Farewell Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger, a pioneer of the modern folk music movement and peaceful activist, died recently, at age 94. Born in 1919 into an artistic family, he fell in love with folk music at age 16, and learned to play the five string banjo. He dropped out of Harvard in 1938 as a disillusioned sociology major and went on the road, picking up folk tunes as he hitchhiked or hopped freight trains. In 1940, with Woody Guthrie and other, he was part of the Almanac Singers, performing benefits for disaster relief and other cause, touring migrant camps and union halls. He spent 3 1/2 years in the Army in Special Services, entertaining soldiers in the south pacific.

With the Weavers, Seeger helped set the stage for a national folk revival. Together, they recorded Goodnight Irene, Tzena, and On Top of Old Smokey. Seeger also popularized We Shall Overcome. His musical career was always braided tightly with his political activism, which ranged from the civil rights movement to the cleanup of his beloved Hudson River. For several years he was a member of the Communist Party, but later renounced, but the association dogged him for years. He was kept off commercial television for more than a decade after being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955. He was ultimately charged with contempt of Congress, but the sentence was overturned on appeal.

Regardless of his politics, Pete Seeger was an international inspiration to the folk music movement, and will remembered for the many tunes he sang or wrote. Among his many hits are If I Had a Hammer, We Shall Overcome, Turn, Turn, Turn, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, Quiet Flows the Don, and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine.

Seeger was at the height of career when the Red Scare denied him broadcast exposure. He turned to touring college campuses, spreading the music that he, Guthrie, Huddie "Leadbelly Ledbetter and others had created or preserved. When he finally had the opportunity to return to commercial television on the Smothers Brothers show in 1967, his Vietnam protest song, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, was cut from the program, and Seeger accused the network of censorship. Seeger had a long, prolific musical life, and will remembered for generations as one of the folk artists of the 20th century that revitalized the folk genre. Pete Seeger, you will be missed.