Pete Seeger: A River Runs Through This Folk-Music Icon

For two-thirds of his 91 years, the treasured American folk-music star Pete Seeger has led a turbulent public life at the confluence of music and politics. Last year, when a sold-out crowd of 20,000 fans gathered to celebrate his 90th birthday at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Seeger sent the proceeds to the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. The river and the sloop constitute the one labor of love to which Seeger has dedicated most of the second half of his life. Last summer we spoke with Pete Seeger about his devotion to the river that flows past his home.

How did you get interested in boating?

I had a job in Cape Cod about 1959. And a teenager took me out at midnight and showed me what fun it was to sail. It's not how fast you go; it's the fact that you move at all! And if you're clever enough with your game with the wind and the waves, you can use the very power of the wind against you to sail against the wind. That's good politics, too. Martin Luther King used the forces against him to zigzag ahead.

What led you to build the Clearwater?

After I got back from Cape Cod, I persuaded my wife to let me buy a little plastic bathtub of a boat. However, when I was learning to sail on the Hudson, I went out by myself and found myself sailing through lumps of this and that along with the toilet paper. I had enough money to buy a boat, but I was sailing through toilet waste.

How did you get from a plastic sailboat to building a 100-foot Hudson River sloop?

A friend of mine loaned me a book written in 1907, right in my hometown, called Sloops of the Hudson, and I read it over and over. It wasn't great literature, but it was full of love. And I wrote a letter to Vic Schwarz, the man who loaned me the book, and said, "Why don't we get a gang of people together and see if we can raise some money to build a life-size replica?" It was a very impractical scheme.

But you got it built?

Pete Seeger proves he's still got his mojo at a recent jam
session for the Clearwater.

I'd forgotten about my letter. A few months later, Vic met me on the railroad platform and said, "When are we going to get started on that boat?" And I said, "What boat?" He said, "I've passed your letter up and down the commuter train, and I've got a couple dozen people who want to get started." And I scratched my head and said, "Well, if there's enough crazy people, we might do it." We didn't know how to start, exactly, until this businessman, Alexander Saunders, wanted me to give a fund-raising concert for the "Scenic Hudson" organization. But down in New York, they said, "Mr. Saunders, don't even think of that. Don't touch Seeger with a 10-foot pole. If we have anything to do with him, we'll be tarred with the same brush." It was only six years after I was condemned to jail for not cooperating with the Un-American Activities Committee. Well, Saunders came back and said, "Vic, they've turned me down, but I'd like to hear some music. Maybe you can raise money for something else." And Vic says, "Well, Pete and I have been talking about raising money to build a Hudson River sloop." And two months later I'm singing for 150 people on Alexander Saunders's lawn. And during the intermission, 15 or 20 met in his living room. And Saunders's widow, Risi Saunders, is proud that it was in her living room that the Clearwater was born. Those 15 people voted to start a nonprofit organization called the "Hudson River Sloop Restoration Incorporated."

Did you have accurate plans or models to work from?

I sent a letter to the New York Historical Society and to the Smithsonian and the library in Mystic, Connecticut, asking where we could find out about these old boats. I got a very nice letter from a young man working at the library in Mystic, saying: "We've got pictures of the old ones, and blueprints of how they were made, and I think we could help find you an architect who could transfer them to modern times." And they did. Cyrus Hamlin in Kennebunk, Maine, did a job most people would have charged $50,000 for. He charged us $6,000. He found a painting by James E. Buttersworth of a sloop in a high wind, and every single block and tackle was clearly shown.

Cy found a builder. Down in New York, they wanted $300,000 to build it. But old Harvey Gamage said he'd build it for $120,000. And so the keel was laid in October '68. My wife christened it. And we poured a little Hudson water on the keel. And eight months later it was launched, May 17, 1969.

Did the Clearwater project do what you'd hoped it would on the Hudson?

Well, I'd say it's been slower than we hoped. But nevertheless, the reason we can now swim in the river is because it started off the cleaning up of the river. However, we weren't the only ones; Scenic Hudson and a group called the River Keeper were very important.

How do you think boating has informed your music?

For a while, while I was sailing with the Clearwater, I was writing one sailing song after another. And a lot of other people were, too. So there are dozens of songs in the Clearwater.

Do you feel as though these advocacy projects you've been part of on the local level are models for these larger global issues that you're talking about now?

I'm a longtime believer in the power of beauty. And the compound curves of a sailboat are supremely beautiful. I think the powers-that-be have got so much money that they can co-opt any big thing they want. But what are they going to do about the millions of small things? We can control those, and inspire people, and then, who knows what can happen?

For more on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater program, including their annual music festival, visit Clearwater.org