Talk:Pete Seeger

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[edit] Discussion

There should be something in here about his leftist politics, encounters with Redbaiters, disapproval of Dylan, but I can't stand him, so I leave it to another. Ortolan88

So you can't stand him. Who cares what you think? Your "I can't stand him" comment gives you away, mon ami. Give us documentation, not your political biases. Please refrain from writing subjective statements here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brobie (talk • contribs) 19:32, 1 May 2005 (unsigned, but appears to be User:Brobie 1 May 2005)
I think he has a good point. I don't know enough about him to stand him or otherwise, but the points mentioned should be included in the article. -- TimNelson 11:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

On what basis is he attributed authorship of "We Shall Overcome"? He certainly had a hand in making it well known among white people, but if you look at http://www.learnercentereded.org/Seeger/Civil%20Rights.html, which sounds on-the-mark to me, it doesn't read like a claim that he wrote the song. They describe him as "helping to write the song" and there's an extended quote from him on the site where he seems to give most of the credit to other people. -- Jmabel 01:39, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

You should know that Seeger gave credit to Guy Carowan many times for "We Shall Overcome." Who are you people, anyway? Do your study before posting comments here please.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Brobie (talk • contribs) 19:32, 1 May 2005 (unsigned, but appears to be User:Brobie 1 May 2005)
Excuse me, I do know that. My remark (which you are replying to almost 4 months after the fact) was in response to someone else's false claim in the article that he wrote "We Shall Overcome".—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmabel (talk • contribs) 00:06, 2 May 2005

Is there any basis for saying he "started" a solo career in 1958? By that time he had probably a dozen albums out on Folkways. Heck, I turned four in '58 and my mother used to joke I knew Pete Seeger's voice better than my father's. -- Jmabel 02:15, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "[in his recent book]"

What book? -- Jmabel 02:02, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

It appears that bracketed "recent book" is dated; appeared in quote within NYT Magazine article 1/22/95. The book is apparently Where Have All The Flowers Gone? A Singer's Stories, Songs, Seeds, Robberies (Bethlehem, Pa.: Sing Out, 1993) at 22 (from note 1.47 in Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970 (Culture, Politics, and Cold War), Ronald D. Cohen (University of Massachusetts Press, 2002).) Scrounged this from the Web; hopefully someone with access to source can straighten out the quote and cite. Jeffreykopp 09:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

This still needs fixing; it looks like nonsense as it stands.
--Jerzy•t 06:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CP membership

It is my understanding that Seeger was never a formal member of the Communist Party. So, he was never able to "leave it," strictly speaking. (anon)

No, actually he was. I can turn up a citation if needed; I believe he finally said so in the 1980s, explaining that he had no shame about having been so, but wouldn't admit it to HUAC: in front of them, he simply invoked the First Amendment and refused to answer on the basis that his political affiliations were none of their business. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:58, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)
Found a solid citation: David Dunaway's biography of Seeger, How Can I Keep From Singing, page 42. Pretty much the standard biography. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:03, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Author?

Is this the same pete Seeger who wrote Abiyoyo? I believe it is but am not sure.

  • Pete released an LP in the early 1960s with many memorable children's songs. One was the song, "Abiyoyo" which I believe had African origins, or some such thing. Some others I remember included "Let's go riding in the car", "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)", and one that began, "What did you eat in the woods all day, Henry my son?" Great memories for me at age 5 in 1965 to play over and over. --leahtwosaints (talk) 22:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why I am reverting the bulk of the recent anonymous edit (again)

I reverted a recent anonymous edit a few hours ago. I see it has been restored. The edit is a POV mess (and in some cases a factual mess). I hoped my original revert would stick, or at least the person would think twice about the specific issue I called out (deletion of factual material), but I can see that won't be the case, so I'll take it up in detail. Not everything it this edit was bad, and I will try to keep what I can (I was hoping not to waste my time, and that the writer would spend some of his/hers, but that clearly isn't going to happen).

  • The anon removed the following: "A classic example of Seeger’s pro-Stalin/Soviet attitude can be seen during the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. His anti-war record Songs for John Doe, released in 1941, where he calls President Roosevelt a warmonger who worked for J.P. Morgan, expressed his displeasure about FDR's increasingly confrontational attitude with Nazi Germany." I think there are some problems with the wording (I'll happily get rid of "classic", and the mention of Stalin is egregious) but the substance is significant: Seeger's work demands that he be thought of as a political figure, not just a singer, and writing Songs for John Doe out of his history is, effectively, to lie about that history.
  • The anon changed "communist beliefs" to "socialistic beliefs" is, in this case, a euphemism. Seeger was a CP member; he left that party, as did so many people, but has repeatedly said that he still considers himself a communist. Why on earth should we doubt his word?
  • I do agree with the insertion of the phrase "[beliefs]… forged before the crimes of Stalin came to light". A second mention of it in the same paragraph, though, is simply silly.
  • The inserted statement, "Pete Seeger fought in the Pacific to defend the United States in war, unlike more recent U. S. presidents," is pure POV. Taking pot-shots at the lack of military experience of recent U.S. presidents is completely unrelated to the topic of this article. This sentence was the main reason that I did not originally even read the edits closely, and just reverted.
  • The existence of right-wing opposition to WWII is beside the point. Certainly Seeger never identified with right-wing America Firsters and German-American Bundists, and it is a calumny to suggest that he did.
  • "It can not be denied…" is a phrase that has no place in an encyclopedia article.
  • The songs that were added as evidence of Seegers patriotism—as if any were needed—are songs he sang, but none are his own. "My Land Is a Good Land" is by Erik Anderson. "Going Across the Mountains" is a traditional song from the Northern side of the Civil War. "The Power and the Glory" is by Phil Ochs. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:25, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, If I may add a comment, I think there needs to be much more about Seeger's music. All of this seems to be just shallow politics. Seeger is not a political philospher. In the end, he is a simple man. His main contribution is in preserving a classic form of Old Time banjo picking (up-picking vs frailing). And this is intimately connected with the North-South (Yankee/Confederate) divide still remaining in the United States, up-picking now having Northern, progressive connotations primarily because of Seeger. And what about his love for the 12 string?

Seeger influenced the K-Trio and did videos with many greats of US folk music, including Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson and above all Mississippi John Hurt. Anyway, I'm not satisfied with this entry. This has got to present the full complexity of the man.

I'm not saying that politics has no place here. I'm only saying I am cautious of the simplistic dichotomy of "conservative" vs "liberal" prevalent in the current US. Heaven knows, as an individualist. I do not agree with Seeger's politics, nor Robert Owen's. Yet, I appreciate his contribution to American folk music, and recognize a pure and decent man when I see one. Thus, I revere both Owen and Seeger -- though I'm not saying Seeger is in the same universe as Owen.

- fm Brobie.

