], Seeger lived in Beacon, New York. "They fed us too well," the girls reported. To those opposed to continuing the Vietnam War, the phrase implied that "Alby Jay", a loose pronunciation of Johnson's nickname "LBJ," did not listen to anti-war protests as he too had "beans in his ears". Helpful. This anti-war/anti-draft tone reflected the Communist Party line after the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which maintained the war was "phony" and a mere pretext for big American corporations to get Hitler to attack Soviet Russia. [64], At the November 15, 1969, Vietnam Moratorium March on Washington, DC, Seeger led 500,000 protesters in singing John Lennon's song "Give Peace a Chance" as they rallied across from the White House. On October 21, 2011, at age 92, Pete Seeger was part of a solidarity march with Occupy Wall Street to Columbus Circle in New York City. And supporters of Roosevelt could apologize for his support of Somoza, of Southern White Democrats, of Franco Spain, for putting Japanese Americans in concentration camps. Though nominally members of the Popular Front, which was allied with Roosevelt and more moderate liberals, the YCL's members still smarted from Roosevelt and Churchill's arms embargo to Loyalist Spain (which Roosevelt later called a mistake),[27] and the alliance frayed in the confusing welter of events. [71] In the late 1980s, Seeger also expressed disapproval of violent revolutions, remarking to an interviewer that he was really in favor of incremental change and that "the most lasting revolutions are those that take place over a period of time. They could sing, fiddle, pick the banjos, and guitars with traditional grace and style found nowhere else but deep in the mountains. It was stupid of me not to. He is perhaps best-known for writing "Ballad for Americans" for yet another great, black-listed personage, the singer-actor Paul Robeson.) He went on to put his thinking in context: How could Hitler have been stopped? in 1965. Unless civic groups and individuals will make a determined effort to counteract such appeals by equally effective methods, democratic morale will decline." [24]. For reminding us where we come from and showing us where we need to go, we will always be grateful to Pete Seeger." President Barack Obamanoted that Seeger had been called "America's tuning fork" and that he believed in "the power of song" to bring social change, "Over the years, Pete used his voice and his hammer to strike blows for workers' rights and civil rights; world peace and environmental conservation, and he always invited us to sing along. [114] They went on to have three more children: Daniel (an accomplished photographer and filmmaker), Mika (a potter and muralist), and Tinya (a potter), as well as grandchildren Tao Rodríguez-Seeger (a musician), Cassie (an artist), Kitama Cahill-Jackson (a psychotherapist), Moraya (a marriage and family therapist married to the NFL player Chris DeGeare), Penny, Isabelle, and great-grandchildren Dio and Gabel. [79], The song was accompanied by a letter to Radosh, in which Seeger stated, "I think you're right, I should have asked to see the gulags when I was in U.S.S.R [in 1965]."[74]. He faced time in federal prison, but following a long court battle his case was finally thrown out in 1961. His final visit occurred in 2012. While the U.S. had not officially declared war on the Axis powers in the summer of 1941, the country was energetically producing arms and ammunition for their allies overseas. Seeger is best known for such songs as Where Have All the Flowers Gone, If I Had a Hammer, and Turn, Turn, Turn. Seeger is perhaps best known for his re-emergence in the 1960s with the folk-music revival and his support of the Civil Rights Movement, youth counterculture and environmentalism. Seeger's voice carried over the crowd, interspersing phrases like, "Are you listening, Nixon?" According to the New York World Telegram (February 14, 1942), Carl Friedrich's 1941 article "The Poison in Our System" was printed up as a pamphlet and distributed by the Council for Democracy (an organization that Friedrich and Henry Luce's right-hand man, C. D. Jackson, Vice President of Time magazine, had founded "...to combat all the Nazi, fascist, communist, pacifist ..." antiwar groups in the United States). We never talked about it, though, and I didn't examine closely enough what was going on. ", Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen at the inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, Jennings, Jennifer. At rural affairs and union meetings, the farm women would bring "suppers" and would vie with each other to see who could feed the troupe most, and after the affair the farmers would have earnest discussions about who would have the honor of taking them home for the night. Consistent with Seeger's long-time advocacy for environmental concerns, the proceeds from the event benefited the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater,[86] a non-profit organization founded by Seeger in 1966, to defend and restore the Hudson River. "[66], In the documentary film The Power of Song, Seeger mentions that he and his family visited North Vietnam in 1972. On September 19, 2009, Seeger made his first appearance at the 52nd Monterey Jazz Festival, which was particularly notable because the festival does not normally feature folk artists. This urban folk-revival movement, a continuation of the activist tradition of the 1930s and 1940s and of People's Songs, used adaptations of traditional tunes and lyrics to effect social change, a practice that goes back to the Industrial Workers of the World or Wobblies' Little Red Song Book, compiled by Swedish-born union organizer Joe Hill (1879–1915). Biography of Marian Anderson, American Singer, Joe Hill: Poet, Songwriter, and Martyr of the Labor Movement, Biography of Dalton Trumbo: Screenwriter on the Hollywood Blacklist, Biography of Frank Sinatra, Legendary Singer, Entertainer, 5 Unforgettable Jazz Singers Who Led Big Bands, Top 10 Bruce Springsteen Songs of the '80s, Biography of Frida Kahlo, Mexican Surrealist and Folk Art Painter, Biography of Stokely Carmichael, Civil Rights Activist, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. As the nuclear disarmament movement picked up steam in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Seeger's anti-war songs, such as, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" [73][74], In a 1995 interview, however, he insisted that "I still Perhaps no single person in the 20th