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The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger Paperback – June 8, 2010
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Throughout his life, Pete Seeger transformed a classic American musical style into a form of peaceful protest against war, segregation, and nuclear weapons. Drawing on his extensive talks with Seeger, Alec Wilkinson delivers a first hand look at Seeger's unique blend of independence and commitment, charm, courage, energy, and belief in human equality and American democracy. We see Seeger as a child, instilled with a love of music by his parents; as a teenager, hearing real folk music for the first time; as a young adult, singing with Woody Guthrie. And finally, Seeger the man marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King in Selma, standing up to McCarthyism, and fighting for his beloved Hudson River. The gigantic life captured in this slender volume is truly an American anthem.
- Print length174 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJune 8, 2010
- Dimensions5.19 x 0.44 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100307390985
- ISBN-13978-0307390981
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A slim, lucid volume . . . packs in all the key twists and turns in Seeger's very full life."--Boston Globe
"Wilkinson has done a magnificent job of creating a picture of a virtuous and principled man."--Minneapolis Star Tribune
"In prose as unassuming as his subject, Wilkinson captures Seeger's unpretentious, down-to-earth manner."--San Francisco Chronicle
"In crisp, elegant prose, Wilkinson outlines Seeger's early life, his family's influence upon his work, his activism for peace, civil rights and the environment, and his friendships with other legends such as Woody Guthrie."--Dallas Morning News
"A quick read that is both pithy and entertaining."--Christian Science Monitor
“Wilkinson's biography reads as lucidly as if we were there with him, listening to Seeger's history as he boils maple sap down to syrup and chops his daily quota of firewood.”—Publishers Weekly
"[Wilkinson] draws a picture of the folk singer not only by summoning up his history, public and private, but by giving us the man observed, in small swatches of manner and conversation.”--Newsday
“Unmistakably affectionate.”—Booklist
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
After lunch we went out and looked at the river, and I could see where Seeger had been standing, in 1955, when a car arrived, and the man driving it asked if he was Pete Seeger. Then he handed Seeger an envelope and left. Seeger opened the envelope and called out to Toshi, “They’ve finally got around to me.” He had been summoned to testify before the House Un- American Activities Committee, in August.
Toshi found a lawyer who told Seeger that the option most commonly invoked was to cite the Fifth Amendment, which would lead to the case’s being dismissed. Seeger didn’t care for the inference of guilt that the gesture implied. People who had done so were sometimes described as “Fifth Amendment Communists.” The lawyer also said that Seeger could choose to talk about himself to the committee but refuse to talk about other people. “I had known I could do that,” Seeger told me, “because my father, in 1952, I think it was, had to resign his job inWashington when the FBI came and spoke to him, and he said, ‘I’m willing to undress myself in a sentence, but I’m not going to tell about anyone else I know.’ They said, ‘You’ve got to tell about everyone.’ He said he wasn’t willing to do that. He knew he would be fired, so he walked in the next morning and resigned. He was head of the music department of the Pan American Union. He’d hoped to hang on for a few years, since he hadn’t the savings, but he closed down his house—a great big house that he’d raised four kids in—and his wife had just died a few months earlier, and my sister was going to Radcliffe, so he went up and got a crowded little apartment in Cambridge. Anyway, the lawyer told me if, at the hearing, I answered the question, ‘Are you a member of the Communist Party?’ the next question would be, ‘Who did you know?’ ”
The third choice was to rely on the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters and producers, had tried this in 1947, and been convicted of contempt, jailed for a year, and then blacklisted. Employing this tactic, Seeger might spend years in court, have his career ruined, and still go to jail. The lawyer left the choice to Seeger. He told him not to bait the committee, to be polite, to answer their questions, or say why he wouldn’t. Refusing to answer would result in a contempt citation, and each citation could be worth a year in jail. As the hearing approached, the lawyer reviewed with Seeger the questions he was likely to be asked.
