Register  |  Sign In
View unanswered posts | View active topics It is currently Thu Jul 10, 2025 6:20 pm



Reply to topic  [ 4 posts ] 
 Pete Seeger dead at 94 
Author Message
Pure Phase
User avatar

Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 7:33 am
Posts: 34865
Location: Maryland
Post Pete Seeger dead at 94
Image





Quote:
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.

In his hearty tenor, Mr. Seeger, a beanpole of a man who most often played 12-string guitar or five-string banjo, sang topical songs and children’s songs, humorous tunes and earnest anthems, always encouraging listeners to join in. His agenda paralleled the concerns of the American left: He sang for the labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s, and for environmental and antiwar causes in the 1970s and beyond. “We Shall Overcome,” which Mr. Seeger adapted from old spirituals, became a civil rights anthem.

Mr. Seeger was a prime mover in the folk revival that transformed popular music in the 1950s. As a member of the Weavers, he sang hits including Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene” — which reached No. 1 — and “If I Had a Hammer,” which he wrote with the group’s Lee Hays. Another of Mr. Seeger’s songs, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” became an antiwar standard. And in 1965, the Byrds had a No. 1 hit with a folk-rock version of “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” Mr. Seeger’s setting of a passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Mr. Seeger was a mentor to younger folk and topical singers in the ‘50s and ‘60s, among them Bob Dylan, Don McLean and Bernice Johnson Reagon, who founded Sweet Honey in the Rock. Decades later, Bruce Springsteen drew the songs on his 2006 album, “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions,” from Mr. Seeger’s repertoire of traditional music about a turbulent American experience, and in 2009 he performed Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” with Mr. Seeger at the Obama inaugural. At a Madison Square Garden concert celebrating Mr. Seeger’s 90th birthday, Mr. Springsteen introduced him as “a living archive of America’s music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/arts/ ... at-94.html

Sad news, though it is hard to argue with 94 years and so many accomplishments.

_________________
ImageImageImage

1. The Lost City of Z - 2. A Cure for Wellness - 3. Phantom Thread - 4. T2 Trainspotting - 5. Detroit - 6. Good Time - 7. The Beguiled - 8. The Florida Project - 9. Logan and 10. Molly's Game


Last edited by David on Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.



Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:01 am
Profile
KJ's Leading Pundit
User avatar

Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 4:45 pm
Posts: 63026
Location: Tonight... YOU!
Post Re: Pete Seeger dead at 94
Sad :/

But he was 94. He lived a long and fulfilling life.

_________________
trixster wrote:
shut the fuck up zwackerm, you're out of your fucking element

trixster wrote:
chippy is correct

Rev wrote:
Fuck Trump


Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:06 am
Profile
New Server, Same X
User avatar

Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:07 pm
Posts: 28301
Location: ... siiiigh...
Post Re: Pete Seeger dead at 94
Pretty big loss. My biggest exposure to his music came from Springsteen's We Shall Overcome.

_________________
Ecks Factor: Cancelled too soon


Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:34 pm
Profile
A very honest-hearted fellow
User avatar

Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2004 8:02 pm
Posts: 4767
Post Re: Pete Seeger dead at 94
Good.


Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:42 pm
Profile WWW
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Reply to topic   [ 4 posts ] 

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 22 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by STSoftware for PTF.