01.28.2014 08:45 AM

Pete Seeger, RIP

8 Comments

  1. Campbell says:

    RIP indeed. I’m very grateful to my dad that I came to know Pete Seeger and the Weavers even as a child born in the 80s. The man was a living legend for the better half of his life and managed to always appear down to earth and dedicated to causes because they were right, not because they were fashionable.

    For a lengthier version of Down By The Riverside, Pete Seeger singing with blues icons Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9eDU045u_E

  2. dave says:

    I remember as a kid, late 1940’s, early 1950’s, The Weavers, songs we sang with each other!
    Pal of mine in early 1960’s, chipped in organizing something called Communist – Catholic dialogues in Winnipeg, and Seeger came a couple of times, sponsored by the Coop Bookstore. Pal said he got to meet Seeger at get togethers. Pal told me a few years later that is there were such a thing as a secular saint, Pete Seeger would certainly be first in line.
    A humble a always contributing man, Pete Seeger!

  3. david ray says:

    Damn. I was watching a great documentary on Woody Guthrie last weekend and Pete was one of the narrators. Two days later.. and gone. Sing your songs while you can folks.

    So long Pete Seeger it was good to know you
    W Guthrie
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v1Lj5E_nVE

  4. Craig McKie says:

    In the late 1950s sometime, when he was blacklisted, Mr. Seeger came to the Unitarian Church on St. Clair Avenue in Toronto and gave a concert. I might have been in Grade 9 or 10. I went by myself. The place was packed with old commies, some would have been Mac-Pap veterans. It was hot in the room, lots of noisy enthusiasm…. remembering Jarama and so on. But the thing I most remember was a song in Scots (Mr. Seeger was the great Ewen McCall’s brother in law) from the Clydeside dockyards. It concerned the US nuclear submarines at Holy Loch. It went “You canna spend a dollar when you’re daid”. The thought has been with me all my adult life. Think of it as Left religion.

    Not much of a voice, not a particularly good instrumentalist, but the man was just magical in front of a responsive crowd.

  5. Domenico says:

    Just last week I was explaining to my son that the Rise Against song “Little Boxes” was first made famous by Pete Seeger way back in 1962 or so. This led to a good conversation about Pete Seeger and conformity. So long Pete.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-HviBuETXw

  6. Student501 says:

    A great artistic talent and human being who blessed us all in song and humanity.

    I fear we shall not see another like him in our lifetime.

    Vaya Con Dios, Pete.

  7. Craig McKie says:

    Here are the lyrics for the Clydeside song Mr. Seeger sang in Toronto to much applause in 195?

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/89337228/ding%20dona%20dollar2.pdf

    The “premature anti-fascists” of the MacKenzie-Papineau Brigade in the Spanish Civil War got cut to pieces as members of the 5th Brigade at Jamara (February 6–27, 1937). The survivors, including Norman Bethune, came home to Canada as suspects for evermore. They did not go unnoticed by the organs of the state. Mr. Seeger paid tribute to them in Hogtown in the Unitarian Church on St. Clair West way back when.

    Mr. Seeger was a gem of the democratic Left. A long life, and he really did in Lyndon Johnson with “The Big Muddy”. The banjo is truly an instrument of war like the pipes on occasion.

    RIP

Leave a Reply to Student501 Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.