Folksinger, songwriter, and social activist. Seeger was a major figure in America’s folkmusic revival. He sought to link music with social change, doing so by popularizing
traditional folksongs, then changing the words to address social issues: workers’ rights in
the 1940s, the role of government in the 1950s, civil rights and the peace movement in
the 1960s, environmental issues in the 1970s and 1980s, and the role of technology in the
1990s. Seeger served as a bridge between traditional folksingers of the 1930s and 1940s
and the popular folk performers of the 1960s and later.
Seeger was born in New York City, the son of musicologist and activist Charles
Seeger, who left his son a legacy of musical theory and political radicalism. Pete entered
Harvard University intending to go into journalism, but when he was unable to find
employment after he left Harvard, he began playing his four-string banjo for schools and
camps. Later he learned the five-string banjo, an almost extinct instrument, which he
adapted to many different kinds of music. His elongated instrument, emblazoned with the
credo “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender,” became the symbol of the
tall, lanky performer.
Pete Seeger was fortunate to be living on the East Coast, where Huddie Ledbetter
(Lead Belly), Woody Guthrie, Alan Lomax, Aunt Molly Jackson, and Moses Asch were
laying the groundwork for the folk revival. They shared their vision, musical skills, and
songs with him. In 1940 he traveled with Guthrie, playing to and learning the songs of
American farmers and workers.
With Lee Hays, Seeger organized his first performing group, the Almanac Singers, in
1941. The members of the group—Seeger, Lee Hays, Millard Lampell, then Guthrie, and
later others—played primarily to union groups. During this period, Seeger joined the
Communist Party, believing in its program.
After World War II, during which Seeger served for three and a half years in the U.S.
Army, he and Lee Hays joined with Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman to form the
Weavers, a more professional singing group that, while still political, appealed to a larger
audience. Among the group’s biggest recorded hits were “Wasn’t That aTime,” “Kisses
Sweeter Than Wine,” “Wimoweh,” “Tzena, Tzena,” “Michael Row the Boat Ashore,”
and scores of their own versions of traditional folksongs. Although the Weavers were
blacklisted in 1952 because of Seeger’s earlier Communist Party affiliation, Seeger was
in 1962 acquitted of contempt of Congress. The Weavers directly influenced many
folksingers of the 1960s, including the Limelighters, the Kingston Trio, Arlo Guthrie, and
Peter, Paul, and Mary. Seeger left the Weavers in 1957 in order to spend more time with
his growing family.
They settled in Beacon, New York, overlooking the Hudson River, where Seeger built
a cabin, continued to write songs and to perform, and became involved in environmental
issues. Among the many songs, either composed or sung by Seeger and closely
associated with his name, are “We Shall Overcome,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!” “Waist Deep
in the Big Muddy,” and especially “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” In 1969 Seeger
helped launch the sloop Clearwater as a vehicle to educate children and Hudson River
inhabitants about the dangers of pollution, and in the 1990s he continues to worry about
the destructive potential of technology. An uncompromising idealist, Seeger hopes to pull the world together with music. He has performed for somewhere between four million
and five million people in forty countries, and he has released in excess of fifty albums,
recording more than 300 songs.
Although Seeger’s main contribution has been entering some types of folk music into
mainstream American music, he is concerned that the role of many kinds of the
traditional American folk performers has been minimalized.
Deirdre Paulsen
References
Dunaway, David King. 1981. How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger. New York: McGrawHill.
Seeger, Pete. 1962. How to Play the Five String Banjo. 3d rev. ed. New York: Oak Publications.
Seeger, Pete. 1993. Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Singer’s Stories, Songs, Seeds,
Robberies. Bethlehem, PA: Sing Out Publications.
Seeger, Pete, Bud Schultz, and Ruth Schultz, eds. 1989. Thou Shall Not Sing. In It Did Happen
Here: Recollections of Political Repression in America. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Seeger, Pete, and Jo Metcalf Schwartz, eds. 1972. The Incompleat Folksinger. New York: Simon
and Schuster.