  • I'd love to see much more about Seeger's music. And yes, I agree that his 5-string banjo book and his picking would all alone make him a major figure. So would his song-leading all alone. Please, add this. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:26, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Ps: your comments:

"The inserted statement, "Pete Seeger fought in the Pacific to defend the United States in war, unlike more recent U. S. presidents," is pure POV. Taking pot-shots at the lack of military experience of recent U.S. presidents is completely unrelated to the topic of this article. This sentence was the main reason that I did not originally even read the edits closely, and just reverted.

"It can not be denied…" is a phrase that has no place in an encyclopedia article."

Okay, I'll never say "it can not be denied" again. And I appreciate the insertion of "honorably" regarding to Seeger's war service, which I think is fair. But I think the tenor of this article presents Seeger unfairly. For one thing, the distinction between Communism and Socialism here is obscured. I disagree with saying that Seeger "is" a communist, given modern connotations of the word. Change this to the past tense: "was."

We could get into a big political discussion here about how Conservatism (and Seeger said he was more conservative than Goldwater) and Communisim (or Socialism) are just different kinds of collectivism, but that is another topic....

And if we want to present the political views of a person so old, we've got to understand the world he was living in at the time. The connotations of these words have evolved in recent years. This article is read by modern readers.

Also, I also would appreciate more documentation. I think the sources of all our statements should be noted within the article. (Brobie)


  • Yes, I'd love to see expansion of the context on Seeger's politics rather than a focus on a few regrettable episodes. Seeger came to Communism in the midst of the Depression, at the height of the Popular Front, when the slogan of the day was "Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism". He stood up to HUAC about as well as anyone, and really took it on the chin for doing so. As for whether he still is a communist... I've heard him say so, on and off, for a long time. Every time I've heard an interviewer venture to ask him, he's pretty direct about that. As far as I know, he has always continued to consider himself at least a small-c communist, and who are we to argue with the man himself?
Please understand, I have enormous respect for Seeger. I've seen him in concert probably 20 or 30 times, had a few conversations with him (though none in the last 15 years), read probably the majority of his writings in Broadside, Sing Out and the like as well as well as Dunaway's biography of him (How Can I Keep From Singing), learned what little I know about playing a banjo from his book and the 10-inch record that came with it, learned many songs from his records (including no small number of his own songs) and still perform some of them; as I say above, my mother used to joke I knew Pete Seeger's voice better than my father's. I don't have a ton of time right now or I'd work on your request about citations, but I'm pretty sure that 100% of what is in the article now (except maybe some quotations) could be cited out of Dunaway's book. If there is something in particular that you doubt, single it out and I'll search for citation, but I don't have time to work out what page is a citation for each fact.
Part of the history of this article is that User:TDC, clearly hostile to Seeger, added a lot of material. As you can see if you examine the edit history, I kept pruning him back to what was encyclopedic. I would love to see someone who does not have an axe to grind do some equally solid legwork and add more genuinely encyclopedic material to the article. But adding fluff and POV that happens to be pro-Seeger, or removing the (definitely accurate) material about Songs for John Doe is not the way to get to a more balanced article. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:26, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, but like anyone involved in the "popular front" during that time, Seeger did not fight because America was attacked or because freedom was threatened by tyranny, he fought because the vanguard of the proletariat, the Soviet Union, was under attack. People like Seeger deserve no respect, and I will not give them any.
Well, tens of millions of men were drafted during the war. Did Seeger join the military or was he drafted? If he didn't join, then he fought because he was ordered to.... Hayford Peirce 19:52, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So, yeah, I suppose I am a bit hostile to Stalinists. TDC 14:17, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

++++++++++++++

TDC - Brobie here. No need to apologize. Who likes Stalin? The point you don't seem to get is that Seeger, along with many of the Old Left, rejected Stalinism after Khrushchev exposed his crimes. Who was the guy who published Guthrie's original records in NY who actually committed suicide after Khruschev's revelations. -- Which is why I added Khrushchev's name here. (Also, Jmabel, I think you'll find the period should be inside the quotation marks.) So if you're hostile to Stalinists, we're all with you. The point is, we have to be fair to Seeger. You say: "Seeger did not fight because America was attacked or because freedom was threatened by tyranny, he fought because the vanguard of the proletariat, the Soviet Union, was under attack." Is this your opinion? Or a fact? If a fact, please give us the grits. Yes, Seeger was ideological. I'm personally an individualist and Seeger's collectivism, like all socialist collectivism, rubs me the wrong way. But this was an age when many people who believed in communism thought that freedom was compatible with communism. They were mistaken.

And Jmabel, if Seeger says he is a communist with a small "c," then it means he is talking about a "free" communism -- which, nowadays, is commonly called socialism. That was my point. This whole article is misleading. No wonder people like TDC are so mixed up.

I am an advocate of citations within articles. Otherwise, this article is far too political. For example:

His anti-war record Songs for John Doe, released in 1941, where he called President Franklin D. Roosevelt a warmonger who worked for J.P. Morgan, expressed his displeasure about FDR's increasingly confrontational attitude with Nazi Germany.

What is this: "...expressed his displeasure about FDR's ... confrontational attitude with..." the Nazis? So was Seeger a Nazi? That is what this sentence implies. Any innocent person reading this couldn't tell Pete Seeger from Lindberg, the DAR, or other "conservative" rightists isolationists who opposed action against Hitler -- who were and are far closer to the Nazis than Seeger ever was or ever will be. This sentence makes it sound like Seeger actually _supported_ Hitler.

...which is why I assumed someone from the House Committe on Keeping Up the Persecution of Pete Seeger is in charge of this page...

...sorry, but let's be fair. Let's cite our sources. All of us. In the text. And no misleading, biased sentences. -- Brobie.

  • As I remarked above, "certainly Seeger never identified with right-wing America Firsters and German-American Bundists, and it is a calumny to suggest that he did." Seeger's (brief) opposition to war with the Nazis was precisely because of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. And I certainly have no interest in "persecuting" Seeger, I quite admire the man, but my admiration is based on a warts-and all assessment. Also, again, I agree that this particular episode gets disproportionately much coverage in the article, but the cure is not to shrink the solid information on this episode, it is to expand the article with equally solid material on other aspects of the man. This often happens in articles that TDC has touched: he adds a lot of material that happens to reinforce his views; sometimes it's not encyclopedic (or not even very well documented) in which case I fight to get it out of there, but when it makes the cut (and this does) it should be retained. When we finally end up with the amount of material we should have on Seeger, clearly this will be part of it. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:33, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • On the socialist/communist point: ultimately, I don't really care that much, but I can't remember ever hearing Seeger use the word "socialism", only "communism". I'm not saying he hasn't, just that I can't recall it. I agree with you about the connotations of that word in contemporary America, and I can't imagine Seeger being unaware of them, but as far as I can tell, he's continued to be consistent in his own choice of word. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:33, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • BTW, Wikipedia style is period outside of quotation marks, unless you are quoting an entire sentence. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:34, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Brobie here. TDC, it is so easy to wrap yourself in the flag. If you love the flag so much, then join the army and go to Iraq. Otherwise, keep your $%^#^& mouth shut. I am so &$%#^ sick of seeing that piece of rag. You need to have the guts to travel around the world and meet people with different colored flag-toys and see why they hate the US. I'm pessimistic about the fate of Wikipedia...

