[78-L] Seeger, Weaver 78s?

[buster]

yes, he's lost a few notes...but not one iota of spirit. He's a hero.

Wasn't in email during the show, just before and after. Shot a lot of  
video which I'll put up on YouTube shortly so you can see for  
yourselves.


Pete Seeger at 90: No more awards, please
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Correspondent
Sunday, September 13, 2009

Pete Seeger, card-carrying Communist, enemy of the state and  
blacklisted folksinging pariah, performing at the inauguration of the  
president of the United States? Now 90 years old, he lived to see it.  
He says he never thought it would happen.

"I absolutely didn't. Even after I did get a Kennedy Award and an  
award where I had to go to the White House and shake the hand of the  
president. Although there were very serious things I wanted to say to  
him, I couldn't say it on that occasion," Seeger says on the phone  
from his home in the Hudson River Valley.

This is award season for the old banjo player. After appearing with  
Bruce Springsteen at the Lincoln Memorial before the Obama  
inauguration, Seeger was feted to a birthday party at Madison Square  
Garden featuring performances by Springsteen, Joan Baez, John  
Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Emmylou Harris and others, a gala event  
filmed and broadcast on PBS.

He was the subject of a recent documentary film, "The Power of Song,"  
profiled in the New Yorker, and performed as a headline attraction at  
this year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fair and the 50th  
anniversary edition of the Newport Folk Festival. On Labor Day  
weekend, he received the prestigious Gish Award - previous recipients  
include Robert Redford, Bob Dylan, Arthur Miller and Frank Gehry -  
which comes with $200,000. He appears Friday at the Masonic Auditorium  
with children and grandchildren of his old pal Woody Guthrie and plays  
Saturday at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

Seeger is not impressed. He tends to view these accolades as  
impositions. He is more cranky old man than kindly old granddad.

"It's the most difficult time my wife and I have ever had," he says.  
"The mail comes in, like, a bushel at a time. The phone rings every  
five minutes. I knew it would be a problem, but I didn't know how big  
a problem. We have no free time. I'm now sending out form letters.  
'Dear dash' - and I give their name - 'Thanks for your letter, but,  
the form letter goes on, I don't have time to listen to the CD you  
sent me, the book to read, the DVD to watch, the invitation to come  
and receive an award.' It's really kind of crazy."

"He hates it," says Tao Rodriguez, his 37-year-old grandson, who has  
traveled and performed with his grandfather since he was 14. "I try  
and keep him from as many of them as possible. Someone wants to give  
him an honorary degree, he says, 'Oh please, I've got enough honorary  
degrees - what do I need one more for?' He's mediaphobic."

At his appearance in San Francisco, Seeger joins the Guthrie Family  
Tour, a musical event that brings together more than a dozen members  
of three generations of Guthries, singing the songs of the family  
patriarch, Woody Guthrie. "It's the first time we've done it since  
1984," says his youngest grandchild, Sarah Lee Guthrie, from her home  
in Western Massachusetts. "I was just 5 years old, and I'll never  
forget it. When Dad (Arlo) went on the road in the '70s and '80s, it  
was always no women or children on the road. Or dogs."

o short answers

With Pete Seeger, even a question like "How are you doing?" gets fully  
explored.

"Most days my memory is no good anymore," he says, "so I'm forgetting  
things all the time. On the other hand, life is still fascinating and  
I think the struggle to see if there's going to be a human race here  
in the next hundred years is the most important struggle in the world.  
It's a 50-50 chance, you know. Although I confess I'm a little more  
optimistic than I was after Hiroshima. There I said we have a 50-50  
chance, but that was mainly to encourage people that their little  
grain of sand might be enough to tip the scale in the right direction.  
I guess I still say that for the same reason. Sixty years ago, I  
thought within 20 or 30 years some fool would drop one of those big  
bombs and more would be dropped. If we weren't killed, we'd be  
poisoned by the fallout. But one good thing has happened after  
another. The civil rights movement took place. The women's liberation  
movement is in full swing and going a lot further. The most important  
thing is that there are not thousands but literally millions of good  
little things going on all over our country, often local. One of my  
slogans is, to repeat what the great biologist René Dubos says: Think  
globally, act locally."

It's nice that you're feeling optimistic, I say.

  lot of mistakes

"It's true that people my age have made so many mistakes you're  
usually pessimistic," he says. "I have made a lot of mistakes, huge  
number of them. I'd be out singing somewhere and I'd leave my wife  
taking care of three little babies all by herself on a mountainside.  
If the dog barks, she didn't know if it was some man to cause trouble.  
Until we could afford to dig a well, she would walk 150 yards down a  
ravine to a little brook with one baby on her hip and the other  
tugging at her skirt, and she's got a pail of water to cook and wash  
with. She's an absolute heroine. There's many mistakes I've made, a  
whole lot of them.

