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TechnoratiPete Seeger: The Power of Song
Pete Seeger has been making music for 80 years. It should be impossible to do that justice in 90 minutes, but "Pete Seeger: The Power of Song" does it. This tightly packed, but graceful, documentary tells the story through the voices of musicians, friends, family, and the man himself, along with a rich helping of music.
Seeger's story is full of subplots, all covered here: hoboing with Woody Guthrie, stardom with The Weavers, blacklisting and contempt of Congress, the civil rights movement, Vietnam War activism, Hudson River cleanup, and elder statesman of the folk movement.
But the overarching theme is his unique approach to music. For Seeger, music is a tool to bring people together, and that, as much as the singing, is the point. As we see him leaving the stage of Carnegie Hall at the end of a concert when he was 84, he says in voiceover, "I've never sung anywhere without giving the people listening to me a chance to join in. As a kid, as a lefty, as a man touring the U.S.A. and the world, as an oldster. I guess it's kind of a religion with me. Participation. That's what's going to save the human race."
What comes through most clearly is Seeger's belief in his cause, his optimism, and his joy in living. There is no trace of bitterness as he recalls the years when his blacklisting was so complete that he "traveled from college to college to college" playing for whatever crowds would come to sing with him. His son asks whether he was afraid of going to jail. Seeger replies, "I'm probably very stupid, but I was not fearful. I really believed, and I think I was right, that in the long run, this country doesn't go in for things like that."
As the film explores the story of the sloop Clearwater and the rehabilitation of the Hudson River, Seeger says, "We've all got to be involved in trying to put this world together. I think if the world is put together, it isn't going to be done by big organizations. It's going to be done by millions upon millions of little organizations, often local."
Watching this moving demonstration of the power of music and personal dedication leaves you believing it can be done.
Doug Pibel is Managing Editor of YES! Magazine.
See the trailer for Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
Screening and DVD release information can be found at Jim Brown Films.
© 2007 YES! Magazine
20 Comments so far
Show All"LOCUST — are there tens of thousands more just like you?"
One can only hope!
If Pete, Bob and Joan are allowed to do a reunion concert, I demand we bring back Spinal Tap....
Pete Seeger
As a little boy in the early 1950s I would play the 78 speed record Good Night Irene, over and, over again. My mother would say, "Put something else on." I would turn the Weavers record over and play the other side, On Top Of Old Smoky. A decade later in 1962 I saw one of the Weavers, preform live at Holey Cross College, in Worcester, MA. I have been siting in Pete Seeger's audience ever since, from his children's concert on the Boston Common, to the Newport Folk Festivals in the 1960s, to his many concerts in New York's Central Park during the 1970s.
I like listening to his records, and his songs, but the biggest joy was to be part of a Pete Seeger audience. I guess it is more fun to lift your own voice in song, than to listen to someone else sing. Everyone sang, hummed, whistled, clapped their hands or did something at a Pete Seeger Concert, and Pete had a special talent at getting the audience to do so. In the mid 1970s, sing alongs became kind of out dated. A rich man who lived next to Central Park was trying to get the city to stop the concerts, because he was bothered by the music. Pete mentioned to the audience that he had partial success, in having Rock Bands removed from the schedule. He said, "You won't be having any loud electric music this year, but the city is still allowing folks like us to come out here and sing. Some time, when we want to, we can sing pretty loud." Well, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, step aside! That was the loudest sing along that I have ever attended.
Pete Seeger taught us that together we could make good music, and also together we could make a better world. Differences can be solved without war, or violence, injustice can be fixed, and we can live comfortably in a world with out destroying our natural environment. His contributions to music are only over shadowed by his inspirations to us all.
MikeBinSC Thanks great links.
Sorry for spelling Woody's name wrong.I know it wasn't that late ,but I started early.
You will find protest singers in every county of USA... and every Country on Earth.