century did more to preserve, broadcast, and redistribute folk music than Pete Seeger, whose passion for politics, the environment, and humanity earned him both ardent fans and vocal enemies ever since he first began performing in the late '30s. When pressed about whether he had performed for communist groups, he answered: Seeger's aggressive lack of cooperation with the committee earned him a citation for contempt of Congress. A few months later, in May 2009, Seeger celebrated his 90th birthday with a concert at Madison Square Garden. Pete Seeger (alongside his lawyer) testifying before HUAC. Seeger enrolled at Harvard College on a partial scholarship, but as he became increasingly involved with politics and folk music, his grades suffered and he lost his scholarship. He also recorded as many as five albums a year for Moe Asch's Folkways Records label. Seeger wrote the music and selected the words from poems written by Tibbs. In a review in the June 1941 Atlantic Monthly, entitled "The Poison in Our System," he pronounced Songs for John Doe "...strictly subversive and illegal," "...whether Communist or Nazi financed," and "a matter for the attorney general," observing further that "mere" legal "suppression" would not be sufficient to counteract this type of populist poison,[28] the poison being folk music and the ease with which it could be spread.[29]. "You can't live here 'cause you're a Jew," So what I want is you to give me a gun He performed for the troops at camps in the U.S. and in the South Pacific. Not change the world, he never claimed that – he once said that if music could change the world he'd only be making music – but he believed that while music didn't have agency, it did have the power to make a difference. During the summer of 1936, while traveling with his father and stepmother, Pete heard the five-string banjo for the first time at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in western North Carolina near Asheville, organized by local folklorist, lecturer, and traditional music performer Bascom Lamar Lunsford, whom Charles Seeger had hired for Farm Resettlement music projects. Despite the boom in manufacturing this concerted rearming effort brought, African-Americans were barred from working in defense plants. He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has bylines in New York, the Chicago Tribune, and other national outlets. I tell people I don't think God is an old white man with a long white beard and no navel; nor do I think God is an old black woman with white hair and no navel. Copies of Songs for John Doe were removed from sale, and the remaining inventory destroyed, though a few copies may exist in the hands of private collectors. He also introduced the song “We Shall Overcome” to Martin Luther King, Jr., who liked it so much he selected it as the rallying song for the Civil Rights Movement. [76][77], In 2007, in response to criticism from historian Ron Radosh, a former Trotskyite who now writes for the conservative National Review — Seeger wrote a song condemning Stalin, "Big Joe Blues":[78], I'm singing about old Joe, cruel Joe. [40][41], On August 18, 1955, Seeger was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). On the other side was a reissue of the legendary Six Songs for Democracy (originally recorded in Barcelona in 1938 while bombs were falling), performed by Ernst Busch and a chorus of members of the Thälmann Battalion, made up of volunteers from Germany. Wilkinson, "The Protest Singer" (2006), p. 53. Turn!" The Weavers' performing career was abruptly derailed in 1953, at the peak of their popularity, when blacklisting prompted radio stations to refuse to play their records and all their bookings were canceled. Pete Seeger was one of the most illustrious folk singers of the 20th century. Or looking up at the stars. Turn! From 1942-1945, Seeger served in the Army, as an Entertainment Specialist. "Pete Seeger: The environmental side of his activism. The story of that appearance, and that song, illustrates the tumultuous political tensions of the era and was a bold act of defiance against corporate media power. Died: January 27, 2014 in New York City. ", Alec Wilkinson, "The Protest Singer: Pete Seeger and American folk music," in. Seeger's 90th Birthday was also celebrated at The College of Staten Island on May 4. (co-written with Joe Hickerson), "Turn! "[71] In his autobiography Where Have All the Flowers Gone (1993, 1997, reissued in 2009), Seeger wrote, "Should I apologize for all this? For reminding us where we come from and showing us where we need to go, we will always be grateful to Pete Seeger. He was convicted in a jury trial of contempt of Congress in March 1961, and sentenced to ten 1-year terms in jail (to be served simultaneously), but in May 1962, an appeals court ruled the indictment to be flawed and overturned his conviction. [31], Seeger served in the U.S. Army in the Pacific. In 1936, at the age of 17, Pete Seeger joined the Young Communist League (YCL), then at the height of its influence. But I was at fault. This is one of the best-known Clearwater songs. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. The title song, "Dear Mr. President", was a solo by Pete Seeger, and its lines expressed his lifelong credo: Now, Mr. President, Parents: Charles Louise Seeger, Jr. and Constance de Clyver, both prolific musicians. According to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Pete Seeger marched and performed at hundreds of rallies for different unions over the years. ", Unitaritian Universalist Association, "Unitarian Universalist History. [22] Lomax also encouraged Seeger's folk singing vocation, and Seeger was soon appearing as a regular performer on Alan Lomax and Nicholas Ray's weekly Columbia Broadcasting show Back Where I Come From (1940–41) alongside Josh White, Burl Ives, Lead Belly, and Woody Guthrie (whom he had first met at Will Geer's Grapes of Wrath benefit concert for migrant workers on March 3, 1940). I feel strongly that I'm trying to raise people's spirits to get together. They felt the need of this more strongly than ever before, and the support of the CIO in their milk strike has given them a new understanding and a new respect for the power that lies in solidarity. Though Springsteen admittedly hadn't grown up as much of a Seeger fan, he later became fascinated by Seeger's work and his devotion to particular causes. [19] He dreamed of a career in journalism and took courses in art, as well. 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