"On the other hand, I've tried to stay in good health. I learned an  
Arab proverb when I was in Lebanon once. Arabs are proud that the  
whole world uses Arabic numerals. We don't use Roman numerals, or  
Chinese numerals. We use Arabic numerals. If you have good health, put  
down a number one. If you have a family, put down a zero. How lucky  
you are. If you have land, put down another zero. Family, land - what  
more could you want? Well, if you've got a good reputation, put down  
another zero. You got it all. But take away the one, what have you  
got? Three zeroes. Good story for people to know. I tell it everywhere.

"If it wasn't for my brain going, I'm in better condition than most  
people 90 years old because I get lots of exercise. We heat our house  
with wood, so I'm out sawing wood and splitting it. My idea of a nice  
few minutes is to look out my window and see a few logs to split and I  
go out and split 'em. It's within our DNA to like to go 'whack.' Two  
or 3 million years we've been walking on two feet. That's when we  
started swinging clubs, killing animals and killing our enemies. It's  
no accident that sports like golf and baseball are popular all around  
the world."

Seeger doesn't care to savor the irony of having gone from the  
blacklist to the A-list. "I was blacklisted for most of the '50s and  
much of the '60s. In a certain sense, I'm blacklisted still. I don't  
get offered television jobs, things like that," he says. "To what  
extent, I don't know. Back in what I call the frightened '50s, it was  
common. But the funny thing is it didn't matter to me at all. I don't  
like singing in nightclubs. I don't like singing on radio and TV  
'cause they usually tell me what they want me to sing."

He tells a story about appearing on the "Today" show when Barbara  
Walters was still on. He prepared what he called "a happy little banjo  
piece," and he had a second song he wanted to sing, "Garbage," a 1969  
protest song by songwriter Bill Steele. The song pokes fun at  
environmental issues, but Seeger added a fourth verse in the '70s that  
extends the song premise into a fierce denunciation of corporations  
and capitalist greed in general. He recalled the exchange with the  
producer during the rundown after he sang "Garbage."

" 'Pete, it's a little early in the morning for that. You got  
something else?' "

Pete sings, "When the revolution comes to my country ..."

" 'Pete, do you have something else?' "

"Walking down death row ..."

" 'Well, Pete, I guess we'll stick with 'Garbage.' The whole studio  
broke up. The cameramen, they said, 'Yes, we'll stick with 'Garbage.'  
" {sbox}

This Land Is Your Land: With Pete Seeger and Tao Rodriguez, special  
guests on the Guthrie Family Tour featuring Arlo Guthrie, Sarah Lee  
Guthrie and Jack Irion, Abe Guthrie and assorted grandchildren. Also  
appearing will be the Waybacks. A benefit for the Woody Guthrie  
Foundation and Archives and the John Steinbeck Foundation. 8 p.m. Fri.  
Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium, 1111 California St., San Francisco.  
$49.50-$75. (415) 421-8497,www.ticketmaster.com.

E-mail Joel Selvin at pink letters at sfchronicle.com.







On Sep 19, 2009, at 10:03 AM, Michael Biel <mbiel at mbiel.com> wrote:

> From: "buster" <busterdog at mac.com>
> Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 10:13 PM
>>>> Sitting in our seats waiting for the start of a concert featuring
>>>> Pete Seeger right now, and wondering what if any 78 outputs he may
>>>> had had?
> From: "buster" <busterdog at mac.com>
> Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 2:10 AM
>>> Well it's over now, and it was wonderful. He's 90 and still full of
>>> fire. Look up "living legend" in the dictionary and you'll find his
>>> photo. Thanks for the info, flowing in as we enjoyed the show.
> From: "Robert Shirer" <rshirer at neb.rr.com>
>> I haven't seen Pete in concert for a long time, but he was always
>> wonderful. I think the last time was probably at the Nebraska State
>> Fair, when he performed together with Arlo Guthrie; must have been
>> twenty years ago or so. Glad you were able to see and enjoy the show.
>> Cheers, Bob Shirer
>
> How was his pitch control?  He had been having trouble a few years ago
> and begged off from performing.  Leah had a front row position during
> the Feb 20, 2003 NYC anti-war rally where he attempted to sing Over  
> the
> Rainbow.  We both saw him a couple of years ago at the Alan Lomax
> tribute and he seemed a lot better.  And of course there was the
> pre-inaugural concert this last January.  Leah was there also, but  
> about
> a half mile away!
>
> He was responsible for my interest in folk music, via my sister.  She
> had attended a concert of his in the Berkshires around 1958 with her
> future husband while they were at summer camps, and both of them got  
> the
> Weavers at Carnegie Hall album which I devoured.  I took Pete's  
> politics
> seriously.  My brother-in-law, however, is quite a bit to the right of
> Attilla the Hun.  Never could understand his interest in Seeger and  
> the
> Weavers who stood for everything my brother in law hates.  My sister
> leaves the room when anything political comes up.
>
> And what were you doing playing around with your email during the
> concert??
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
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