USATODAY: … 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…
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… (more)
EDITOR: As a freshman at Oberlin College, I had the opportunity to attend a concert by Pete Seeger. His humble persona but charisma were overpowering. He is the only person that ever got me to full throatily sing along.
I have attended performances by Barbara Streisand, Anthony Newley, Tony Bennett. No one interacted with the audience the way Seeger did.
Plus he was a wonderful human being, caring little for himself and much for those around him and the world. He stood up during very bad times for the civil rights and political freedoms that we now take for granted.
We can not honor this man enough. ‘May his memory be for a blessing.’
