Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an American folk singer and an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival.[1] A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he 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.[2] Members of The Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, and environmental causes. As a song writer, he is best known as the author or co-author of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)", (composed with Lee Hays of The Weavers), 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 wo! rld. "Flowers" was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962), Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French (1962), and Johnny Rivers (1965) . "If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963), while The Byrds popularized "Turn, Turn, Turn!" in the mid-1960s, as did Judy Collins in 1964 and The Seekers. Seeger was one of the folksingers most 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 1960s American 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. In the PBS "American Masters" episode Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, Seeger states it was he who changed the lyric from the traditional "We will overcome" to the more inspirational "We shall overcome". Contents 1 Fami! ly and personal life 2 Musical career 2.1 Early work 2.2 Group! recordi ngs 2.3 Banjo and 12-string guitar 2.4 Introduction of the "Steel Pan" to U.S. Audiences 2.5 Recent work 2.5.1 Obama Inaugural Celebration 2.5.2 90th Birthday Celebration 3 Activism 3.1 1930s and 1940s 3.2 Spanish Civil War songs 3.3 1950s and early 1960s 3.4 Vietnam War era 3.5 Environmentalism 3.6 Solo career and the folk song revival 3.7 Repudiation of Stalin 4 Selected discography 5 Tribute albums 6 Awards 7 Quotes 7.1 From Seeger 7.2 From others 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links [edit] Family and personal life Pete Seeger, 88 years of age, photographed in March 2008 with his friend, the writer and musician, Ed Renehan {left} Seeger was born in French Hospital, Midtown Manhattan,[citation needed] the youngest of three sons.[3] He came from a distinguished, prosperous family, which he described as "enormously Christian, in the Puritan, Calvinist New England tradition."[4] His father, Charles Louis Seeger Jr. was a violinist and composer! who had studied music at Harvard.[3][5] His mother, Constance de Clyver Edson, was a classical violinist and teacher, raised in Tunisia and trained at the Paris Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School.[6] Soon after their 1911 wedding, the couple had moved to Berkeley, California, where Charles Seeger took up a position as professor of music.[6][7] Facing opposition from his university colleagues, he became a pioneering ethnomusicologist, investigating both Native American and American folk music.[8][9] In 1914, Charles Seeger, who had previously been apolitical, had a political awakening when he became aware of the lives of migrant workers in California.[10] His subsequent left-wing activism, which included opposition to World War I, led to deteriorating relations with the university, and in September 1918, he took a "sabbatical"; the entire family, including a pregnant Constance, moved back to the Seeger family home.[9][11] Charles and Constance Seeger divorced wh! en Pete Seeger was seven. His stepmother, Ruth Crawford Seeger! , was on e of the most significant female composers of the twentieth century. His eldest brother, Charles Seeger III, was a radio astronomer, and his next older brother, John Seeger, taught in the 1950s at the Dalton School in Manhattan and was the principal from 1960 to 1976 at Fieldston Lower School in the Bronx.[12] His uncle, Alan Seeger, a noted poet, was killed during the First World War. His half-sister, Peggy Seeger, also a well-known folk performer, was married for many years to British folk singer Ewan MacColl. Half-brother Mike Seeger went on to form the New Lost City Ramblers, one of whose members, John Cohen, was married to Pete's other half-sister, singer Penny Seeger, also a highly talented singer. In 1943, Pete married Toshi-Aline Ōta, whom he credits with being the support that helped make the rest of his life possible. Pete and Toshi have three children: Daniel (an accomplished photographer and filmmaker), Mika (Potter and muralist), and Tinya Seeger (Potter)—and! grandchildren Tao (musician), Cassie Seeger (Artist), Kitama Cahill-Jackson (filmmaker), Moraya, Penny, and Isabelle. Tao is a folk musician in his own right, singing and playing guitar, banjo and harmonica with the Mammals. Kitama Jackson is a documentary filmmaker who was associate producer of the PBS documentary Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. Seeger lives in Beacon, New York. He remains very active politically and maintains an active lifestyle in the Hudson Valley Region of New York, especially in the nearby City of Beacon, New York. He and Toshi purchased their land in 1949 and lived there first in a trailer, then in a log cabin they built themselves.