Pete Seeger
(May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014)
“What Pete Seeger has done is really, really create a huge body of work and a huge body of people who really see life in terms of what we can do to heal what’s wrong and create wonderment where it’s needed. And that’s not just about political things, it’s human. It’s about love songs, it’s about work songs, it’s about all kinds of music that characterizes human activity.”
– Peter Yarrow
Pete Seeger was a renowned musician, songwriter, and social and environmental activist. He was the featured artist on some 150 records and CDs.
He was widely known for his encouragement of group singing, always asking his audience to sing along. He was very active in advocating for farmers, workers rights, civil rights, and environmental causes.
In addition to his music, he was the author and editor of 10 books, and writer of countless columns and articles.
He sponsored an environmental education program with a restored Hudson River sloop, re-named as the “Clearwater” which advocated against pollution and educated young people about the acquatic environment.
He was a prolific songwriter. Some of his best-known songs include “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”, “If I Had Hammer” (with Lee Hays of the Weavers), “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”. Turn! Turn! Turn! And he changed the lyrics for “We Will Overcome” to “We Shall Overcome” which became the anthem for the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s.
Many of his songs became major hits for groups like the Kingston Trio with “Where have all the flowers gone” and “If I Had a Hammer”
Other artists profited from his song-writing. “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” became huge hits for Peter, Paul and Mary. The “Byrds” had a number one hit with “Tum! Turn! Turn!”
Perhaps his best “Peace Song” promoting universal brotherhood is “My Rainbow Race.” (YouTube).
Find additional insights about Pete Seeger’s strong environmental music career below.
Picture above: In 1997, the Pacific Island nation of Palau recognized him and his sloop the “Clearwater” as part of a series on oceanographic research vessels, including those of Jacque Costeau.
Pat Humphries of Emma’s Revolution writes:
“Pete & Toshi Seeger’s Hudson River Sloop Clearwater is a project that’s very dear to me. Clearwater needs our support now more than ever to keep alive Pete’s dream of a healthy sustainable Hudson River. This is my love song to the river and to Pete’s beautiful dream.“
Listen or purchase this song and read the lyrics (off-site link)
She lives Pete Seeger’s dream each time she sails
Inspiring folks with songs, enchanting them with tales
Ancient water touches all our lives
Keep our water sacred and we will all survive
On July 21, 2022, the United States Postal Service issued a “Forever” postage stamp celebrating Pete Seeger as the 10th musician to appear on the Postal Service’s popular Music Icons series.
The image on the stamp is from a color-tinted black-and-white photograph taken in the early 1960’s by Seeger’s son, Dan Seeger. The photo was colorized for use on the stamp.
In a press release, the Postal Service stated: “Pete Seeger (1919-2014) promoted the unifying power of voices joined in song to address social issues. His adaptation of “We Shall Overcome” became a civil rights anthem. Led by his ringing tenor voice and emblematic five-string banjo, his sing-along concerts mixed traditional songs and Seeger originals like “If I Had a Hammer” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” During his long career, the charismatic and idealistic performer became a folk hero to generations.”
Pete Seeger First Day Cover by 6° Cachets
This First Day Cover features a photo of Pete Seeger with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders. The accompanying text reads:
Pete Seeger, who helped popularize the Civil Rights movement’s protest anthem “We Shall Overcome,” first met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1957 at Highlander
Folk School, a social justice leadership training school and cultural center located in New Market, Tennessee. Seeger recalls the day: “I met him, I met all three of them that day. As a matter of fact there is a picture taken of us standing in front of a cinder block wall that enlarged the bam which became their library, and King, Ralph Abemathy, Rosa Parks, me, and Miles and Zelphilia Horton’s teenage daughter, Charis, were there.” Dr. King delivered the main speech that day, honoring the school’s 25th anniversary. As part of the meeting, folk singer Pete Seeger got up with his banjo. He plucked out a song he had learned at Highlander, and led the audience in singing it. Later that day, Dr. King found himself humming the tune in the car. “There’s something about that song that haunts you,” he said to his companions. That song in question was the protest movement song “We Shall Overcome,” based on a composition by Charles Albert Tindley(1851-1933).
The 6 Degrees Cachets line, which began in 2008, was created to fill the void of philatelic covers depicting African Americans and Black Heritage.
Pete Seeger First Day Cover by Coverscape 2022.
In this clever illustration (a “cachet” in stamp collector jargon), an older Pete is seen singing some of the lyrics from “Turn, Turn, Turn,” the song he adapted from the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes.
“Keep your sense of humor. There is a 50 – 50 chance that the world can be saved. You – yes you – might be the grain of sand that tips the scales the right way.” – Pete Seeger.