"I think there needs to be much more about Seeger's music. All of this seems to be just shallow politics. Seeger is not a political philospher. In the end, he is a simple man." What a load of crap. Seeger was always about politics and music was nothing more than a tool for him to effect the goals of the Popular Front, which specifically targeted the publishing, movie, and music industries in their bid to gain political influence. Seeger's "simple man" routine was and is pure affectation. Forget about the fate of Wikipedia, I'm worried about the fate of the world with so many "useful idiots" running around. (SgtP_USMC)

How true, anyone with one God damn iota of common sense or honesty knows that that Seeger is nothing more than hack who just uses his music to shill for left wing thugs. so save the peace and social justice bullshit for the choir. TDC 20:31, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moorsoldaten

Dear friends and music lovers, I was born i post-war Germany but have been living in Sweden since 1969. I just wanted to tell you how much Pete Seeger ment to my generation - I grew up i Western Berlin. One of my dearest memories is a concert Pete Seeger gave in the 1960s and we had no possibility to buy tickets, as he was singing for union members only and I was a teenager attending school. But my boyfriend and I waited outside the concert hall together with large crowd of people until the gates finally were opened and we all were allowed to get in! I will never forget this nor him and one special song I never had heard before nor since: Die Moorsoldaten, which he sang, at least partly, in German. Pete Seeger and his music, the Weavers' too, (and many others) have brought hope and love of life to many of us in difficult times. If you'd like, you may find me in the German Wikipedia where I write using the nick-name Elchjagd. Love and peace to you all! --217.211.23.24 11:34, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

  • Interesting. I grew up with the Weavers' recording of "Das Lied der Moorsoldaten" (which they called "The Peat-Bog Soldiers"). It should actually be quite available, I believe most of there recordings are in print. (For those who don't know, it is a song by and about concentration camp inmates.) -- Jmabel | Talk 00:49, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Elchjagd, thanks for your kind contribution. Please tell us more about your experiences. I never saw the Weavers, so I envy you.

Brobie here. Pete Seeger's classic "HOW TO PLAY THE 5-STRING BANJO taught by Pete Seeger" is now out on DVD. Yes folks, you can learn from the master on your PC. Am I allowed to put in a plug for the great folks at Elderly Instruments? (No biz connections I promise.) The link is:

elderly.com/videos/items/300-DVD85.htm

[edit] Flowers Gone?

"He is perhaps best known as the author of the 1961 song Where Have All the Flowers Gone." Hmm. Having been already steeped in his music long before that song was written, I'm not in the best place to judge, but what is the basis for this claim? Is that really better known than "The Hammer Song (If I Had a Hammer)" or "Turn, Turn, Turn"? I'd have thought they were all on an equal footing. And, for an older generation, he was probably best known for his work with the Weavers, including a number one hit with Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene". -- Jmabel | Talk 18:34, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, I just sorta assumed that of course "Where Have" was his best known thing since that's the song one still hears and sees references to. But I just did a Google search associating "Seeger" with the names of each of the songs. For "Where Have" I got 13,800 hits. For "Hammer" I got 747 (The Hammer Song) and 10,800 (If I Had), for a total of 11,547, not all that far behind. For "Turn" I got 5,920. For "Irene Goodnight" and "Goodnight Irene" I got 191 and 4,810, for 5,001. In any case, I think most people who even know "Irene" think of it primarily as a Weavers song, not as a Seeger-Weavers song. How many people think of "Tom Dooley" as a Dave Guard-Kingston Trio song? If you want to do some rewriting and add "Hammer" to "Flowers" go right ahead. I looked it up and both Peter, Paul & Mary and Trini Lopez had hit versions of "Hammer".... Hayford Peirce 19:46, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Your Google search seems like decent evidence that you are basically right on this (although the margin between "Where Have" and "Hammer" seems small). You are right that "Irene" is emphatically a group performance, and in any event, a Leadbelly-authored song, not one of Seeger's own. I suspect that the Weavers achieved a greater level of fame circa 1950 than Seeger has ever had as a solo performer; needless to say, Google is useless to answer a question like that, because it is so biased in favor of the relatively recent. I guess I'll leave things as they are in the article, at least until such a time as this article might merit a lot more work, which eventually it certainly does. Sorry about tangled syntax, I must be tired. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:43, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] If there were any justice...

Pete Seeger would have starved to death in the "Great Man's" gulags like so many millions of his truly innocent victims. Instead he made quite a bit of money (dare I say he became rich?) off of the very system he still claims to hate; capitalism. What a hypocrite!

The bit about small "c" communism is a hoot too. Do you really believe that garbage? Call it whatever you like; communism, socialism, fascism etc..., it all adds up to misery, slavery, and death. They all share one thing in common and that is an abridgement of property rights which is the most fundamental of all "human rights." The extent to which a man's right to own and control property is truncated, that man becomes property.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.136.196.77 (talk) 06:49, :39, & :51, 5 August 2005

The previous comment is anonymous (surprise!) and was made 4 Aug 2005. And other than that, I'm not feeding the troll. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:01, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I figured that someone needed to bluntly state just what Pete Seeger's greatest "contribution to society" actually was and what its (all too predictable) results were. He certainly isn't the only one, but still his aid and support of despots from Hitler, to Stalin, to Mao, to Pol Pot, and most recently to Hussein in some way helped those murderous bastards do their vile work by giving cover to them and by blunting and/or delaying the efforts of those who could have stopped or mitigated it.
Someone who is that consistently wrong and apparently so callous to the effects of his actions deserves no better than the fate that I described. Anyone can be mistaken, but Seeger and his fellow travelers display a wanton disregard for the truth, and then seek cover under the lame "I MEANT well" excuse.
Seeger has stated that he wants us to go back to the time when we lived in small villages and “took care of each other.” Just because he lacks the mental capacity to understand his place in the extended order in which we live and the benefits of that order, he thinks that there must be something inherently superior to that primitive life when people died from simple infections and daily scratched their sustenance from the soil. Such a world view is so warped that it makes me wish that he could have his wish, as long as others who don’t share his views aren’t forced to live in the utopia (hell) that he would create. Then we could watch the idiots destroy themselves and get on with the business of life in the real world.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.253.151.250 (talk) 16:06, 10 August 2005
Aug 10, presumably the same person. This is not your blog. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:06, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Recently added link

City Journal article on "America's Most Successful Communist" is certainly hostile to Seeger in tone, but well researched and actually a pretty decent article, whatever its politics. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:15, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

It's decent enough when it covers Seeger himself, but the author clearly doesn't have much of a clue about political protest song before the mid-thirties. His claim that there was no tradition of social protest in American song before Lomax and Seeger contradicts the available evidence - such as the recorded output of Blind Alfred Reed, Haywire Mac, or Uncle Dave Macon in the 1920s, to name but three. That there was greater comercial interest in this kind of material from the late 1930s is clear, but the assumption of the author that it *started* then seems unsustainable. This rather invalidates the writer's entire thesis.

