Pete Seeger - 70th Birthday
1989/05/03
Pete's home, Beacon, NY, USA
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01 INTRO
Hello, this is Jim Lloyd with Folk on Two. Which tonight comes from America. From the Hudson Highlands, about sixty miles north of New York. The home of Pete Seeger. Who today celebrates his seventieth birthday. This evening the whole of Folk on Two is given over to Pete Seeger. The man who's been described as America's tuning fork. ...

02 INTRO ALMANACS WEAVERS
Leaving Harvard he tried his luck as a journalist with little success. And after a series of adventures, including a trip to Oklahoma with Woody Guthrie, a spell with Huddie Ledbetter and a job in the Library of Congress Folk Archive assisting Alan Lomax, he found himself sharing an appartment with some young radicals. One of them was Lee Hayes. ...

03 INTRO CIVIL RIGHTS FOLKWAYS
To earn a living he took the singing at children's camps and colleges where he pioneered what was to become the 'College Circuit'. There he found a new audience for his songs on social issues. ...

04 CLEARWATER
Another project closer to home involved the Hudson river which curls around the foot of the hillside here where Pete and Toshi have lived for the past fourty years. In the 19th century the Hudson was famed for the remarkable purity of its water, but over the years it had become more and more polluted. ...

05 FOLKWAYS SMITHSONIAN
Another big project you've been involved in over the past couple of years that we featured a lot in Folk on Two is the Folkways album that you did. - WELL, MOSES ASCH CAME OVER TO THIS COUNTRY AS A BOY. CAME TO ELLIS ISLAND AS ANY OTHER IMMIGRANT DID IN THOSE DAYS, BUT HIS FATHER WAS A WRITER, A JOURNALIST. HE LATER ON WROTE SOME FAMOUS BOOKS. SHOLEM ASCH. AND HIS FATHER KNEW ALBERT EINSTEIN AND ASKED HIS SON, MOE, IF HE'D COME OUT AND HELP RECORD AN INTERVIEW WITH EINSTEIN. ...

06 PHILOSOPHY WOODY & HUDDIE
You mentioned that you met Bernice (ed. J. Reagon) during the civil rights movement. That was at a very difficult time in your life wasn't it? - OH NO! ...

07 LEE HAYES WOODY GUTHRIE
Come on then to your own songwriting, particularly with Lee Hayes. ...

08 RONNIE GILBERT
You came back with The Weavers, you and Lee Hayes. THE ALMANAC SINGERS WERE A NICE GANG, BUT WE KINDA REHEARSED ON STAGE. ...

09 PHILOSOPY
Welcome back to Folk on Two. Coming tonight from Pete Seeger's home in the Hudson Valley on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. - WI-MO-WEH... ...

10 NEWPORT
You're talking about the family atmosphere there. I suppose that's an atmosphere you worked very hard to recreate with the Newport Folk Festivals. And I say that, because once again Bob (ed. Davenport) was telling us what a terrific time he had when he came over here. I think 1963 he was here. We actually got a record of the 1963 Newport Folk Festival with Bob on it. Maybe we could just listen to Bob for a moment. WONDERFUL. ...

11 ALAN LOMAX CONCLUSION
I think Dylan was an enormous influence on the folk movement in Britain, as you have been. And I wonder particularly about Alan Lomax because he came over to England for a long period. - IF YOU HAD TO PICK OUT ANY ONE PERSON WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE REVIVAL OF INTEREST IN FOLK MUSC IN AMERICA, IN ENGLAND AND ALSO ITALY EVEN INCIDENTALLY, IT'S ALAN LOMAX. ...


In 2005 I shared the Pete Seeger 'In Concert for Chile', Royal Albert Hall, London (1978/03/07) [FM>19cms SONY REEL] recording from Mr. X and here again a fine FM he sent me at the time. Interesting and easy going meeting with Pete in the comfort and familiarity of his mountain top home at the Hudson or, as the Dutch would say, North River.

enjoy,



bomba, hungercity.org (HC), 2010/07/23