- Pete Seeger’s critically important 1966 album God Bless the Grass was one of the first and most important record albums to feature songs with a strong environmental theme. In 1998, it was re-issued on CD with three additional tracks!
This outstanding album was my first exposure to “earth songs” or environmental music.
Unfortunately, the message it delivers is just as relevant today as it was over 50 years ago. Nevertheless, in characteristic Seeger style, none of these songs are preachy; in fact most use a delightful dose of humor to convey the message!
The satirical tone of many of the songs are somewhat belied by the liner notes. The original liner notes include an eloquent essay about wilderness preservation and conservation written by U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. How prescient he was! He wrote:
“Wilderness use covers a variety of multiple uses – refuges for elk and goats, hiking and horseback travel, fishing, watershed protection, and the maintenance of the biotic community in complete ecological balance. These values cannot be preserved if logging, highways, hot dog stands, and motels take over… We want some of the original America left in its primitive condition so that one hundred years from now a lad can walk the hills in the manner of Daniel Boone and see what God has wrought.”
The entire Douglas essay is also included with the CD album, along with a comprehensive description of Pete Seeger’s career and the songs on the album.
Long concerned with the cause of labor and civil rights, peace, and freedom in general, in the mid-60’s Pete Seeger became concerned about pollution and the environment. His song, “My Dirty Stream (The Hudson River Song)” became the linchpin for the album God Bless the Grass. The bulk of the original 18 songs on the album were produced in recording sessions in June, 1965.
Noted songwriter Malvina Reynolds composed six of the songs on the album: “70 Miles,” “The Faucets Are Dripping,” “Cement Octopus,” “God Bless the Grass,” “From Way Up Here,” and a bonus track on the CD, “There’ll Come a Time.” According to Nancy Schimmel, Malvina Reynolds’ daughter, while the song “God Bless the Grass” was portrayed here as an ecology song, Malvina wrote it after reading Mark Lane’s conspiracy theories about the John F. Kennedy assassination.Two of the songs extoll the beauty of America: Phil Ochs’ “The Power and the Glory,” and Eric Anderson’s “My Land is A Good Land.”
Traditional folk songs and a number of unique compositions such as Peter La Farge’s, “Coyote, My Little Brother,” round out the album.Pete Seeger put his environmental concern not only into music, but into an unique ecology research and environmental education organization, the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, restored and launched in 1969, which still operates today!
In addition to the original 18 songs, three songs recorded by Pete at the original 1965 recording sessions have been included on the CD: An instrumental “America the Beautiful,” a very short and satirical “Business,” and Malvina Reynolds’ vision of ecological calamity, “There’ll Come a Time.”
Here’s the complete song list for the album:
The Power and the Glory, Pretty Saro, 70 Miles, The Faucets Are Dripping, Cement Octopus, God Bless the Grass, The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood, Coal Creek March, The Girl I Left Behind, I have a Rabbit, The People Are Scratching, Coyote My Little Brother, Preserven El Parque Elysian, My Dirty Stream (The Hudson River Song), Johnny Riley, Barbara Allen (Instrumental), From Way Up Here, My Land is a Good Land, America the Beautiful (Instrumental), Business, There’ll Come a Time . - I feature a beautiful, but lesser-known song by Pete Seeger –“To My Old Brown Earth” on my Songs for Green Burial Page. He sings:
“To my old brown earth
And to my old blue sky
I’ll now give these last few molecules of “I.'” - Pete Seeger – Pantheist Folksinger (2022) by Harold Wood (PDF)
- Pete Seeger – by author and radio producer David K. Dunaway (off-site link).
Pete Seeger First Day of Issue Cover by CEC FM 2022.
The reference to Newport, Rhode Island is because the first day of issue for the Pete Seeger stamp was on July 21, 2022, one day before the opening of the Newport Folk Festival (which Seeger co-founded) in Newport, Rhode Island. The ceremony for the release of the stamp was held just prior to the “For Pete’s Sake” concert that took place at the Festival.
The First Day Cover here showing Pete Seeger playing his signature five-string banjo was produced by McIntosh Cachets.
After spending 4 years learning to play the five-string banjo, he wrote a book about how to play the instrument. He went on to invent the long-neck or Seeger banjo. This instrument is three frets longer than a typical banjo, is slightly longer than a bass guitar at 25 frets, and is tuned a minor third lower than the normal 5-string banjo. Hitherto strictly limited to the Appalachian region, the five-string banjo became known nationwide as the American folk instrument par excellence, largely thanks to Seeger’s championing of and improvements to it.
Seeger’s custom banjo was famously emblazoned with the motto “This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender.”