Talk:Pete Seeger

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There should be something in here about his leftist politics, encounters with Redbaiters, disapproval of Dylan, but I can't stand him, so I leave it to another. Ortolan88

So you can't stand him. Who cares what you think? Your "I can't stand him" comment gives you away, mon ami. Give us documentation, not your political biases. Please refrain from writing subjective statements here. (unsigned, but appears to be User:Brobie 1 May 2005)

On what basis is he attributed authorship of "We Shall Overcome"? He certainly had a hand in making it well known among white people, but if you look at http://www.learnercentereded.org/Seeger/Civil%20Rights.html, which sounds on-the-mark to me, it doesn't read like a claim that he wrote the song. They describe him as "helping to write the song" and there's an extended quote from him on the site where he seems to give most of the credit to other people. -- Jmabel 01:39, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

You should know that Seeger gave credit to Guy Carowan many times for "We Shall Overcome." Who are you people, anyway? Do your study before posting comments here please. (unsigned, but appears to be User:Brobie 1 May 2005)

Excuse me, I do know that. My remark (which you are replying to almost 4 months after the fact) was in response to someone else's false claim in the article that he wrote "We Shall Overcome".

Is there any basis for saying he "started" a solo career in 1958? By that time he had probably a dozen albums out on Folkways. Heck, I turned four in '58 and my mother used to joke I knew Pete Seeger's voice better than my father's. -- Jmabel 02:15, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 "[in his recent book]" 2 CP membership 3 Why I am reverting the bulk of the recent anonymous edit (again) 4 Moorsoldaten 5 Flowers Gone? 6 If there were any justice... 7 Recently added link 8 Joe Hill 9 Sorry, but I've tampered with that paragraph 10 Birthdays? 11 Big Muddy 12 Rainbow Quest 13 Current Political Affiliation 13.1 Category edit war 14 Alan Seeger 15 Granddaughter 16 Where he lives 17 Weavers

[edit] "[in his recent book]"

What book? -- Jmabel 02:02, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

It appears that bracketed "recent book" is dated; appeared in quote within NYT Magazine article 1/22/95. The book is apparently Where Have All The Flowers Gone? A Singer's Stories, Songs, Seeds, Robberies (Bethlehem, Pa.: Sing Out, 1993) at 22 (from note 1.47 in Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970 (Culture, Politics, and Cold War), Ronald D. Cohen (University of Massachusetts Press, 2002).) Scrounged this from the Web; hopefully someone with access to source can straighten out the quote and cite. Jeffreykopp 09:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CP membership

It is my understanding that Seeger was never a formal member of the Communist Party. So, he was never able to "leave it," strictly speaking. (anon)

No, actually he was. I can turn up a citation if needed; I believe he finally said so in the 1980s, explaining that he had no shame about having been so, but wouldn't admit it to HUAC: in front of them, he simply invoked the First Amendment and refused to answer on the basis that his political affiliations were none of their business. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:58, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

Found a solid citation: David Dunaway's biography of Seeger, How Can I Keep From Singing, page 42. Pretty much the standard biography. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:03, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Why I am reverting the bulk of the recent anonymous edit (again)

I reverted a recent anonymous edit a few hours ago. I see it has been restored. The edit is a POV mess (and in some cases a factual mess). I hoped my original revert would stick, or at least the person would think twice about the specific issue I called out (deletion of factual material), but I can see that won't be the case, so I'll take it up in detail. Not everything it this edit was bad, and I will try to keep what I can (I was hoping not to waste my time, and that the writer would spend some of his/hers, but that clearly isn't going to happen).

