Produced By Jim Musselman
You know the songs. You have sung them since the earliest memory of your parents voice. They sang his songs to you while in the cradle. You heard them by the campfire, listened to them being sung by your neighbor, a foxy, straight long haired, 15 year old, Joan Baez wanna-be, whose strumming was horrible and whose voice was marginal; but it didn’t matter because it was summer, and you were both 15. On this disc, the usual suspects; Bruce, Jackson, Bonnie, Roger, Richie, and even a guy named Studs, create a whole new way to listen to Pete Seeger, one outstanding American.
Since 1934, Pete Seeger has been the man in folk. He has kept the faith for all of these years, all 77 of them. Now you may think you know everything there is to know about Pete Seeger and his music. Maybe even went a little bonkers listening to, "in the jungle, the mighty jungle, a lion sleeps tonight...wimoweh wimoweh..." But I got a feeling you might not know what you ought to know about Pete Seeger. Here’s a sampling of assorted and unrelated facts that you can share at your next party. As you know Pete joined the Weavers in the late 4O’s. In 1950 they recorded a Leadbelly song, "Goodnight Irene", which became the longest tenured number one song in the top 100 charts from 1948 to 1975. Anyone know what song replaced it?
Pete’s advocacy of the folk movement was no more visible than at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when Pete unplugged the freshly electric Dylan. Pete puts his own spin on the deed, saying, "That the public address system was turned up so far that no one could understand the words". Uh, Pete, that was the point. Of course, during that same time period Seeger was at the forefront of the civil rights and anti-war movement. By the end of the 60’s Pete was established as a father figure in the music field. He has penned over 100 songs, and on his two volume disk set you find 39 of them. Each cut reveals remarkable interpretations by the artists. If you have any objection it would be that I could somehow hear these new recordings done on the LP format. Listening to Pete’s music seems more appropriate with a scratch, a pop, the occasional hiss.
Nevertheless, Jim Musselman has done a super job at putting the songs and artists together.
Pete’s latest passion has nothing to do with music per se. From Pete, "There was no such thing as the "Plug-in Drug" in the 30’s. TV is a horrible thing. Life is meant to be lived, not watched. In the old days only rich people said they were bored; but now millions of people are saying, "I’m bored, I’m bored". Seeger has served as this nation’s Jeremiah for what seen’s to be an eternity. The passion of his music, the encouragement of his words, receive spectacular treatment on this disk. Consider that his pen wrote the anthem for the Civil Rights Movement, "We Shall Overcome", who better to sing it than the Boss. For the subversive, innovative Seeger, he is honored thirty-nine times by reverent renditions
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