A distasteful attempt at rewriting history, IMO.--84.69.84.133 12:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Not to mention the Wobbly bards. Someone researched Seeger, but didn't research history. Still, this is probably the pick of the anti-Seeger links that have been placed in the article at various times, and we should have at least one, so I think until something better comes along it should be kept. And, frankly, I suspect that the chance of finding an anti-Seeger article by someone who has done their research on the level typical of people who feel attached to the tradition is relatively slim. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:52, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joe Hill

We say, "He has often sang and is associated with the song 'Joe Hill'." (Words by Alfred Hayes, music by Earl Robinson, by the way.) Certainly one of the (thousands of) songs in his repertoire, and I suppose that most people who know the song today learned it directly or indirectly from him, but the same could probably be said for 100 other songs, including "Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)", Cisco Houston's "Way Out There", and Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes". Heck, without him there's a fair chance almost no one would know the song "Erie Canal" or (in the English-speaking world) "Die Gedanken Sind Frei". Is he really particularly identified with this one song? Can someone give a citation for that? If this was just an excuse to get Joe Hill's name into the article, we can mention him singing this song and mention him singing Hill's parody of "Casey Jones". -- Jmabel | Talk 06:21, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry, but I've tampered with that paragraph

I’m sorry but I was just not comfortable with that political paragraph, and I don't seem to be the only one. It just felt too objective, The whole Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact scenario was given too much prominence and seemed designed to paint Seeger as some sort of notable Nazi appeaser. It was out of proportion.

I would rather ditch this episode from the entry, but to compromise I have re worded the paragraph. I also shaved a couple of points within the paragraph such as "old left" (an undescriptive term)and the mention that Seeger personally pulled the release, I read it differently here http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/doe.html User:Zleitzen 11 Feb 2006

"Too objective"? How on earth is that a problem? - Jmabel | Talk 06:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Ooops, I wrote objective when I meant to write subjective! User:Zleitzen 17 Feb 2006

[edit] Birthdays?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website has Pete Seeger's birthday as May 19th, 1919. Is there a question as to his birthdate, or is that just a mistake? Yalith 18:06, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Dave Dunaway's well-researched biography How Can I Keep From Singing gives May 3 (p.33 in the 1990 trade paperback). I'd be astounded if he's wrong. And he doesn't mention any doubts about the date. - Jmabel | Talk 18:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Big Muddy

A recent anonymous edit now says that in January 1968 Pete Seeger sang "The Big Muddy" through the whole way on the Smothers Brothers show. I'm pretty certain that is wrong: I was watching that night and already familiar with the song. I'm quite certain he did not get to sing the verse that begins "Now I'm not going to point any moral…" Does someone have a decent citation on this? I've left a note on the anonymous user's page, an IP address with only a few edits, but they all relate to Seeger or other members of the same family; as usual, that's a bit of a crapshoot in terms of reaching the person. - Jmabel | Talk 02:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Here, from You Tube: [1] Pete Seeger - Wimoweh & Flowers Gone

This is from a controversial episode of the Smothers Brothers. Originally, Pete sang his song "Waist Deep In The Big Muddy" in between these two songs but CBS deemed it too political to air and deleted it from the broadcast. However, he did perform the song on a subsequent broadcast and this time CBS allowed it to air. That version is available on Youtube:

[2]

You can also see the full seven minute performance here:

[3] I hope this is helpful!! --leahtwosaints (talk) 00:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Very helpful, especially the last one in that it gives the full context of the broadcast performance (and shows that my memory was wrong: the key last verse is there). Can anyone work out how we cite that? YouTube itself is not a "reliable source"; can we even provide this as a "convenience link" in a citation, given that this YouTube clip is probably a copyright violation? Has this been legally published on DVD somewhere (which would be citable)? - Jmabel | Talk 19:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The Smothers Brothers were on CBS, right? I can't help but notice the "E" for what?--Entertainment tonight? Owned by who? Also, yes, YouTube would be against policy if I read correctly, not to mention that whomever posts video clips can be shut down, etc, so generally, it's not a reliable permanent source.. (you can hear Pete beginning absentmindedly beginning to play the first strain of the tune on the first performance, before backing out. A shame) --leahtwosaints (talk) 08:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

You would cite it to the episode number, and I guess the original date of broadcast. Seeger appeared on these episodes: 10 September 1967 (Season 2, Episode 1) and 25 February 1968 (Season 2, Episode 24). You don't need to link to IMDB, though. The Smothers Brothers website also has this, but the episodes are listed there in order of production, not broadcast. The Youtube link would generally go against policy.--Pharos (talk) 19:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
This would clearly be the second one: the first is the censored appearance earlier in the season. - Jmabel | Talk 01:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, that's why I mentioned both of them, in case you wanted to know about the censored appearance too.--Pharos (talk) 01:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm really sorry, since I'm pretty much a newbie here. What I did do was put Seeger's name and "Big Muddy" in the You Tube Search Engine. I found the results like this: [4] However, one of the users, "2old2rock" has now had this clip on You Tube for nearly a year, and she does always place a copyright disclaimer on the clips she posts. I KNOW that often, after years of non-use of TV clips of all kinds, most major companies put them up for bid. If we email the people who uploaded it, (simple enough), there's always a slim chance that they've heard from the owner OR, have bought the rights, as a friend of mine did for a series of Little Feat concerts for next to nothing. Last thought: Pete worked as an archivist of folk music in D.C. If he was so rare a guest on TV in the 1960s is it possible that a copy of the performance might have been placed there? Grasping at straws, granted... --leahtwosaints (talk) 08:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rainbow Quest

I added a few details to the paragraph about Seeger's TV show. A complete index of these programs are on [5] but I did not want to link it from the article as the VHS copies offered on that page are no longer available.

I cannot determine how widely it was carried other than "various educational stations," so I don't know if NET distributed it, but presume they did. It was seen in Oregon, so it went a bit further than "regional." I saw one mention of it being seen in Canada although whether that was the CBC or cross-border reception is also unknown.

A New York Times article of 1/23/66 describes the program but the personal page where it was reproduced is gone; it can be fished out of Google's cache [6] or Wayback [7]

(I describe the program as "hourlong" though all the sources I found who mention a length specify 52 minutes. Perhaps commercial spots were hoped for in syndication.) Jeffreykopp 19 April 2006

  • There's quite a few clips of Rainbow Quest on Youtube.com if anyone is interested. Just go there and do a search for Rainbow Quest or Pete Seeger. Hanako 19:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current Political Affiliation

Obviously this has been discussed a great deal, and I don't normally work on music pages, but I noticed a user had added "Communist" to the front end description, unlinked. Given the body of the article itself, and the debate over "communism with a small c," I removed it for now. Thought I'd make note of it, though, should anyone care to reword or place back in in a clearer context. I pulled it both because it seems to be in question and because articles for other artists with known Communist ties like Dashiell Hammett don't insert that as a description in the first sentence. Aleal 01:29, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category edit war

There seems to be a slow edit war afoot. Various editors move this article either from Category:American communists to Category:American socialists or vice versa. Can we reach some consensus on this? Does anyone have a source revealing how Seeger self-identifies his politics in recent years? Is it possible he belongs in both categories? Niether category? -MrFizyx 15:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me that the problem is poor definition of categories. As I remarked above

On the socialist/communist point: ultimately, I don't really care that much, but I can't remember ever hearing Seeger use the word "socialism", only "communism". I'm not saying he hasn't, just that I can't recall it. I agree with you about the connotations of that word in contemporary America [that not being affiliated with any party, he is what most people would call a socialist, not a communist], and I can't imagine Seeger being unaware of them, but as far as I can tell, he's continued to be consistent in his own choice of word.

