Pete Seeger's recent performance, with Bruce Springsteen, of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land", at Pres. Obama's inaugural festivities proves he remains RELEVANT, something that is hard to achieve even for a brief time and virtually impossible to maintain for perhaps 70 years. Many stories abound about Pete, but the one that always comes to mind is when he alledgedly threatened to cut the wires with an axe at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 after Bob Dylan went electric. From Wikipedia: "The sound quality was certainly the reason Pete Seeger (backstage) disliked the performance: he says he went to the sound system and told the technicians, 'Get that distortion out of his voice ... It's terrible. If I had an axe, I'd chop the microphone cable right now.' Seeger has also said, however, that he only wanted to cut the cables because he wanted the audience to hear Dylan's lyrics properly, because he thought they were important. Rumors that Seeger actually had an axe, or that a festival board member wanted to pull out the entire electrical wiring system, remain unsubstantiated. In the film 'No Direction Home' , John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers claimed Seeger wanted to silence the band because it was frightening his elderly father. In the same film, Dylan claimed that Seeger's unenthusiastic response to his set was like a 'dagger in his heart' and made him 'want to go out and get drunk'."
Closer to home, I've seen Pete perform a few times, including once when my son, Anthony da Costa, shared the stage with him and Fred Gillen Jr., which was an honor for Anthony. And, from those close to him, the picture that emerges is that of a deeply decent and moral man who is steadfastly committed to civil rights and the environment. In fact, near his home and at festivals, if you see an older gentleman bending over to pick up litter, it's Pete. Or maybe you'll see a lone protester standing along a roadside holding up a sign protesting nuclear power--that will probably be Pete, too.
God Bless You, Pete. Here's to 90 more years of life and RELEVANCE.
Excerpt from the PBS "American Masters" program on Pete:
Tom Paxton & Pete Seeger: "My Ramblin' Boy" (by Tom Paxton)
Judy Collins & Pete Seeger: "Turn, Turn, Turn" (by Pete Seeger)
Pete Seeger on "Late Night with David Letterman"
Pete Seeger: "Bring 'Em Home" (by Pete Seeger)
Pete Seeger: "Quiet Early Morning"
Porter Tubb
No comments:
Post a Comment