• The anon removed the following: "A classic example of Seeger’s pro-Stalin/Soviet attitude can be seen during the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. His anti-war record Songs for John Doe, released in 1941, where he calls President Roosevelt a warmonger who worked for J.P. Morgan, expressed his displeasure about FDR's increasingly confrontational attitude with Nazi Germany." I think there are some problems with the wording (I'll happily get rid of "classic", and the mention of Stalin is egregious) but the substance is significant: Seeger's work demands that he be thought of as a political figure, not just a singer, and writing Songs for John Doe out of his history is, effectively, to lie about that history.
• The anon changed "communist beliefs" to "socialistic beliefs" is, in this case, a euphemism. Seeger was a CP member; he left that party, as did so many people, but has repeatedly said that he still considers himself a communist. Why on earth should we doubt his word?
• I do agree with the insertion of the phrase "[beliefs]… forged before the crimes of Stalin came to light". A second mention of it in the same paragraph, though, is simply silly.
• The inserted statement, "Pete Seeger fought in the Pacific to defend the United States in war, unlike more recent U. S. presidents," is pure POV. Taking pot-shots at the lack of military experience of recent U.S. presidents is completely unrelated to the topic of this article. This sentence was the main reason that I did not originally even read the edits closely, and just reverted.
• The existence of right-wing opposition to WWII is beside the point. Certainly Seeger never identified with right-wing America Firsters and German-American Bundists, and it is a calumny to suggest that he did.
• "It can not be denied…" is a phrase that has no place in an encyclopedia article.
• The songs that were added as evidence of Seegers patriotism—as if any were needed—are songs he sang, but none are his own. "My Land Is a Good Land" is by Erik Anderson. "Going Across the Mountains" is a traditional song from the Northern side of the Civil War. "The Power and the Glory" is by Phil Ochs. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:25, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, If I may add a comment, I think there needs to be much more about Seeger's music. All of this seems to be just shallow politics. Seeger is not a political philospher. In the end, he is a simple man. His main contribution is in preserving a classic form of Old Time banjo picking (up-picking vs frailing). And this is intimately connected with the North-South (Yankee/Confederate) divide still remaining in the United States, up-picking now having Northern, progressive connotations primarily because of Seeger. And what about his love for the 12 string?

Seeger influenced the K-Trio and did videos with many greats of US folk music, including Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson and above all Mississippi John Hurt. Anyway, I'm not satisfied with this entry. This has got to present the full complexity of the man.

I'm not saying that politics has no place here. I'm only saying I am cautious of the simplistic dichotomy of "conservative" vs "liberal" prevalent in the current US. Heaven knows, as an individualist. I do not agree with Seeger's politics, nor Robert Owen's. Yet, I appreciate his contribution to American folk music, and recognize a pure and decent man when I see one. Thus, I revere both Owen and Seeger -- though I'm not saying Seeger is in the same universe as Owen.

- fm Brobie.

• I'd love to see much more about Seeger's music. And yes, I agree that his 5-string banjo book and his picking would all alone make him a major figure. So would his song-leading all alone. Please, add this. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:26, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Ps: your comments:

"The inserted statement, "Pete Seeger fought in the Pacific to defend the United States in war, unlike more recent U. S. presidents," is pure POV. Taking pot-shots at the lack of military experience of recent U.S. presidents is completely unrelated to the topic of this article. This sentence was the main reason that I did not originally even read the edits closely, and just reverted.

"It can not be denied…" is a phrase that has no place in an encyclopedia article."

Okay, I'll never say "it can not be denied" again. And I appreciate the insertion of "honorably" regarding to Seeger's war service, which I think is fair. But I think the tenor of this article presents Seeger unfairly. For one thing, the distinction between Communism and Socialism here is obscured. I disagree with saying that Seeger "is" a communist, given modern connotations of the word. Change this to the past tense: "was."

We could get into a big political discussion here about how Conservatism (and Seeger said he was more conservative than Goldwater) and Communisim (or Socialism) are just different kinds of collectivism, but that is another topic....

And if we want to present the political views of a person so old, we've got to understand the world he was living in at the time. The connotations of these words have evolved in recent years. This article is read by modern readers.

