Happy B'Day to Pete Seeger
Not one damn thing today on this site but PETE SEEGER, who is 87 today.
GOTO: peteseeger.net
Reply to a question when Pete was hauled before the inquisition known as the House Unamerican Actitivities Committe in 1955:
Dumb Rep.: What is your profession?
MR. SEEGER: It is hard to call it a profession. I kind of drifted into it and I never intended to be a musician, and I am glad I am one now, and it is a very honorable profession, but when I started out actually I wanted to be a newspaperman, and when I left school --
Woody Guthrie's guitar had a slogan on it: "This machine kills fascists."
Pete's guitar: "This machine surrounds hate with love, and forces it to surrender."
In the spring of 1972, your author was soon to be busted by the FBI for pacifist draft resistance. Your author visited friends in Okemah, OK, where Woody G was born. They offered to hide him out. Thank you again friends, but you know I had to go to trial.
My friends took me that Friday evening to the location Woody was born.
Many years later, when I met Pete, I told him that, and he laughed and said, "I've been there too. It's not the place is magic, it's what we make of our lives, like Woody did."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Happy birthday, Pete.
GOTO: peteseeger.net
Reply to a question when Pete was hauled before the inquisition known as the House Unamerican Actitivities Committe in 1955:
Dumb Rep.: What is your profession?
MR. SEEGER: It is hard to call it a profession. I kind of drifted into it and I never intended to be a musician, and I am glad I am one now, and it is a very honorable profession, but when I started out actually I wanted to be a newspaperman, and when I left school --
Woody Guthrie's guitar had a slogan on it: "This machine kills fascists."
Pete's guitar: "This machine surrounds hate with love, and forces it to surrender."
In the spring of 1972, your author was soon to be busted by the FBI for pacifist draft resistance. Your author visited friends in Okemah, OK, where Woody G was born. They offered to hide him out. Thank you again friends, but you know I had to go to trial.
My friends took me that Friday evening to the location Woody was born.
Many years later, when I met Pete, I told him that, and he laughed and said, "I've been there too. It's not the place is magic, it's what we make of our lives, like Woody did."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Happy birthday, Pete.
posted by HH at 6:13 AM
2 Comments:
AND I'M STILL SEARCHING
And I'm still searching
Yes, I'm still searching
For a way we all can learn
To build a world
Where we all can share
The work the fun
The food the space
The joy the pain
And no one ever
Ever need or want to seek
To be a millionaire.
Words and Music by Pete Seeger (1997)
A very happy birthday to you, Pete, and thanks to HH for letting us know.
Happy Birthday to a national treasure!
Do not miss this NPR All Things Considered from April 26th:
Springsteen Speaks: The Music of Pete Seeger
"Bruce Springsteen first heard the music of Pete Seeger long ago, but it wasn't until the last decade or so that he truly immersed himself in it.
The more he learned about the music the American folk legend collected, performed, rewrote and transformed, the more he returned to it, Springsteen tells Melissa Block..."
Read and listen at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5362968
Note: the NPR link has song files of We Shall Overcome, Jesse James, and Pay Me My Money Down "then and now" - renditions by Seeger and by Springsteen (from his new album).
We Shall Overcome (Pete Seeger):
http://www.npr.org/dmg/dmg.php?mediaURL=/atc/20060426_atc_seegerweshall&mediaType=RM (RealMedia)
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