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Folk singer Pete Seeger dies at age 94
To Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger, the singer/songwriter/activist who died Monday at the age of 94 was "the father of American folk music."
But Seeger, who popularized*This Land Is Your Land*and*We Shall Overcome*and wrote*If I Had a Hammer*and*Turn, Turn, Turn, never liked the term folk music.
"It's been defined as the 'music of the peasants,'" Seeger told USA TODAY in a 2009 interview, "and then you get someone saying (of Seeger), 'he's no peasant!'''
Seeger, who dropped out of Harvard University in 1938 to ride a bicycle across the country, quoted his father, Charles Seeger, a musicologist: "My dad, the old professor, used to say, 'Never get into an argument about what's folk music and what isn't.'"
But whatever you called him, Seeger influenced scores of other singers, including Springsteen, Joan Baez, Dave Matthews, Rufus Wainwright, John Mellencamp and Arlo Guthrie. All performed in 2009 at Seeger's 90th birthday party at sold-out Madison Square Garden, a fundraiser for his favorite local cause: cleaning up New York's Hudson River.
That night, Springsteen introduced Seeger saying, "He's gonna look a lot like your granddad that wears flannel shirts and funny hats. He's gonna look like your granddad if your granddad can kick your ass. At 90, he remains a stealth dagger through the heart of our country's illusions about itself."
Seeger opposed McCarthyism, marched beside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and led environmental campaigns. In 1969, he helped build a sailing sloop called the Clearwater that continues to serve as a "floating classroom" and rallying point for cleaning up the Hudson.
"Songs won't save the planet," Seeger told his biographer David Dunlap, author of How Can I Keep From Singing?*"But, then, neither will books or speeches...Songs are sneaky things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons." He liked to quote Plato: "Rulers should be careful about what songs are allowed to be sung."
Seeger is the only singer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who was convicted of contempt of Congress. In 1955, he refused to testify about his past membership in the Communist Party. (He later said he quit the party in 1949 and "should have left much earlier. It was stupid of me not to...I thought Stalin was the brave secretary Stalin and had no idea how cruel a leader he was.")
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To Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger, the singer/songwriter/activist who died Monday at the age of 94 was "the father of American folk music."
But Seeger, who popularized*This Land Is Your Land*and*We Shall Overcome*and wrote*If I Had a Hammer*and*Turn, Turn, Turn, never liked the term folk music.
"It's been defined as the 'music of the peasants,'" Seeger told USA TODAY in a 2009 interview, "and then you get someone saying (of Seeger), 'he's no peasant!'''
Seeger, who dropped out of Harvard University in 1938 to ride a bicycle across the country, quoted his father, Charles Seeger, a musicologist: "My dad, the old professor, used to say, 'Never get into an argument about what's folk music and what isn't.'"
But whatever you called him, Seeger influenced scores of other singers, including Springsteen, Joan Baez, Dave Matthews, Rufus Wainwright, John Mellencamp and Arlo Guthrie. All performed in 2009 at Seeger's 90th birthday party at sold-out Madison Square Garden, a fundraiser for his favorite local cause: cleaning up New York's Hudson River.
That night, Springsteen introduced Seeger saying, "He's gonna look a lot like your granddad that wears flannel shirts and funny hats. He's gonna look like your granddad if your granddad can kick your ass. At 90, he remains a stealth dagger through the heart of our country's illusions about itself."
Seeger opposed McCarthyism, marched beside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and led environmental campaigns. In 1969, he helped build a sailing sloop called the Clearwater that continues to serve as a "floating classroom" and rallying point for cleaning up the Hudson.
"Songs won't save the planet," Seeger told his biographer David Dunlap, author of How Can I Keep From Singing?*"But, then, neither will books or speeches...Songs are sneaky things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons." He liked to quote Plato: "Rulers should be careful about what songs are allowed to be sung."
Seeger is the only singer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who was convicted of contempt of Congress. In 1955, he refused to testify about his past membership in the Communist Party. (He later said he quit the party in 1949 and "should have left much earlier. It was stupid of me not to...I thought Stalin was the brave secretary Stalin and had no idea how cruel a leader he was.")
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