Pete Seeger (b. 1919)

Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan are the three great architects of modern American folk music. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of folk music ancient and modern, each of these singer-songwriters has reinterpreted traditional songs in ways directly relevant to their society. They have written new songs which have become part of the living folk heritage of the United States and the world.

Pete Seeger was born in New York City in 1919, the son of musicologist Charles Seeger. He was sixteen, and already playing tenor banjo in his school jazz band, when he attended a square-dance festival in North Carolina. It was a defining moment in Seeger’s life. The classical music his father taught at Juilliard seemed to belong to a different world, and popular music of the prewar years seemed sappy to the young Seeger, but this music was different. “I liked the rhythms,” Seeger wrote later. “I liked the melodies, time tested by generations of singers. Above all, I liked the words.” He also liked the traditional five-string banjo, which provided the tough, characteristically rippling accompaniment to the old songs. It became Seeger’s adopted instrument, along with the big-toned twelve-string guitar.

Seeger dropped out of his sociology course at Harvard in his sophomore year to tour the country, learning about folk music at its deep sources, and trading watercolors for food and shelter. On the road, he met up with Woody Guthrie and Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter. These two men were to have a profound influence on Seeger’s development. Always a devout Unitarian, Seeger attended church as well as the migrant camps, social clubs, union meetings, and political gatherings that were to play such a major part in the formation of Seeger’s art and his political philosophy.

Seeger’s research helped him to make valuable contributions to the great folk song collections of the ethnomusicologist John A. Lomax. They also formed a large part of Seeger’s repertoire as a performing artist. He joined with Guthrie in 1940 to form the Almanac Singers, and toured the United States and Mexico, singing to enthusiastic crowds and giving support to labor movements. In 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he entertained his fellow soldiers, and Corporal Seeger added army songs to his repertoire.

When he was discharged in 1945, Seeger formed People’s Songs, Inc., a cooperative of musicians dedicated to creating social improvements through their music, and in 1948 he formed a new group, the Weavers. The next several years were the period when Seeger enjoyed his greatest commercial success. The Weavers played at Carnegie Hall and at the Newport Folk Festival, which Seeger cofounded. Their hits included “Kisses Sweeter than Wine,” “If I Had a Hammer,” and “On Top of Old Smoky.”

But commercial success was short lived. Called to testify in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1955, Seeger was blacklisted for his political activism. Though his music was banned from many radio and TV stations, Seeger continued to perform. He had two more massive hits: “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” which articulated his deep anti-war sentiments; and “Turn, Turn, Turn,” which drew inspiration from his deep religious convictions.

Pete Seeger was in time rehabilitated to mainstream popularity, but he has not relaxed or mellowed over the years. From his log cabin on the Hudson, which he shares with his wife of more than 60 years, he organizes antipollution protests, collects songs, and sails his sloop, Clearwater.

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