[13] [edit] Musical career [edit] Early work Pete Seeger attended the Avon Old Farms boarding school in Connecticut, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Though Pete Seeger's parents were both professional musicians, they did ! not press him to play an instrument. On his own, Pete gravitat! ed to th e ukulele, becoming adept at entertaining his classmates with it, while laying the basis for his subsequent remarkable audience rapport. Pete heard the five-string banjo for the first time at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina in 1936, while traveling with his father (then a director of Roosevelt's Farm Resettlement program).[14] It changed his life forever. He spent much of the next four years trying to master the instrument. Seeger enrolled at Harvard College on a partial scholarship, but, as he became increasingly involved with radical politics and folk music, his grades suffered and he lost his scholarship. He dropped out of college in 1938.[15] He dreamed of a career in journalism and also took courses in art. His first musical gig was leading students in folk singing at the Dalton School, where his aunt was principal. He polished his performance skills during summer stint of touring New York State with The Vagabond Puppeteers (Jerry Oberw! ager, 22; Mary Wallace, 22; and Harriet Holtzman, 23), a traveling puppet theater "inspired by rural education campaigns of post-revolutionary Mexico".[16] One of their shows coincided with a strike by dairy farmers. The group reprised its act in October in New York City. An article in the October 2, 1939 Daily Worker reported on the Puppeteers' six-week tour this way: During the entire trip the group never ate once in a restaurant. They slept out at night under the stars and cooked their own meals in the open, very often they were the guests of farmers. 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. "They fed us too well," the girls reported. "And we could live the entire winter just by taking advantage of all the offers to spend a week on the farm." ! In the farmers' homes they talked about politics and the farme! rs' pr oblems, about anti-Semitism and Unionism, about war and peace and social security—"and always," the puppeteers report, "the farmers wanted to know what can be done to create a stronger unity between themselves and city workers. 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. One summer has convinced us that a minimum of organized effort on the part of city organizations—unions, consumers' bodies, the American Labor Party and similar groups—can not only reach the farmers but weld them into a pretty solid front with city folks that will be one of the best guarantees for progress.[17] 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. Seeger's job was to help Lomax sift through commercial "race" and "hillbilly" m! usic and select recordings that best represented American folk music, a project funded by the music division of the Pan American Union (later the Organization of American States), of whose music division his father, Charles Seeger, was head (1938–53).[18] 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 of Josh White, Burl Ives, Leadbelly, and Woody Guthrie (whom he had first met at Will Geer's Grapes of Wrath benefit concert for migrant workers on March 3, 1940). Back Where I Come From was unique in having a racially integrated cast, which made news when it performed in March 1941 at a command performance at the White House organized by Eleanor Roosevelt
pete seeger wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an American folk singer and an icon! ic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music rev! ival. A fixture on Read the rest
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Pete Seeger artist page: interviews, features and/or performances archived at NPR Music Read the rest
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"Participation! It's what all my work has been about." – Pete Seeger: For nearly 70 years as a performer, Pete Seeger has embodied the ideals of folk music Read the rest
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A member of the Community Church of New York, Pete Seeger was born to a musicologist and a music teacher, both faculty members of the! Juilliard School in New York, NY Read the rest
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Who is this rail-thin man with the five-string Banjo? His performances have touched millions for more than seven decades. Bob Dylan called him a saint. Read the rest
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Library > Miscellaneous > Britannica Concise Encyclopedia (born May 3, 1919, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. folk singer and songwriter. He was the son of the pioneering Read the rest
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NEW YORK (AP) — Folk music and '60s protest legend Pete Seeger has joined in the Occupy Wall Street protest, replacing his instruments with two canes as he marches Read the rest
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Musician, singer, songwriter, folklorist, labor activist, environmentalist, and peace advocate, Seeger was born in Patterson, New York, son of Charles and Constance Read the rest
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AMY GOODMAN: And for someone who isn't so hopeful, who is listening to this right now, trying to find their way, what would you say? PETE SEEGER: Realize that Read the rest
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Pete Seeger's official profile including the latest music, albums, songs, music videos and more updates. Read the rest