h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Tonight, I went to a screening of a documentary about Pete Seeger, hosted by my local PBS station and the ACLU.

Do you know who Pete Seeger is? He is the greatest folk musician who ever lived. You may laugh (folk music? What the hell?), but Pete Seeger has been responsible for inspiring maybe two or three generations of people - from Joan Baez to Martin Luther King - with his music. He travelled with Woody Guthrie in the 1930s, he was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, he led student protests and the Newport Folk Festival in the 1960s, he launched a campaign to clean up the Hudson River in the 1980s, and today he is 88 years old, still energetic and agile, living in the country in upstate New York. Pete Seeger wrote songs like "If I Had a Hammer", "We Shall Overcome", "Little Boxes" and "Turn, Turn, Turn". He wrote more overtly political songs, too, like "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" and "Bring 'Em Home".

It's difficult for me to explain what's so wonderful about Pete Seeger. I think I lack the vocabulary. But he has united so many people through his music and promoted peace and understanding in this country and around the world. You just have to listen to (and sing!) a Pete Seeger song to know what I mean. After all, the greatest thing about Pete's music is that he never thought it complete unless the entire audience was singing with him.

That's why I'd ask you to do two things (after you've listened to a song or two, and I can definitely recommend some good ones): first, sign the petition at http://www.nobelprize4pete.org/ to nominate Pete Seeger for a Nobel Peace Prize. I can't think of anyone living on this earth who deserves it more than him. Secondly, on an unspecified day in January (I haven't decided yet), I'm going to stand on the street corner with a friend or two and sing Pete's song "Bring 'Em Home". I'd urge you, wherever you live, to sing with me in spirit, and encourage your friends to do the same. Maybe we can apply the lessons of last generation to this one and usher in a new era of peace and understanding with the power of song.

Well, who knows? It sounds nice, anyway.

One thing we will never agree upon is that 'Little Boxes' is a great song for anything but parodying

--

Jez - filk-singer and parodyist...

I shall return and tell the story that Dick Gaughan (Scottish communist folksinger) tells about his appearance on The Smothers Brothers.

I think Pete Seeger was mentioned in a lecture on Bob Dylan I had a few weeks ago.

If you like folk music and are interested in trying new bands, find some music by a band called Bellowhead - they are a 12 member contemporary folk band that make the most wonderfully raucous sound with an added brass section to the traditional folk instruments to give that that extra hit. I'm flying from Scotland to England to see them do a Christmas show, very excited.

Good luck with the protest singing, it's a shame we don't care as much as the previous generation did about protesting.

Anyway...Seeger was blacklisted during the McCarthy years, despite once having been a household name with hit records. In the late 60's, the Smothers Bros decided that enough was enough. They'd quietly invite him onto their show and let the boycott lapse.

So they gave him the build up:
"Here's an old friend of ours...Mr Pete Seeger (applause)...Tell us, Pete, what are you going to sing for us tonight?"
"Well...I'm going to sing a song about Vietman..."



(The song was 'Waist Deep in the Big Muddy'. It tells the story of a fatal training exercise in WWII when an officer led a batallion into a swamp and refused to admit his navigation error. Hear Gaughan's version here: http://www.amazon.com/Sail-Dick-Gaughan/dp/B000005BPD ...and also his excellent 'The 51st (highland) Division's Farewell To Sicily')

How can you not admire someone who has stood up for his convictions as passionately and for as long as Pete Seeger, and in the face of such opposition. It can't be easy being as left-wing and as prominent in the US as Pete.

Yep, I know the song well (maybe I should add it to the street corner list). This story was told in the film.

The ACLU people (American Civil Liberties Union, a legal group dedicated to defending the Constitution) made much out of the fact that when Seeger was prevented from performing at a local high school unless he signed a loyalty oath, our local chapter of the ACLU challenged that request and it was overturned.

Check out Dick Gaughan. Especially his definitive 'A Handful of Earth' album - with its definitive version of 'World Turned Upside Down'.


http://www.amazon.com/Handful-Earth-Dick-Gaughan/dp/B000005CSV