Also, I also would appreciate more documentation. I think the sources of all our statements should be noted within the article. (Brobie)

• Yes, I'd love to see expansion of the context on Seeger's politics rather than a focus on a few regrettable episodes. Seeger came to Communism in the midst of the Depression, at the height of the Popular Front, when the slogan of the day was "Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism". He stood up to HUAC about as well as anyone, and really took it on the chin for doing so. As for whether he still is a communist... I've heard him say so, on and off, for a long time. Every time I've heard an interviewer venture to ask him, he's pretty direct about that. As far as I know, he has always continued to consider himself at least a small-c communist, and who are we to argue with the man himself?

Please understand, I have enormous respect for Seeger. I've seen him in concert probably 20 or 30 times, had a few conversations with him (though none in the last 15 years), read probably the majority of his writings in Broadside, Sing Out and the like as well as well as Dunaway's biography of him (How Can I Keep From Singing), learned what little I know about playing a banjo from his book and the 10-inch record that came with it, learned many songs from his records (including no small number of his own songs) and still perform some of them; as I say above, my mother used to joke I knew Pete Seeger's voice better than my father's. I don't have a ton of time right now or I'd work on your request about citations, but I'm pretty sure that 100% of what is in the article now (except maybe some quotations) could be cited out of Dunaway's book. If there is something in particular that you doubt, single it out and I'll search for citation, but I don't have time to work out what page is a citation for each fact.

Part of the history of this article is that User:TDC, clearly hostile to Seeger, added a lot of material. As you can see if you examine the edit history, I kept pruning him back to what was encyclopedic. I would love to see someone who does not have an axe to grind do some equally solid legwork and add more genuinely encyclopedic material to the article. But adding fluff and POV that happens to be pro-Seeger, or removing the (definitely accurate) material about Songs for John Doe is not the way to get to a more balanced article. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:26, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but like anyone involved in the "popular front" during that time, Seeger did not fight because America was attacked or because freedom was threatened by tyranny, he fought because the vanguard of the proletariat, the Soviet Union, was under attack. People like Seeger deserve no respect, and I will not give them any.

Well, tens of millions of men were drafted during the war. Did Seeger join the military or was he drafted? If he didn't join, then he fought because he was ordered to.... Hayford Peirce 19:52, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So, yeah, I suppose I am a bit hostile to Stalinists. TDC 14:17, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

++++++++++++++

TDC - Brobie here. No need to apologize. Who likes Stalin? The point you don't seem to get is that Seeger, along with many of the Old Left, rejected Stalinism after Khrushchev exposed his crimes. Who was the guy who published Guthrie's original records in NY who actually committed suicide after Khruschev's revelations. -- Which is why I added Khrushchev's name here. (Also, Jmabel, I think you'll find the period should be inside the quotation marks.) So if you're hostile to Stalinists, we're all with you. The point is, we have to be fair to Seeger. You say: "Seeger did not fight because America was attacked or because freedom was threatened by tyranny, he fought because the vanguard of the proletariat, the Soviet Union, was under attack." Is this your opinion? Or a fact? If a fact, please give us the grits. Yes, Seeger was ideological. I'm personally an individualist and Seeger's collectivism, like all socialist collectivism, rubs me the wrong way. But this was an age when many people who believed in communism thought that freedom was compatible with communism. They were mistaken.

And Jmabel, if Seeger says he is a communist with a small "c," then it means he is talking about a "free" communism -- which, nowadays, is commonly called socialism. That was my point. This whole article is misleading. No wonder people like TDC are so mixed up.

I am an advocate of citations within articles. Otherwise, this article is far too political. For example:

His anti-war record Songs for John Doe, released in 1941, where he called President Franklin D. Roosevelt a warmonger who worked for J.P. Morgan, expressed his displeasure about FDR's increasingly confrontational attitude with Nazi Germany.

What is this: "...expressed his displeasure about FDR's ... confrontational attitude with..." the Nazis? So was Seeger a Nazi? That is what this sentence implies. Any innocent person reading this couldn't tell Pete Seeger from Lindberg, the DAR, or other "conservative" rightists isolationists who opposed action against Hitler -- who were and are far closer to the Nazis than Seeger ever was or ever will be. This sentence makes it sound like Seeger actually _supported_ Hitler.