Seeger appeared before the committee, in New York, on August 18, 1955. He was interrogated by Walter Tavenner, the committee counsel; Representative Francis Walter, the chairman; Gordon Scherer, a congressman from Ohio and a former prosecutor; and Edwin Willis, a congressman from Louisiana. “They were small- town politicians,” Seeger said. “Walter was a lawyer from the coal country.”
Seeger wore a tweed jacket, a plaid shirt, a yellow tie, and dark pants. Toshi sat in the audience, with his banjo. The men asked what Seeger did for a living. Student of American folklore, he said, but he made his living as “a banjo picker.” Before going into the Army, had he practiced his profession?
“It is hard to call it a profession,” Seeger said. “I kind of drifted into it and I never intended to be a musician, and I am glad I am one now, and it is a very honorable profession, but when I started out actually I wanted to be a newspaperman, and when I left school—”
“Will you answer the question, please?” Tavenner asked.
“I have to explain that it really wasn’t my profession,” Seeger said. “I picked up a little change in it.”
“Did you practice your profession?”
“I sang for people, yes, before World War II, and I also did as early as 1925.”
“And upon your return from the service in December of 1945, you continued in your profession?”
“I continued singing, and I expect I always will,” Seeger said.
Tavenner was maneuvering Seeger toward admitting that he had sung for the Communist Party. Then he would ask him to name all the other people who had done the same thing or to name people who had listened to him. He referred to an announcement in the Daily Worker from 1947 which read, “Tonight— Bronx, hear Peter Seeger and his guitar, at Allerton Section housewarming.” Was the Allerton Section a section of the Communist Party, Tavenner asked?
Seeger refused to answer. When pressed, he said, “I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.”
They didn’t. Tavenner asked instead if Seeger had performed at a May Day Rally in 1948.
“I believe I have already answered this question, and the same answer,” Seeger said.
Walter asked what that answer was.
“I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature,” Seeger said, “and I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this committee that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, or yours, Mr. Willis, or yours, Mr. Scherer, that I am any less of an American than anybody else. I love my country very deeply, sir.”
“Why don’t you make a little contribution toward preserving its institutions?” Walter asked.
“I feel that my whole life is a contribution,” Seeger said. “That is why I would like to tell you about it.”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” Walter said.
Scherer asked that Seeger be directed to answer, a formality. Each time a witness was directed to answer and didn’t, he was regarded as being in contempt. Seeger said he had already answered.
“Let me understand,” Scherer said. “You are not relying on the Fifth Amendment, are you?”
“No, sir,” Seeger said, “although I do not want to in any way discredit or depreciate or depredate the witnesses that have used the Fifth Amendment, and I simply feel it is improper for this committee to ask such questions.”
“And then in answering the rest of the questions,” Scherer said, “or in refusing to answer the rest of the questions, I understand that you are not relying on the Fifth Amendment as a basis for your refusal to answer?”
“No, I am not, sir.”
Tavenner continued to ask about events where Seeger was said to have taken part. Seeger would say, “My answer is the same as before,” and Scherer would say, “I think we have to have a direction.” When a song was mentioned, Seeger would offer to sing it, and he would be rebuffed.
Some ways into their discourse, Tavenner gave Seeger a photograph, taken at a May Day parade in New York, in 1952, in which Seeger is wearing an Army uniform, and carrying a sign that says “Censored.”
“Will you examine it, please, and state whether or not that is a photograph of you?” he asked.
Seeger looked at the photograph. “It is like Jesus Christ when asked by Pontius Pilate, ‘Are you king of the Jews?’ ” Seeger said.
As if admonishing a child, Chairman Walter said, “Stop that.”
“Let someone else identify that picture,” Seeger said.
“I ask that he be directed to answer the question,” Scherer said.
“I direct you to answer the question,” Chairman Walter said.
“Do I identify this photograph?” Seeger asked. Walter said, “Yes.”
“I say let someone else identify it.”
