Pete Seeger

[Thumper]

Saying the voice of a generation is gone just doesn't cover it. Of all the memories I have of my parents listening to Pete Seeger records and taking me to see him in concert...Today I think of a little kindergarten girl, the only kindergartener in her school's talent show, singing "If I Had a Hammer" accompanied on guitar by her Paw Paw.

[Swift]

I posted in my Toshi Seeger thread too...

I'm more than a little sad, but to have lived a tenth of that life... I'm also happy to say I heard him peform and met him on numerous occassions, particularly back in the 70s and 80s, and was there the last time The Weavers performed together.

To everything turn, turn, turn,
There is a season, turn, turn, turn,
And a time for everything under heaven....

[Thumper]

Fresh Air is replaying a Terrie Gross interview with him. Not sure from when, just tuned in.

(edit: It's from '85)

[Swift]

Fresh Air is replaying a Terrie Gross interview with him. Not sure from when, just tuned in.

(edit: It's from '85)

I was thinking they might.

I was listening to one of my CDs of Pete on the drive in this morning, a Folkways compilation from the Smithsonian's collection. A lot of it was labor and civil rights songs (I Dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me...)

Back in the 70s and 80s I was involved in an environmental group, Clearwater, that Pete was instrumental in founding.

Here is what they have posted

What can a song do? What can a sailboat do? Some would say music exists just to soothe or distract people from their troubles. Some say sailboats are just rich men’s toys. Wrong, wrong. In the summer of 1969 they helped to start cleaning up a river. – from the book, Pete Seeger, in His Own Words

Fondly referred to as simply “Pete” by friends and associates, Seeger planted the seed that started Hudson River Sloop Clearwater when he and a few friends, decided to “build a boat to save the river” with the belief that a majestic replica of the sloops that sailed the Hudson in the 18th and 19th centuries would bring people to the river where they could experience its beauty and be moved to preserve it.

Seeger was able to inspire people to make the dream a reality; the keel was laid in October 1968 and christened with Hudson River water. The 106-foot sloop Clearwater was launched on May 17, 1969 at Harvey Gamage Shipyard in South Bristol, Maine, and the inaugural sail was to South Street Seaport in New York City, and then on to her permanent home on the Hudson River. Today, the sloop sails the Hudson River from New York City to Albany as a “Sailing Classroom”, laboratory, musical stage, and forum. Since her launch, over half a million people have been introduced to the Hudson River estuary.

Sailing up my dirty stream,
Still I love it, and I keep the dream,
That some day, though maybe not this year,
My Hudson River and my world will run clear.

[Thumper]

I directed my Mom to these threads. This is her response:

"It's the end of a HUGE part of my life. Pete and his multitude of hopeful warriors shaped my thinking and my work. Don't know if we'll ever see/hear his kind again. Am also sad & lonely."