He is a former member of the CPUSA; he has not been a member in over 50 years.
If the category were decently defined, we could resolve this. Until then, we are counting angels on the heads of pins. - Jmabel | Talk 06:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alan Seeger

It should also be noted that Pete Seeger was related to the American Trench Poet Alan Seeger, who was his Uncle or some other relatively close relation. --V. Joe 20:05, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Granddaughter

I assume that "Issablle" is a misspelling, but what is the correct spelling? - Jmabel | Talk 18:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] All Family

Since the page for Toshi Seeger was deleted for non-notability, could more information be placed here? I admit tha a quick look around gave me nothing but perhaps others know of good places to look.

While you are at it, further information on the rest of the family, father, mother, and children, could also be added. His father, Charles Seeger, has his own page and was professor of Ethnomusicology at UCLA when Tinya attended there. I only know the latter because I read short notice in the Golden Bear at the time. JimCubb 21:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where he lives

We've been back and forth about half a dozen times as to whether his property is in the Town of Fishkill or the City of Beacon. Does someone have a citation on this, or is there just going to be a slow edit war? - Jmabel | Talk 07:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

According to most publications, for example The Nation, Pete and his wife, Toshi, live in a house he built in Beacon, New York, an upstate town along the Hudson River. Whether it's technically Fishkill or technically Beacon may still be debatable. I always thought it was Beacon. --Yalith 05:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
And, for what it's worth, in "Sailing Up My Dirty Stream", he sings, "I live right at Beacon here". to the best of my knowledge, he has never mentioned Fishkill in a song. - Jmabel | Talk 04:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
And, in one of the articles in Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground a quote is prefaced by something like, "Speaking from his home in Beacon, New York..." I think the article was a reprint of a 1995 Bosoton Globe piece. -MrFizyx 12:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Dutchess Junction, where Pete Seeger lives is a small area just south of Beacon just before the Putnam County Line. It is outside the City Limits of Beacon, officially in the Town of Fishkill. It has no ZIP code, and mail is received using the Beacon 12508. What makes it confusing is the separation from the rest of the Town of Fishkill. Children living in Dutchess Junction go to school in the Beacon School District. A GOOGLE map will show Dutchess Junction, Fishkill, NY. Lola0718 (talk) 00:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)Lola0718

[edit] Weavers

Was Fred Hellerman not a founding member of the Weavers along with the three listed?71.145.157.54 18:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)jomo

Hmm. I can't swear he was "present at the creation", but he was certainly in the group by the time they recorded. - Jmabel | Talk 06:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


I don't have any appeciable contribution to make, but have been Seegar/Weavers fan since I was a kid. I wanted to thank the people who have put the effort into this page, and also comment that the talk pages, on Wikipedia, are one of the great benefits. One can come to them to see more information than is properly in the article, and see the discussions that lead to the content. Boomcoach 18:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish Civil War songs

The Spanish Civil War songs Seeger is listed here as recording in 2006 seem to be exactly the list of what he recorded for Moe Asch (a recording I grew up with). Were there really any 2006 recordings? (His singing voice is pretty nearly gone.) Or were these just a reissue of old material? Either way, it seems to me to get disproportionate mention in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 05:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Months have gone by and this has not been addressed. - Jmabel | Talk 07:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I just removed the entire mention. It seemed very out of place and out of proportion. Then noticed your comment. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 22:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Most Recently

The last thing I heard this musical titan sing was "Bring Them Home." In 2003 he did an updated version of the original written in 1965. He prefaced his singing with spoken prose about putting his life on the line to defend his country and would do so again, in a heartbeat, if he believed her to be in peril. But just as in Viet Nam, the invasion of Iraq has proven to be foolish in the extreme, and appears to be having the opposite effect of its intended objective.

What in the HELL is the difference whether or not he was drafted? I graduated from high school in 1965. My 19th birthday present that year was, "Greeting: You will report to Fort Wayne for induction into the United States armed forces in three weeks." I had one brother on Navy active duty and another who was E3 reservist. I visited the Naval Armory and was sworn into the USNR the next day. I went to school, spent a year at sea and saw some real combat as throttleman on a Fletcher class destroyer, USS Mullany (DD-528) in the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club. Although only on active duty for 18 months, I served the whole six years on drills before and after active duty and on the USS Bauer (DE-1025). So who was the bigger draft-dodger, Bill Clinton, who ran off to England, or GWB who took an oath and put on a uniform? As military veterans, Seeger, GWB and I have earned the right to a political opinion about war. Junior makes me hurl, but that is MY problem. That is why I sometimes listen to his speeches through the Spanish translation on Univision, or listen later to someone with a more functional brain.

Matt Watroba played some of "We Shall Overcome: Complete Carnegie Hall Concert [LIVE]" on his radio programme on WDET-FM. Matt spoke about how you can hear every sound that the audience makes--as close as they could get our ears into that concert. He also said, "If you want to learn how to work an audience, listen to this album." It was recorded in 1963, five months before JFK was killed, and the 60's exploded. It runs for over 2 hours constantly and leaves in Pete's introductions and mistakes. If you listen to this album, and then say that, "I hate him!", you have a hole in your soul. Since wiki hardly mentions him, visit my page, and I will tell you more about Matt Watroba.--W8IMP 02:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed unencyclopedic POV & unsourced material

I removed the following sentences and paragraph:

It was clearly an allegory about the U.S. under the leadership of Lyndon Johnson which was in over its head in the Vietnam War.
Another slight against Lyndon Johnson can be heard in his singing of Len Chandler's seemingly juvenile song, "Beans in My Ears" from his 1966 album Dangerous Songs!? in which he accuses "Mrs. Jay's little son Alby" (Alby Jay is meant to sound like LBJ) of having beans in his ears, or of not listening to the people.

The first sentence is clearly editorializing and thus violates the NPOV policy.

If it were written as something like "many believed the song to have been an allegory about Lyndon Johnson's conduct of the Vietnam War."

And, to be included in an encyclopedia there needs to be a source for something like this. Otherwise, it's just the editor's opinion.

The same applies to the following paragraph about "Beans in My Ears". Everything written about it may be--probably is--true but it needs to be sourced. The sentences need to be re-written and sourced.

I don't have time, at the moment, to give the rest of the article a thoroughly vetting but these two examples demonstrates that the entire article needs to be closely scrutinized.