...which is why I assumed someone from the House Committe on Keeping Up the Persecution of Pete Seeger is in charge of this page...

...sorry, but let's be fair. Let's cite our sources. All of us. In the text. And no misleading, biased sentences. -- Brobie.

• As I remarked above, "certainly Seeger never identified with right-wing America Firsters and German-American Bundists, and it is a calumny to suggest that he did." Seeger's (brief) opposition to war with the Nazis was precisely because of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. And I certainly have no interest in "persecuting" Seeger, I quite admire the man, but my admiration is based on a warts-and all assessment. Also, again, I agree that this particular episode gets disproportionately much coverage in the article, but the cure is not to shrink the solid information on this episode, it is to expand the article with equally solid material on other aspects of the man. This often happens in articles that TDC has touched: he adds a lot of material that happens to reinforce his views; sometimes it's not encyclopedic (or not even very well documented) in which case I fight to get it out of there, but when it makes the cut (and this does) it should be retained. When we finally end up with the amount of material we should have on Seeger, clearly this will be part of it. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:33, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
• On the socialist/communist point: ultimately, I don't really care that much, but I can't remember ever hearing Seeger use the word "socialism", only "communism". I'm not saying he hasn't, just that I can't recall it. I agree with you about the connotations of that word in contemporary America, and I can't imagine Seeger being unaware of them, but as far as I can tell, he's continued to be consistent in his own choice of word. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:33, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
• BTW, Wikipedia style is period outside of quotation marks, unless you are quoting an entire sentence. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:34, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Brobie here. TDC, it is so easy to wrap yourself in the flag. If you love the flag so much, then join the army and go to Iraq. Otherwise, keep your $%^#^& mouth shut. I am so &$%#^ sick of seeing that piece of rag. You need to have the guts to travel around the world and meet people with different colored flag-toys and see why they hate the US. I'm pessimistic about the fate of Wikipedia...

"I think there needs to be much more about Seeger's music. All of this seems to be just shallow politics. Seeger is not a political philospher. In the end, he is a simple man." What a load of crap. Seeger was always about politics and music was nothing more than a tool for him to effect the goals of the Popular Front, which specifically targeted the publishing, movie, and music industries in their bid to gain political influence. Seeger's "simple man" routine was and is pure affectation. Forget about the fate of Wikipedia, I'm worried about the fate of the world with so many "useful idiots" running around. (SgtP_USMC)

How true, anyone with one God damn iota of common sense or honesty knows that that Seeger is nothing more than hack who just uses his music to shill for left wing thugs. so save the peace and social justice bullshit for the choir. TDC 20:31, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moorsoldaten

Dear friends and music lovers, I was born i post-war Germany but have been living in Sweden since 1969. I just wanted to tell you how much Pete Seeger ment to my generation - I grew up i Western Berlin. One of my dearest memories is a concert Pete Seeger gave in the 1960s and we had no possibility to buy tickets, as he was singing for union members only and I was a teenager attending school. But my boyfriend and I waited outside the concert hall together with large crowd of people until the gates finally were opened and we all were allowed to get in! I will never forget this nor him and one special song I never had heard before nor since: Die Moorsoldaten, which he sang, at least partly, in German. Pete Seeger and his music, the Weavers' too, (and many others) have brought hope and love of life to many of us in difficult times. If you'd like, you may find me in the German Wikipedia where I write using the nick-name Elchjagd. Love and peace to you all! --217.211.23.24 11:34, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

• Interesting. I grew up with the Weavers' recording of "Das Lied der Moorsoldaten" (which they called "The Peat-Bog Soldiers"). It should actually be quite available, I believe most of there recordings are in print. (For those who don't know, it is a song by and about concentration camp inmates.) -- Jmabel | Talk 00:49, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Elchjagd, thanks for your kind contribution. Please tell us more about your experiences. I never saw the Weavers, so I envy you.

