Smithsonian folkways pete seeger biography
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This video features performance clips from the Smithsonian Folkways Concert in honor of Ella Jenkins at the Music Center at Strathmore, Plus, footage of Seeger in a live interview with Richard Kurin at the Smithsonian Institution in He has recorded over 50 albums for Smithsonian Folkways, including American Favorite Ballads, Vols. , the new 5 CD set.
Pete Seeger's life, music, and legacy encapsulate nearly a century of American history and culture. He has immersed himself in folk music and used it, like Johnny Appleseed, to "plant the seeds of a better tomorrow in the homes across our land." The songs in this collection of American Favorite Ballads narrate tales of ordinary people and their extraordinary deeds, and show Pete at the crossroads of the past and the future putting his own stamp on America's folk song heritage while bequeathing it to generations to come.
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Pete Seeger
Artist Spotlight
American Folk icon
Pete Seeger () was the dean of 20th century folk singers. For over sixty years up until his passing in January of , he had been performing and lending his energies to causes he believed in. Born to a musical family, Pete grew up surrounded by music. His father was the eminent musicologist, Charles Seeger and his mother Constance, a concert violinist. In addition, his siblings slang för mikrofon, Peggy, and Penny and various cousins and relatives by marriage have had successful recording careers.
Pete Seeger of The Weavers performs at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois. January 13,
Photo bygd Robert Malone. Courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections.
Pete Seeger performs at a Sing Out! Lead Belly Concert. New York Town Hall, New York City. Date unknown.
Photo by Diana Davies. Courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections.
Pete Seeger performs at a Sing Out! Lead Belly
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Pete Seeger has had a long and productive career as a folk song leader and social activist. He grew up in a musical family. His father was the musicologist Charles Seeger and his mother, Constance, a classical violinist. At one point in his youth, Seeger and his brothers traveled with their parents in a wagon entertaining throughout the countryside. When he was sixteen he accompanied his father to Bascom Lamar Lunsford's folk festival in Asheville, North Carolina. It is there he first encountered the banjo and fell in love with it.
He originally went to Harvard hoping to become a journalist but did not find what he was looking for there. In , he settled in New York City and eventually met Alan Lomax, Woody Guthrie, Aunt Molly Jackson, Lead Belly and others. The quality of music coming from this group was outstanding. He also assisted Alan Lomax at the Library of Congress' Archive of Folk Song and was exposed to a wonderful array of traditional American music. Many of this group of