The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #153529   Message #3596050
Posted By: Stilly River Sage
28-Jan-14 - 01:41 AM
Thread Name: Obit: Pete Seeger (1919-2014)
Subject: RE: Obit: Pete Seeger (1919-2014)
The New York Times now has an obituary in place.

Pete Seeger, the singer, folk-song collector and songwriter who spearheaded an American folk revival and spent a long career championing folk music as both a vital heritage and a catalyst for social change, died Monday. He was 94 and lived in Beacon, N.Y.

His death was confirmed by his grandson, Kitama Cahill Jackson, who said he died of natural causes at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

Mr. Seeger's career carried him from singing at labor rallies to the Top 10 to college auditoriums to folk festivals, and from a conviction for contempt of Congress (after defying the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s) to performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama.

For Mr. Seeger, folk music and a sense of community were inseparable, and where he saw a community, he saw the possibility of political action.

In his hearty tenor, Mr. Seeger, a beanpole of a man who most often played 12-string guitar or five-string banjo, sang topical songs and children's songs, humorous tunes and earnest anthems, always encouraging listeners to join in. His agenda paralleled the concerns of the American left: He sang for the labor movement in the '40s and '50s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the '60s, and for environmental and antiwar causes in the '70s and beyond. "We Shall Overcome," which Mr. Seeger adapted from old spirituals, became a civil rights anthem.


The article is quite long, you'll find the rest at the link, and their links are durable so I won't copy the whole thing here.

SRS