Damn, Joe, you beat me to it. I went away from this machine and couldn't get this thread out of my mind. I was coming back to write a very similar message. In my own favorite genre, Irish music, I always hate it when a potential customer says, "no rebel songs". I always turn down the gig. How can one sing Irish folk music, without the politics that inspired a great deal of it. Bards throughout the ages, and in every land, have always used their abilities/talents to affect the ideas and politics of the times. And it was Pete, picking up where Woody laid off, that really encouraged this form of political expression. And when one considers the 20th century, who has done more, whether with written lyrics, the songs her performs, the music he published and continues to publish to preserve old forms as well as to encourage the newer forms than Pete Seeger. The reason that I go with him over Gutherie is that Gutherie did his own stuff, but Seeger reached out to all forms, and preservation. Now I would go with Lomax for a close second, but for the very reason you suggested, I couldn't make him #1.

There are so many great artists performing around the world, but for the one that has influenced the various genres on a more universal basis, It has got to be Pete.

All the best,

Mick Lane