Brobie here. Pete Seeger's classic "HOW TO PLAY THE 5-STRING BANJO taught by Pete Seeger" is now out on DVD. Yes folks, you can learn from the master on your PC. Am I allowed to put in a plug for the great folks at Elderly Instruments? (No biz connections I promise.) The link is:

elderly.com/videos/items/300-DVD85.htm

[edit] Flowers Gone?

"He is perhaps best known as the author of the 1961 song Where Have All the Flowers Gone." Hmm. Having been already steeped in his music long before that song was written, I'm not in the best place to judge, but what is the basis for this claim? Is that really better known than "The Hammer Song (If I Had a Hammer)" or "Turn, Turn, Turn"? I'd have thought they were all on an equal footing. And, for an older generation, he was probably best known for his work with the Weavers, including a number one hit with Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene". -- Jmabel | Talk 18:34, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, I just sorta assumed that of course "Where Have" was his best known thing since that's the song one still hears and sees references to. But I just did a Google search associating "Seeger" with the names of each of the songs. For "Where Have" I got 13,800 hits. For "Hammer" I got 747 (The Hammer Song) and 10,800 (If I Had), for a total of 11,547, not all that far behind. For "Turn" I got 5,920. For "Irene Goodnight" and "Goodnight Irene" I got 191 and 4,810, for 5,001. In any case, I think most people who even know "Irene" think of it primarily as a Weavers song, not as a Seeger-Weavers song. How many people think of "Tom Dooley" as a Dave Guard-Kingston Trio song? If you want to do some rewriting and add "Hammer" to "Flowers" go right ahead. I looked it up and both Peter, Paul & Mary and Trini Lopez had hit versions of "Hammer".... Hayford Peirce 19:46, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Your Google search seems like decent evidence that you are basically right on this (although the margin between "Where Have" and "Hammer" seems small). You are right that "Irene" is emphatically a group performance, and in any event, a Leadbelly-authored song, not one of Seeger's own. I suspect that the Weavers achieved a greater level of fame circa 1950 than Seeger has ever had as a solo performer; needless to say, Google is useless to answer a question like that, because it is so biased in favor of the relatively recent. I guess I'll leave things as they are in the article, at least until such a time as this article might merit a lot more work, which eventually it certainly does. Sorry about tangled syntax, I must be tired. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:43, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] If there were any justice...

Pete Seeger would have starved to death in the "Great Man's" gulags like so many millions of his truly innocent victims. Instead he made quite a bit of money (dare I say he became rich?) off of the very system he still claims to hate; capitalism. What a hypocrite!

The bit about small "c" communism is a hoot too. Do you really believe that garbage? Call it whatever you like; communism, socialism, fascism etc..., it all adds up to misery, slavery, and death. They all share one thing in common and that is an abridgement of property rights which is the most fundamental of all "human rights." The extent to which a man's right to own and control property is truncated, that man becomes property.

The previous comment is anonymous (surprise!) and was made 4 Aug 2005. And other than that, I'm not feeding the troll. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:01, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I figured that someone needed to bluntly state just what Pete Seeger's greatest "contribution to society" actually was and what its (all too predictable) results were. He certainly isn't the only one, but still his aid and support of despots from Hitler, to Stalin, to Mao, to Pol Pot, and most recently to Hussein in some way helped those murderous bastards do their vile work by giving cover to them and by blunting and/or delaying the efforts of those who could have stopped or mitigated it.

Someone who is that consistently wrong and apparently so callous to the effects of his actions deserves no better than the fate that I described. Anyone can be mistaken, but Seeger and his fellow travelers display a wanton disregard for the truth, and then seek cover under the lame "I MEANT well" excuse.

Seeger has stated that he wants us to go back to the time when we lived in small villages and “took care of each other.” Just because he lacks the mental capacity to understand his place in the extended order in which we live and the benefits of that order, he thinks that there must be something inherently superior to that primitive life when people died from simple infections and daily scratched their sustenance from the soil. Such a world view is so warped that it makes me wish that he could have his wish, as long as others who don’t share his views aren’t forced to live in the utopia (hell) that he would create. Then we could watch the idiots destroy themselves and get on with the business of life in the real world.