Here are your protest singers, thousands of them, giving you their music FREE -
http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/lwwsongspage.html
and here -
http://www.topplebush.com/music.shtml
and videos here -
http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/lwwvideospage.html
If you are waiting to hear this on your corporate-controlled radio and tv media, don't hold your breath.
The Lorax asks: Where are the protest singers now when we need them so much?
Start with Steve Earle and Eliza Gilkyson, who have both written some powerful songs about the Iraq war.
There are others, too.
Pete was the main influence for me and my buddy, Phil Ochs and thousands of Peacmakin' Artists all over the world.
His approach is to assume that his audience wants what he wants and his optimism is catching... He always gets the audience to sing along...
I just did a peace concert at the Unitarian Church in Orange City Florida With my Friends Bill And Eli... we ended up with the good old sing alongs and everyone loved it.
Things are changing so fast and I was amazed that the audience loved to hear my Stories about JFK"s assassination (When Phil and me were sent to Texas to observe the operation) that has been ignored by media but Folks are getting it more now as long as I can live to tell the Tale.
If it wasn't for Pete's inspiration, I think I would be dead... We like all kinds of music that tell the story.
am I lucky or what?
I was pleased to catch the movie in NYC and would heartily recommend it. It is inspirational and if you like to sing there are moments when the theatre audience joined in with the filmed concert audience. Truly worth seeing. Music has power. Sing out for peace, folks!
Check Out Tom Morello "The Nightwatchman" - One Man Revolution
Also:
Immortal Technique
Army Of The Pharaohs
Razorlight - Song "America"
Ill Bill
STATE RADIO/DISPATCH
SASHAMON
and many others....
"...And just so conservatives don't take it to heart,
I don't think Bush did it cause he isn't that smart.
He's just a stupid puppet taking orders on his cell phone,
From the same people who sabotaged senator Wellstone.
The military industry got it poppin' and lockin',
Looking for a way to justify the Wolfowitz doctrine.
And as a matter of fact Rumsfeld now that I think back,
Without 9/11 you couldn't have a war in Iraq.
Or a defense budget of world conquest porportions,
Kill freedom of speech and revoke the right to abortion.
Tax cut extprtion a blessing to the wealthy and wicked,
But you still have to answer to the Armageddeon you scripted.
And Dick Cheney you fucking leach,
Tell them your plans about building pipelines through Afghanistan.
And how Israeli troops trained the Taliban in Pakistan,
You might have some house niggaz fooled but I understand.
Colonialism is sponsored by corporations,
Thats why Halliburton gets paid to rebuild nations.
Tell me the truth I don't scare into paralysis,
I know the CIA saw Bin Laden on dialysis.
In '98 when he was top ten for the FBI,
Government ties is really why the government lies.
Read it yourself instead of asking the government why,
Because then the cause of death will cause the propaganda to die.
Father forgive them for they don't know right from wrong,
The truth will set you free written down in a song."
- Immortal Technique - The Cause of Death - Revolutionary Vol. 2
rucognizant, if Handel's Messiah is the apex of musicial experience for you, I can't resist wanting to reiterate John Cage's famous response to witnessing the piece in a live performance -
when a companion asked him if he enjoyed the performance, his response was lukewarm. Then they asked "don't you like to be moved?" He replied "Yes, but I don't like to be pushed."
Although I have never heard Pete actually perform, I have to say I like his music very much (I have heard most of his songs performed by other musicians). Where are the protest singers now when we need them so much? I see Ace Baker and Billy Bragg putting out some music. Joan Baez tried to sing but got sidelined by the US Nazi Army. Bob Dylan is still performing but his focus is on record sales now and not political activism. Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs left way too early. "Where have all the flowers gone?"
NOTHING has even come close to the Power of Handel's Messiah.
Currant alleged music played by currant alleged,"divas" ( wha?)