PainMan 07:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

These interpretations are self evident and don't constitute editorializing; further qualifying the statements with phrases like "many believe" runs counter to avoid weasel words. So I've returned the material to the text and added "needs citation" tags. I hope this solution works for you as well. --Osbojos 10:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Osbojos: If the meanings are "self-evident" then there is no reason to spell them out. The original editor's goal is clear: to skew perceptions of those--'specially those of yung 'uns--who know little about Seeger and are probably fed a load of felgercarb by their socialist high school and college instructors.
Also, there is NO way that a phrase like " Lyndon Johnson [who] was in over [his] head in the Vietnam War" is anything but POV and therefore strictly verboten. The sentence is as glaring an example of a violation of NPOV as I can think of.
Good point on the weasel words thing; obviously a sourced quote would have to be found. E.g. an article surveying critical reaction to Seeger's work.
However, I stand by my analysis and my reversion. So I am reverting your revert to my revert.


To be clear: I'm no fan of Johnson. He was a liar and criminal as well as one of the nation's worst Chief Magistrates. He went to Congress is 1937 without a penny in his pocket. When he left in 1969 he had $42,000,000 (in 1969 dollars!!! At least $250,000,000 in today's emaciated currency) as well as a highway off-ramp that leads straight to his front door. I know: I've driven by it on I-20!
I hope we can avoid an edit war. I feel my position is the correct one. And I will therefore have to revert any future reverts. Perhaps we can work out a compromise on the wording?
I do respect your professionalism & politesse. A breath of fresh air. If only everyone disagreed so cordially.
PainMan (talk) 01:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
If you don't have time to improve on such imperfect passages, your compliments do nothing to remedy your revert-war tactics. The context-setting is accurate, even tho it is not obvious, especially until stated, to those who weren't around for the first run. I'm restoring the material , warts and all, and will be one of those working out the right wording, rather than one of those blindly trashing others' good-faith contribs.
--Jerzy•t 05:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm done for now, but i'm unsure about some aspects of this passage. One issue is that Seeger has a musical side and a political side -- always has. This passage is more about the political side, but appears in a section that purports (or that i would expect) to be more about his musical side. So some refactoring may be in order, and further massaging of the text to accommodate that, even in the unlikely case that i've avoided all the PoV pitfalls. Also to be evaluated: whether i have identified (by my specific placement of the {{cn}} tags) the crucial facts yet to be verified, and what sources will do the job, which i'm assuming probably go beyond the two new refs that i provided at the end of the References section.
--Jerzy•t 07:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


@Jerzy
Despite your snarky slap at me, you improved the factual presentation of this section. I thought you did a good job properly removing the POV whilst avoiding the ever-dreaded "weasel words" (or something else to offend the Page Police). So, golf clap there.
However, stylistically the writing needed improvement. One of my claims to fame is my facility with the English language. If that sounds immodest I don't really care; I don't believe in false modesty. (If you've got a batting average of .330, why be shy about it?) So I employed my gift to improve aesthetically what you improved factually.
Also, I felt that your using a break in the paragraph to present two lines from Waist Deep in the Big Muddy was not only a stylistic foul--the only time one should really do that is if one is quoting a large section of a song or a poem which would be difficult to read if integrated into the text--but it also broke up the flow of the writing. So I worked them in.
The sections biggest problem, as you realize, is the complete lack of sources/references.
I thought about posting the section itself along with my changes but that would make this discussion page unmanageably large.
As an aside, until almost the very end, according to opinion polls, 80% of Americans supported the Vietnam War. So Seeger was not speaking to a "vast" anti-war audience. The anti-war "movement"† was really an anti-draft movement. When Nixon cancelled the draft in '73, the "movement" disappeared virtually overnight.
†It's funny how many of those "credit card revolutionaries"--as my father called them--became stock brokers or corporate shills: witness Dennis Hopper shilling for an investment house!!
PainMan (talk) 11:13, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
This article is not the place to discuss degrees of support for the Vietnam War, let alone "credit card revolutionaries" (whatever your father may have meant by that). It is a place to discuss Seeger's many approaches to songwriting, and both the playful reworking of "Beans…" and the extended allegory of "Big Muddy" are relevant to the topic at hand. And yes, it would be good to find better citation for anything that is undercited. - Jmabel | Talk 07:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quote re Dylan

I've been researching, analyzing, and writing for hours re the passage quoting Seeger abt his role at Dylan's Newport appearance. Suffice it for the moment to say that

  1. despite some overlap, the source cited doesn't come close to supporting the quote,
  2. a very similar quote at Maggie's Farm has a {{cn}} tag, and has "the young people" where this one has "they",
  3. no page except perhaps some mentioning "Wikipedia" appears to support the Maggie's Farm,
  4. the quote (with the Pete Seeger wording) is supported only by 2 sites, apparently wording the quote identically to each other, and sourcing it with the same apparently identical, and apparently hopelessly vague Spanish sentence:
    Les dejo un fragmento que encontré de Pete hablando sobre aquel rumor:
    (Per Google translation:) I leave a piece I found Pete talking about that rumor:
  5. I'm replacing the quote with the quote that is supported by the existing citation in the Pete Seeger article.

More later.
--Jerzy•t 09:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

My only source of information on this issue is Joe Boyd's book "White Bicycles" (2005), page 104:

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. 'They're looking for you backstage'. Alan Lomax, Pete Seeger and Theo Bikel were standing by the stairs, furious. 'You've got to turn the sound down. It's far too loud.' I told them I couldn't control the sound levels from backstage and there was no walkie-talkie system.

This clearly contradicts Seeger's 2001 version of events. But perhaps Joe Boyd has an agenda to tarnish Seeger's reputation. He was no friend of what he called "The New York school" of political, stripped down singing. Boyd does not actually attribute the words to Seeger. I suspect that it was Alan Lomax who said it was too loud. Ogg (talk) 10:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

