Tag: Pete Seeger

In Memoriam: Pete Seeger 1919 – 2014

Pete Seeger photo seeger_zps241f2f50.jpg

Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94

Pete Seeger, the singer, folk-song collector and songwriter who spearheaded an American folk revival and spent a long career championing folk music as both a vital heritage and a catalyst for social change, died Monday. He was 94 and lived in Beacon, N.Y.

His death was confirmed by his grandson, Kitama Cahill Jackson, who said he died of natural causes at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

Mr. Seeger’s career carried him from singing at labor rallies to the Top 10 to college auditoriums to folk festivals, and from a conviction for contempt of Congress (after defying the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s) to performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama.

For Mr. Seeger, folk music and a sense of community were inseparable, and where he saw a community, he saw the possibility of political action. [..]

Mr. Seeger’s wife, Toshi, died in 2013, days before the couple’s 70th anniversary. Survivors include his son, Daniel; his daughters, Mika and Tinya; a half-sister, Peggy; and six grandchildren, including the musician Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, who performed with him at the Obama inaugural. His half-brother Mike Seeger, a folklorist and performer who founded the New Lost City Ramblers, died in 2009.

Let the dream live. Blessed be.

There Is A Season

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace…

It’s been more than 50 years since he wrote it, and 2 more years it’ll be 50 years since they released it.

The lyrics are taken almost verbatim from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Handwritten lyrics to the song were among the documents donated to New York University by the Communist Party USA in March 2007.

45% of the royalties for the song are donated to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions because, in Seeger’s own words, “[in addition to the music] I did write six words“.

Remembering the World’s Indigenous Peoples

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

August 9th was the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples recognizing the achievements and contributions that indigenous people make to improve world issues such as environmental protection. On Friday, Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman’s guests were Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation, and member ofthe Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs; legendary folk singer and activist Pete Seeger and Andy Mager, project coordinator for the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign and a member of Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation, discussing the concerns of their concerns for the future.

Hundreds of Native Americans and their allies arrive in New York City today after paddling more than a hundred miles down the Hudson River to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first treaty between Native Americans and the Europeans who traveled here. The event is part of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, first proclaimed by the United Nations 20 years ago. [..]

“We’re concerned about the future, we’re concerned about the Earth – seven generations hence – and the conduct of people,” Oren says. “We wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that, and relate the way they should be, the future is pretty dim for the human species.”



Transcript can be read here

In Part 2, Pete Seeger and Oren Lyons discuss fracking, indigenous struggles and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.



The transcript can be read here

In the final segment, Pete Seeger reminisces about his late wife Toshi, and sings the Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.”

Born in 1919, the 94-year-old Seeger is an American icon. In the 1940s, he performed in The Weavers, along with Woody Guthrie. In the 1950s, he opposed Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt and was almost jailed for refusing to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Seeger helped popularize the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” In the 1960s, he was a vocal critic of the Vietnam War and inspired a generation of protest singers. He was later at the center of the environmental and anti-nuclear movements. A month ago today, on July 9, his wife, the artist and filmmaker Toshi Seeger, died at the age of 91. She was a key leader and artistic programmer for the Great Hudson River Revival, the annual fundraiser for the Clearwater organization that helped to clean up the Hudson River in New York. She died less than two weeks short of what would have been the Seegers’ 70th wedding anniversary.



The transcript can be read here

 

“!No Pasaran!” – The Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Fight against Fascism in Spain, Part I

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Part II of this diary will be posted on Wednesday, July 27th.

In July 1936, the Spanish Army staged a military uprising against the democratically-elected Republican government of Spain, which had been in power for less than six months. The revolt started in the Protectorate of Morocco under the leadership of General Francisco Franco and by the next day, had spread to the mainland. The rebels had badly miscalculated and not anticipated that several army units would side with the government nor expected that the working classes in towns and cities would be quickly mobilized and armed in a popular resistance against the rebellion.  In what would become a dress rehearsal for World War II, the struggle that ensued between Republican and Nationalist forces to determine the future direction of the country would rage on for the next three years.

In 1937, Bill Bailey (a son of Irish immigrants to America) wrote a letter from Spain to his mother in New Jersey.  Unbeknownst to her and defying a travel embargo imposed by his own government, he had secretly traveled to that country to become one of almost 2,800 American volunteers to eventually fight on the Republican side in a brutal war against the defenders of authoritarian conservatism

You see, Mom, there are things that one must do in this life that are a little more than just living.  In Spain there are thousands of mothers like yourself who never had a fair shake in life.  They got together and elected a government that really gave meaning to their life.  But a bunch of bullies decided to crush this wonderful thing.  That’s why I went to Spain, Mom, to help these poor people win this battle, then one day it would be easier for you and the mothers of the future.  Don’t let anyone mislead you by telling you that all this had something to do with Communism.  The Hitlers and Mussolinis of this world are killing Spanish people who don’t know the difference between Communism and rheumatism.  And it’s not to set up some Communist government either.  The only thing the Communists did here was show the people how to fight and try to win what is rightfully theirs.