Product details
- Publisher : Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; 1st edition (June 8, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 174 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307390985
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307390981
- Item Weight : 6.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.19 x 0.44 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,347,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #696 in Folk & Traditional Music (Books)
- #762 in Country & Folk Composer Biographies
- #90,193 in Humor & Entertainment (Books)
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Pete's political beliefs, and his courage in standing up to McCarthyism, are linked in Wilkinson's biography to his underlying philosophy, which views all people as members of a single spiritual community. Pete Seeger's goal has been to unite people of many backgrounds, classes, ethnicities, racial backgrounds and religions through the common vehicle of music, which he views as the expression of a common, human spirit. It is this common humanity, not a political ideology, that Seeger seeks to advance through his efforts as a writer and singer. Wilkinson allows Seeger to explain these motives and objectives in his own words.
A significant passage in the book describes Pete's response when, after a concert during the Vietnam era, a man came up and said that he'd come there that night to kill Pete, but had changed his mind. Pete sat down and talked with the man, and they sang "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" together. Afterwards, the man had said "I feel cleansed," and left quietly. This episode demonstrated the strength of Pete's faith in the transforming power of empathy and common bond forged by music. Rather than merely accept the man's tacit apology, or feel afraid, Pete tried to heal the man -- a Vietnam war vet -- and succeeded.
Wilkinson writes that Pete Seeger wished for him to write a biography that could be read in one sitting. This short book fills that bill. It is informative, entertaining and helps the reader to understand and appreciate the eras through which Pete has lived in his 90 years. An appendix containing Seeger's HUAC testimony during the McCarthy era allows the reader to evaluate for him or herself Pete's actions during that troubled period.
Although I do not agree with every political position that Pete has taken in his long life, he is in my estimation an ethical person and American patriot. His patriotism is about honor, integrity and justice, not ideology. Yet those who disagree with that assessment would also appreciate this biography, which is evenhanded, informative and fair. I'll bet that Pete likes it.
The video contains Seeger singing many of his best known pieces, and does so in the context of his interactions with audiences in concert and with groups of other people in different settings. The music is, of course, superb. But be clear that this is not simply a collection of Seeger's music. It is some of the story of his life.
His formative early years are presented, and I found that fascinating. The video presents his musical, political, and personal development as he grows and matures into adulthood. It interviewed him about those hard years (for him and for the whole nation) of the McCarthy investigations of the 1950's. Because of his refusal to "name names" before McCarthy's witch-hunting investigation, he was blacklisted. The only "concerts" he found he could give, to which no one objected, was to children and young people in schools. Seeger chuckled as he recounted how that was exactly the age group he could have picked to sing to and sing with. After all, it was a great way to get across his passions - about love and grace, peace and justice - to kids in their formative years. Would that ALL who heard him could be as inspired and moved as were the kids with whom Pete sang!
The video highlights Seeger's later work, including his herculean efforts (with others) to clean up the Hudson River and to continue to address the increasingly important needs to speak out for peace and justice in our world. The closing scenes with Seeger singing in concert with his grandson are both touching and inspiring.
This video reminded me that Pete Seeger has a truly unforgettable voice... both the music itself that he offers the world, as well as the interconnected message that he brings in and through his music. The video will touch your life, as Pete Seeger continues to touch our world with a voice and message that must never be extinguished.
Wilkinson cites "Seeger's biographer, David King Dunaway" in two or three places. I enjoyed Wilkinson's story so much that I am now reading the Dunaway biography, How Can I Keep from Singing: The Ballad of Pete Seeger, and I can compare them.
At 428 pp, Dunaway's is the definitive biography, its first edition having been published in the 1980s. With rich collaboration between the author and his subject, the second edition, which appeared in 2008, is a masterpiece in the genre. I recommend both books -- Seeger's story is a terrific one at any length.
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Das Taschenbuch von Wilkinson ist solide, gut geschrieben und schön lesbar, aber eben sehr kurz für 90 Jahre Pete Seeger!
Jürgen Köster