IMO
It's far too loud.
and
Fix the sound so you can hear the words.
not only could be consistently uttered by the same person, but also could easily be, without even any unconscious attempt to spin the situation, the respective remembered paraphrases of the speaker and a listener, even far less than 40 years after the fact.
I would hope nothing is being made of Seeger's omitting to mention Lomax and Bikel: even if these less controversial figures were equally disapproved by the folk-rock enthusiasts, they were much less well-known to young fans, i think much less seen as political activists, and presumably were not such attractive targets even if they were equally critical of BD's move. And even if they were equally or more responsible or reviled, it would have been petty for him to "shift blame" to them, and risk dragging them further into his troubles if he combined defending them with defending himself.
So if i follow, what "clearly contradicts" Seeger is his saying that he "ran over to [or to within earshot of] the guy at the controls and" was able to shout and be understood, and Joe Boyd seeming to imply, 40 years later in White Bicycles, that there was a physical layout incompatible with the one Seeger describes. (If you're not 60 or over, ask someone who is, and is not that full of themself, who much you forget in 40 year as an adult, even if you aren't yet saying
The legs are the second thing to go, but i can't remember what the first is.
That aside, if the difference were self-serving to Seeger (am i missing something?), we'd have to ask whether it is substantial enuf for the article.
--Jerzy•t 23:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
'I ran over to the guy at the controls' - Pete Seeger.
Boyd's version is as follows:
'Where are the controls? How do you get there?' Bikel demanded. I told him to walk out to the parking lot, turn left, follow the fence to the main entrance, come back down the centre isle and he would see it there around row G - a journey of almost a quarter-mile. They looked daggers at me. 'I know you can get there quicker than that,' said Lomax. I admitted that I usually climbed the fence. for a brief moment we all contemplated the notion of one of those dignified and, barring Seeger, portly men doing the same. Then Lomax snarled, 'You go out there right now and you tell them the sound has got to be turned down. That's an order from the board'. OK I said and ran to the pile of milk crates by the lighting trailer. In a few seconds I was standing beside the sound board.... (a few sententences omitted) ...Grossman, Yarrow [Peter Yarrow, a member of the Board], and Rothchild were sitting behind the board, grinning liker cats. I leaned over to convey the message from Lomax. 'Tell Alan the board is adequately represented at the sound controls and the board member here thinks the sound level is just right,' said Yarrow. Then he looked up at me, smiled and said, 'And tell him ...' and he raised the middle finger of his left hand.
If you wish to remove the phrase 'There are many conflicting versions', then that's fine by me. I am happy for Seeger's version of events to stand as the definitive version.
--Ogg (talk) 07:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Wow! Now i see why you found it compelling enuf to mention; thanks for all the details!
If i seemed to be coming on strong for a change of wording, i regret that. I was assuming there probably are at least a few versions, and while it wouldn't surprise me if i put the {{fact}} tag on "many conflicting versions", i don't see the tag at all as a call for quick removal, but as a solicitation to editors to bring forward refs: . Ogg has given a title and p#, which suffices for a ref, and indeed demonstrated Seeger at least unmistakably describing grossly different circumstances. When we have a one-sentence summary on that conflict, i'd prefer to add it, and move the fact tag from following "versions" to following many -- and i hope that sounds thorought without being snarky!
--Jerzy•t 08:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moe Asch

Barely a mention of Moe Asch here, but during the lean years of the late 1950s Seeger recorded numerous albums of American folk songs for Asch's Folkways label. Probably deserves more mention: not a particularly commercial part of his career, but a significant body of recording, and all still in print from Smithsonian Folkways. - Jmabel | Talk 07:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] HUAC

I don't immediately have a source for this, which is why I'm bringing it here rather than straight into the article, but Seeger's use of a First Amendment defense before HUAC was unusual to the point of being either unprecedented or nearly so. For the most part, those who refused to testify pleaded the Fifth Amendment: that is, they refused to make statements that might incriminate them. Seeger made the very different argument that whatever he had done was entirely legal, and that it was simply not the government's business whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party. - Jmabel | Talk 08:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Finding sources on his taking the 1st is easy, you can read his testimony in several places. Finding a good source stating that no one else did the same is a little harder. The current text of this article isn't badly sourced, so I'm not concerned. While we're on the topic, doesn't anyone know if there was an audio/video recording made of his testimony. I'd love the hear the inflections on exchanges like:
Mr. TAVENNER: Did you sing this song, to which we have referred, “Now Is the Time,” at Wingdale Lodge on the weekend of July Fourth?
Mr. SEEGER: I don’t know any song by that name, and I know a song with a similar name. It is called “Wasn’t That a Time.” Is that the song?
Chairman WALTER: Did you sing that song?
Mr. SEEGER: I can sing it. I don’t know how well I can do it without my banjo.
Chairman WALTER: I said, Did you sing it on that occasion?
Mr. SEEGER: I have sung that song. I am not going to go into where I have sung it. I have sung it many places.
I love the offer to sing it for them. --Ahc (talk) 05:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree that what is currently in the article is well sourced. What I'm saying is that there is nothing in the article explaining that his defense was unusual, and we would do well to try to track down a citation for that and say so. - Jmabel | Talk 06:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sing Out! Magazine

When I was a toddler, in the very early 1960's, my mother, who was a folk singer had acquired a lot of Sing Out! Magazines from the end of the 1950s and early 1960s. They appeared quarterly, I think, always with a little floppy recording of a folk song featured that could be placed on a 45 RPM record, as well as other various songs, etc. She kept those magazines like a treasure trove, (I remember new ones arriving as late as 1969, but am unsure after that..) until she died when I was 20. I was told that Pete was the person who used the familiar pen name of "Johnny Appleseed" to comment on political happenings, because he had either been blacklisted by McCarthyism, or because he feared it would happen, I'm not clear on which. Just something I thought was meaningful, if anyone is familiar with it. --leahtwosaints (talk) 08:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nobel Prize

Pete Seeger for Nobel Peace Prize: http://www.nobelprize4pete.org/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.1.200.212 (talk) 14:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Absence of discography

I notice that the Japanese Wikipedia has a very thorough discogrphy of Pete Seeger

while you have none. why? Ogg (talk) 14:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Plenty of good Seeger discographies out there; not sure it's a terribly valuable addition for us to duplicate that. - Jmabel | Talk 05:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure there's a ton of great Dylan discographies out there, but wikipedia has one. Somebody should include a Seeger discog. Friendship hurricane (talk) 17:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Siblings Charles and John

I've added mention of two other brothers, Charles (an astronomer, who was a colleague of mine) and John (I do not know his profession).Bill Jefferys (talk) 21:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I have received email from Judith Tick, a professor at Northeastern University, and from Anthony Seeger, John Seeger's son, that confirms that John Seeger was an educator. I have added this information to the article. Bill Jefferys (talk) 02:17, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Revision as of 23:56, 28 February 2008

... by "Why can't I pick a unique username?" ...

citing:

(this is pretty contentious material, and the sources are terrible (only a year for a weekly magazine?) so removed as BLP concern; removing impunged motivatons)

I could tease out three main sections of content removed:

  1. ... took the Communist Party's non-interventionist line after Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact in 1939. Seeger routinely referred to President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a "warmonger beholden to the likes of J.P. Morgan" and expressed his displeasure about FDR's increasingly confrontational attitude with Axis Powers.
  2. Time Magazine said that Seeger's album "echoed the mendacious Moscow view". (ref-to:John Bush Jones. The Songs That Fought the War: Popular Music and the Home Front. 2006 )
  3. (ref to: Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley. Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry During the 1930s and 1940s) An article written in 2006 by an official of the American libertarian Cato Institute reported that in the early years of World War II, political opponents called Seeger "Stalin's Songbird". (ref to: David Boaz, Stalin's songbird, Comment is free, Guardian Unlimited. April 14, 2006. Accessed online 16 October 2007.)

I WAS able to corroborate source #2 above as being on p. 62 of the book referred to: Time magazine (of the WW2 era) was the source the quote was attributed to by the book cited, rather than the source itself. I base this on the on-line access of the text of the book at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=NlUVOC70BCEC

... the citation of which, rather than Time magazine, would really be to something along the lines of:

   "THE SONGS THAT FOUGHT THE WAR; Popular Music and the Home Front, 1939-1945", by 
   John Bush Jones, Brandeis University Press; Waltham, Massachussetts; Published by 
   the University Press of New England; Hanover and London, p. 62, etc.