You should be proud that you have a son whose heart, soul and energy were directed toward helping the poor people of the world get back what was taken from them.  When the horrible conditions of this world are eventually made right, you can look with pride at those who will be here to enjoy it and say, “My son gave his life to help make things better, and for that I am grateful.”

If it will make my departure from the world of the living a little easier for you, just remember this, Mom: I love you dearly and warmly, and there was never a moment when I didn’t feel that way.  

I was always grateful and proud that you were my mom.


Bill Bailey’s letter to his mother explaining why he was fighting in the Spanish Civil War, Photograph Source: Spartacus Educational, U.K.  Sketch Source: GMT Games

Happy Birthday, Pete Seeger

Today in 1919, Pete Seeger, folk singer, activist, environmentalist was born in NYC.

Open Thread

March 19, 2003: Iraq “decapitation attack”


U.S. and coalition forces launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq including a “decapitation attack” aimed at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of the country’s leadership.

There were nearly 300,000 American, British and other troops at the border.

President George W. Bush warned Americans that the conflict “could be longer and more difficult than some predict.” He assured the nation that “this will not be a campaign of half-measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory.”

Read about the cost of this war

Timeline

This Week in Peace History

“You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves”

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

On January 23, 1976, one of the greatest Americans of the twentieth century died a nearly forgotten man in self-imposed seclusion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  

Over the last three decades or so, you rarely, if ever, hear his name mentioned in the popular media.  Once every few years, you might hear someone on PBS or C-Span remember him fondly and explain as to why he was one of the more important figures of the past century.  In many respects, he had as much moral authority as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks; he was as politically active as Dick Gregory, Harry Belafonte, John Lewis, and Randall Robinson; and, as befits many men and women motivated by moral considerations, he conducted himself with great dignity.  For much of his life, not surprisingly and not unlike many of his worthy successors, he was marginalized and shunned by the political establishment of his time — until events validated their ‘radical’ beliefs and resurrected their reputations.

Throughout his life, few principled men of his caliber paid as high a price and for as long a period as he did for his political beliefs.

Happy Labor Day

It may not be the real Worker’s Day, but it’s what we’ve got, and we just need to learn to make the most of the things we have if we’re ever going to change things for real, change things for ourselves.

Happy Labor Day!

Wann wird man je verstehn? – Open Thread

Marlene Dietrich

Hat tip to JayV:

Kucinich: How do you support the troops? Bring ’em home!

Dennis is on the spot, again!

“Happy 90th Birthday Pete!!” {UpDated}

Pete Seeger – Guantanamera

Happy Birthday, Pete!

In a few hours I’m going to the Pete Seeger 90th birthday concert, courtesy Lee and Alice (pbut). In my early teens, some who know me now will be surprised to learn, I was a folky. These days, not so much.

But I am proud to say, I have never once stopped defending Pete Seeger from criticisms aesthetic and political. His instrument is not and never was his voice, nor even his banjo. It was his audience. And he played his audience so brilliantly because he genuinely loved them and trusted them to help make his music, their music.

His politics? About the worst you could say about him is that he was a mush-minded humanist, but dammit, he was our mush-minded humanist. And that would a half-truth at best. It was from him that I first heard the song “I Hate The Capitalist System” by Sarah Ogan, who was active in the Harlan County coal-mining struggles in the ’30s (the strike in which Florence Reece wrote “Which Side Are You On?” the song in the video above). And possibly his best instrumental composition for banjo, save only the incomparable “Goofing Off Suite,” is his arrangement of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s “Three Rules of Discipline and the Eight Rules of Attention.”

Here is a video that brings all these points together. It’s one of his greatest compositions, a hymn to optimism of the will and the continuity of the struggle called “Quite Early Morning.” It was recorded within the last couple of years in Beacon, NY, and Pete’s voice, as he’s been telling us for years, is shot. It’s freezing cold in the venue where they are taping this. Besides whoever’s behind the camera, there are two people in front of him, bundled up on metal folding chairs, and damned if he doesn’t get them to chime in on the chorus.

Many happy returns, Pete…

Crossposted from Fire on the Mountain.

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