Pete Seeger

I have spent part of the day listening to my CD of the Weavers. It is an enjoyable double set and I like to listen to it every once in awhile but today I listened to it because Pete Seeger was one of the Weavers (along with  Ronnie Gilbert Lee Hays and Fred Hillerman) and I wanted to hear his voice.

Pete Seeger died yesterday and my world is just a bit emptier than it was on Sunday. So much of the music that shaped my musical taste was his music. So many of my political beliefs were shaped by his politics. The whole folk music scene that existed in the 1950s and 60s and still exists today does so because of people like Seeger, the Weavers, Almanac Singers, Guthrie, Leadbelly and Cico Huston amongst others. All of the groups that followed them such as the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary or Fairport Convention could only have existed because folks like Peter Seeger spent a large part of the lives traveling the country singing their songs and telling their truths about peace and justice.

He was a man of conviction and he wore those convictions loudly and proudly. He not only never avoided a political confrontation , he actively went out and found them.  Whether it was refusing to participate at the McCarthy Hearings in the 1950s  or singing at Occupy New York or participating in the cleaning of the Hudson River - where ever he was - he sang for the truths that to him were self evident.

So the next time you sing around a campfire or at a protest march.... remember Pete Seeger. He showed us how.