It's worth noting that the tone of bullet #2's wiki content and its original passage was not nearly as subjective in tone as the rest of the wikipedia entry section it was tossed out with was.

I could not find basis for the content of bullet sections #1 and #3 in the Jones book.

Mention of "JP Morgan" and "Stalin's songbird" are from the Boaz opinion piece and nothing more I can discern without more investigation. Based on that source alone, the content should probably only be included in a section dedicated to criticism of Seeger, if any.

I think the "mendacious Moscow view" reference might be well-sourced and even-toned enough to be included though limiting it to a criticism section might also be in order. There is also a bibliography on p. 295 of the Jones book. Other than that it happens to be the one cited here, and be easily accessible, I don't know how much more or less authoritative this book is than others.

There was also a "citation needed" tag inserted more recently. To what to attribute the qualifier "to this day" may very well merit its own citation, but there is also reference in the Jones book to the destruction of those pressings so I am left wondering if the sentence before the tagged one may also have been based on the Jones book if not the Billingsley book, mention of which was also deleted. Maybe another pass by the original respective wikipedia editors is in order?

... just wanted to clarify those few things around that edit.

-thanks, Onceler (talk) 09:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

FWIW - and I say this as a big fan of Seeger's, with not dissimilar politics - I think what was removed was pretty accurate, and that if people think the citations are inadequate, we should seek better ones.
I assume no one would consider David King Dunaway's How Can I Keep From Singing to be biased against Seeger. Here's his recounting of some of this; page numbers are from the 1982 paperback edition, which is what I have at hand. This is by no means comprehensive of what Dunaway has to say on the topic, but I think it is entirely representative:
p. 73: ...the Communist party—and most of Pete's friends—had broken with Roosevelt over his refusal to support the Spanish Republic and over his preparations for war. All summer Pete had read about the fat defense contracts given at Ford and other companies... Pete had never been enthusiastic about fighting, even in Spain. Now, like many Communist radicals in 1940, he opposed Hitler but denounced war as "imperialist," a provocation to get the Nazis to fight the Soviet Union.
p. 79: ...at a party in Greenwich Village... He had been finishing up an anti-war song poking fun at Winston Churchill when "a drunk guy came up and, WHAM ... socked me right in the eye" ... The assault only made Pete more outspokenly anti-war; he hated to be told what to sing.
p. 81: (from Songs for John Doe, a to the tune of "Jesse James"):
Oh, Franklin Roosevelt told the people how he felt.
We damned near believed what he said.
He said, "I hate war and so does Eleanor, but
We won't be safe 'till everybody's dead ....
- "Ballad of October 16"
Full lyrics are online at http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/oct16.html, part of a site based at http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/doe.html about the album. The site is probably in a bit of a copyright limbo (in that it is the reproduction of so much material under a claim of fair use), but I see no reason to think it is inaccurate. The line about J.P. Morgan can be found there. Another line about Morgan is in "Washington Breakdown".
p. 84: (at the time of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union) For two years the Communist Left had followed Russia's lead in opposing the war. Now partisans of the Soviet Union were cut adrift, hesitant either to go to war or to desert Russia. How could the Almanacs go on singing peace songs while the Soviet Union fought for its life?
p. 84: (quoting Dorothy Millstone of the New York Post): "After hearing that Russia had been invaded, I hung up the phone, and the first think I did was to break my Almanac Records."
p. 85 mentions a song title "Franklin D. You Ain't Gonna Send Me Across the Sea".
p. 85 Many would later criticize [Seeger's and others'] flip-flops as cold-hearted, overlooking the deep roots of both anti-Nazi and anti-war instincts in the thirties.
p. 86 ...a Harvard professor, Carl Frederick, called the Almanacs "Poison in Our System" in an article in the June [1941] Atlantic.
Also, not on this specific shift but on his being perceived as a Party follower, on p. 123, quoted from Bosses' Songbook (1959) by Pat and Dick Ellington; the lyrics are to the tune of "The Wreck of the Old '97":
Well, they gave him his orders / Up at Party Headquarters / Saying, "Pete you're way behind the times. / This is not '38, this is 1947 / and there's been a change in that old party line. // Well, it's a long, long haul / From "Greensleeves" to "Freiheit"...
And the following; no longer accurate, but presumably so at the time of writing (1981). On p.184, after quite a bit of material about his drift away from the CPUSA, his relying on the First Amendment rather than the Fifth, etc., He did not criticize the Party, however. ... To date, Seeger has never publicly criticized Soviet intervention in Hungary or Czechoslovakia.

- Jmabel | Talk 06:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC) updated 06:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a citation for "Stalin's songbird" that comes from the WWII era, but here is an article from New Statesman about "Big Joe Blues", which also references the epithet. Hardly a source hostile to Seeger, although this article also seems to derive, at least in part, from Ronald Radosh's remarks, so it's not clear that its author did any research of his own. - Jmabel | Talk 06:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I found a reasonably good online source for the Time "mendacious" quote and the Atlantic "poison" quote. They both at peteseeger.net, the "Pete Seeger Appreciation Page" that Jim Capaldi started around 1996 and which his daughter continues today. The June 1941 Atlantic article is excerpted there, the short Time piece appears to be quoted in full and is dated precisely: the June 16, 1941 issue of Time. - Jmabel | Talk 07:10, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The sentence from Time is "Professionally performed with new words to old folk tunes, John Doe's singing scrupulously echoed the mendacious Moscow tune: Franklin Roosevelt is leading an unwilling people into a J. P. Morgan war." - Jmabel | Talk 07:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the additional material and links. Speaking as a great fan, I still think this article shouldn't shirk the more difficult stuff. It can be done fairly and respectfully. Learning from the past is the best course and the more objective and broader the treatment, the better. I haven't been contributing to wikipedia too much recently but will add other updates here if I come across sources. -regards, Onceler (talk) 22:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mother

Who is Pete Seeger's mother? No mention of who she is, only his step mother. Friendship hurricane (talk) 17:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

His mother's name was Constance. She was a noted classical violinist. I do not have a maiden name at the present time. Bill Jefferys (talk) 19:51, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
With help from one of Charles L. Seeger's grandchildren, I have learned that Constance Seeger's maiden name was Edson; a New York Times clipping confirms this, and I've included that in a new reference. Bill Jefferys (talk) 13:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Toshi Seeger

I see that the page for Pete's wife, Toshi Seeger, was deleted for non-notability. I think she probably would make the notability threshold if someone did their research to show why, but as an alternative is there any reason not to make that page redirect here, and possibly add more about her in this article? - Jmabel | Talk 17:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Story Songs

Might want to add a mention of his album Story Songs and possibly an article on the album itself. I've always (well, since it came out in the early 1960s) considered it a standout of his solo career. - Jmabel | Talk 17:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)