Photo by Karl Rabe
Pete Seeger, 94, called by The New York Times "the singer, folk-song collector and songwriter who spearheaded an American folk revival and spent a long career championing folk music as both a vital heritage and a catalyst for social change," died Monday in New York-Presbyterian Hospital of natural causes.
He recorded more than 100 albums, but never assumed the role of a star or behaved like a celebrity. "My job," he has said, "is to show folks there’s a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet."
A founder of the Newport Folk Festival, Seeger's works became veritable folksongs themselves: "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," "We Shall Overcome" (adapted from old spirituals), "If I Had a Hammer," "Turn! Turn! Turn!," many others.
Seeger is the only singer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who was convicted of contempt of Congress. In 1955, he refused to testify about his past membership in the Communist Party. He later said he quit the party in 1949 and "should have left much earlier. It was stupid of me not to ... I had no idea how cruel a leader Stalin was."
In 1961, his conviction was overturned on appeal, but Seeger continued to be blacklisted by commercial TV networks until 1967. Even then, CBS censored parts of his anti-Vietnam War musical allegory, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, when he sang it on the Smothers Brothers' Comedy Hour.
In 2006, Bruce Springsteen helped introduce Seeger to a new generation when he recorded We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, an album of 13 songs popularized by Seeger, including "John Henry" and "Shenandoah." Three years later, Seeger at age 90, sang "This Land Is Your Land" at President Obama's inaugural concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.