Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seegerwas an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth3 May 1919
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?
I always knew that sooner or later there would come somebody like Woody Guthrie who could make a great song every week. Dylan certainly had a social agenda, but he was such a good poet that most of his attempts were head and shoulders above things that I and others were trying to do. ... If I had an address, I'd send him a birthday card saying, 'keep on going.'
RULERS should be careful about what songs are allowed to be sung.
Like most teachers, I'm just another sower of seeds.
Songwriters can’t explain. You get an idea and you don’t know where it’s come from. And if you’re lucky, you have a pencil or pen and can write it down.
Realize that little things lead to bigger things.
Now any person who plays an acoustic guitar standing up on stage with a microphone is a folk singer. Some grandmother with a baby in her arms singing a 500-year-old song, well, she's not a folk singer, she's not on stage with a guitar and a microphone. No, she's just an old grandmother singing an old song. The term "folk singer" has gotten warped.
A good song reminds us what we're fighting for.
Did you ever want something really bad and then when you finally got it all you could do was stand there and grin at it?
At the audition, your assignment is to find something new in the song. Something you've never noticed before. A breath carried over, a thought that ties the whole thing together. Then take the risk and do it.
Music has always had the ability to comfort and inspire.
Not everybody has to sing the melody.
If I had an axe on the evening at Newport when [Dylan] broke out the electric guitar, I'd have cut his cable.
Now somebody will ask me, Pete, how can you prove these songs really make a difference? And I have to confess I can't prove a darn thing, except that the people in power must think they do something, because they keep the songs off the air.