Has no intervals, no contrast , no yin yang,no nuances ..... no heart striking, involuntary rise to your feet, GREAT UPLIFTING CLIMAX.............just the same ol' same ol; ba, ba, ba, BA, ba ba ba BA, accompanied by nasel whining, screeching, nails on the blackboard. Corporate's lock step toward, conflictional oneness. Unitary Dis-ease! ( Yes WHO promotes it? Not the kids who perform, the Corpse! Can't escape it.
Stop buying it stop downloading it! IT'S A DOWNER, subtle tool of prozac, oxycontin producers......
Seegar is OK, DYlan is OK Baez is OK, words expressive........but the apppeal is still sentimental ,nosalgia.
I saw Pete over 50 years ago as a teenager (me -not him) in a concert in Weston Vermont. This was while he was blacklisted and working backwater places. I became a fan-hook, line and sinker. I have been one since. He is the gold standard by which all lesser folk singers are measured.
Bill
Actually this Woody Guthry song would be more appropriate:
Youtube Anti-Flag Post War Breakout
We need all the help we can get - intellectual, spiritual and artistic.
So thank you Locust, for your poem. For some reason I want to use the word home and trust but the order just isn't coming to me.
I posted on Cindy Sheehan's What is Peace? and Sean Penn's Puppeteers about a concert for peace to raise awareness of Kucinich's Presidential campaign. A lot of people don't know who he is. And I forgot to include Pete Seeger and Ani DiFranco. I'm embarrassed.
So, if you think a concert for Kucinich would be a good way to get his face and name out in the public, please spread the word. Because he is the best candidate and a man of peace.
LOCUST -- are there tens of thousands more just like you?
Thank you locust I must agree the logic in war I can not see.
Love Pet Seeger and the folk thing but don't overlook punk rockers when it comes to spreading the word.
Youtube:"The Decline" NOFX by Cesar Cepeda 1 of 3
Also check out Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, Propagandhi, The Misfits just to name a few.
I sounded a bit selfish and testy in my introduction. Sorry about that. I appreciate the wonderfulness of CD, really I do.
In our struggles one of the battlefields is that of words and ideas (or maybe that's two battlefields). Songs and poems can turn bullets into flowers, just like in Pepperland.
I hope y'all will forgive me for using this opportunity to inflict my latest creation upon this site. I submitted it to CD but it seems they only want to reprint news items. More's the pity, IMHO.
It's not written as a song, but feel free to sing it. Feel free to spread it around. Feel free.
Thanks to Dr. Seuss for letting me borrow Sam-I-am.
No rights are reserved. Any rebroadcast or other account of this gamey poem will not be prosecuted.
Which war is which?
Sam-I-am, which war is which?
I asked my friend. He answered Mitch,
I understand that you're confused.
I'm sad to say I am bemused
that you can't tell your wars apart.
That is not good. That is not smart.
So let us take them one by one.
Perhaps your fog will come undone.
Now, first let's talk about Iraq,
a sandy land run by a quack.
We went in there to bring him down,
to save each city, to save each town.
We won that war, we won it fast,
but the violence just seems to last.
So now we're stuck, we are so dumb,
in a country where we're not welcome.
Now, number two's the war on those
who on 9/11 bloodied our nose.
We're in the dark, you must agree,
on whom our enemy should be.
It's been six years but even so,
who did the deed we still don't know.
So if this war is going well,
I cannot guess, I cannot tell.
And that leaves us with number three,
the war to terrorize both you and me.
This war goes on both here and there
and its main goals are to cow and scare.
Our leader said we're in this war
and will be from now evermore.
So trust no one! Report odd folks!
It's serious so don't crack a joke.
This war goes well, our leader said.
It will be won when all are dead.
Those are the wars that we fight now,
how we'll survive I know not how.
I thanked my friend, good Sam-I-am,
and as for wars I say goddamn!
We need another musical voice of the likes of Seeger and Guthrie. The corporate media won't advertise anyone like them, but we need to support artists like Ani DiFranco, Michael Franti, and, well, I have to admit I don't know many yet.