He taught me to love folk music. When I was five, my mother took my sister and I to one of his free children's concerts at Live Oak Park in my hometown of Berkeley. Each successive time we went to see him, mom would buy us a ten-inch Folkways album of him, or a compilation with him on it. Those albums and concerts were a part of my upbringing. Kids being kids, I thought his name was "Pete Singer."Many years later, I learned that he was doing those park concerts at a time when he was blacklisted from performing in many concert halls. He has the greatest knack for getting people to sing and not feel self-conscious about it, another influence on me.