Aug 10, presumably the same person. This is not your blog. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:06, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Recently added link

City Journal article on "America's Most Successful Communist" is certainly hostile to Seeger in tone, but well researched and actually a pretty decent article, whatever its politics. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:15, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

It's decent enough when it covers Seeger himself, but the author clearly doesn't have much of a clue about political protest song before the mid-thirties. His claim that there was no tradition of social protest in American song before Lomax and Seeger contradicts the available evidence - such as the recorded output of Blind Alfred Reed, Haywire Mac, or Uncle Dave Macon in the 1920s, to name but three. That there was greater comercial interest in this kind of material from the late 1930s is clear, but the assumption of the author that it *started* then seems unsustainable. This rather invalidates the writer's entire thesis.

A distasteful attempt at rewriting history, IMO.--84.69.84.133 12:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Not to mention the Wobbly bards. Someone researched Seeger, but didn't research history. Still, this is probably the pick of the anti-Seeger links that have been placed in the article at various times, and we should have at least one, so I think until something better comes along it should be kept. And, frankly, I suspect that the chance of finding an anti-Seeger article by someone who has done their research on the level typical of people who feel attached to the tradition is relatively slim. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:52, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joe Hill

We say, "He has often sang and is associated with the song 'Joe Hill'." (Words by Alfred Hayes, music by Earl Robinson, by the way.) Certainly one of the (thousands of) songs in his repertoire, and I suppose that most people who know the song today learned it directly or indirectly from him, but the same could probably be said for 100 other songs, including "Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)", Cisco Houston's "Way Out There", and Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes". Heck, without him there's a fair chance almost no one would know the song "Erie Canal" or (in the English-speaking world) "Die Gedanken Sind Frei". Is he really particularly identified with this one song? Can someone give a citation for that? If this was just an excuse to get Joe Hill's name into the article, we can mention him singing this song and mention him singing Hill's parody of "Casey Jones". -- Jmabel | Talk 06:21, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry, but I've tampered with that paragraph

I’m sorry but I was just not comfortable with that political paragraph, and I don't seem to be the only one. It just felt too objective, The whole Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact scenario was given too much prominence and seemed designed to paint Seeger as some sort of notable Nazi appeaser. It was out of proportion.

I would rather ditch this episode from the entry, but to compromise I have re worded the paragraph. I also shaved a couple of points within the paragraph such as "old left" (an undescriptive term)and the mention that Seeger personally pulled the release, I read it differently here http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/doe.html User:Zleitzen 11 Feb 2006

"Too objective"? How on earth is that a problem? - Jmabel | Talk 06:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Ooops, I wrote objective when I meant to write subjective! User:Zleitzen 17 Feb 2006

[edit] Birthdays?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website has Pete Seeger's birthday as May 19th, 1919. Is there a question as to his birthdate, or is that just a mistake? Yalith 18:06, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Dave Dunaway's well-researched biography How Can I Keep From Singing gives May 3 (p.33 in the 1990 trade paperback). I'd be astounded if he's wrong. And he doesn't mention any doubts about the date. - Jmabel | Talk 18:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Big Muddy

A recent anonymous edit now says that in January 1968 Pete Seeger sang "The Big Muddy" through the whole way on the Smothers Brothers show. I'm pretty certain that is wrong: I was watching that night and already familiar with the song. I'm quite certain he did not get to sing the verse that begins "Now I'm not going to point any moral…" Does someone have a decent citation on this? I've left a note on the anonymous user's page, an IP address with only a few edits, but they all relate to Seeger or other members of the same family; as usual, that's a bit of a crapshoot in terms of reaching the person. - Jmabel | Talk 02:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rainbow Quest

I added a few details to the paragraph about Seeger's TV show. A complete index of these programs are on [1] but I did not want to link it from the article as the VHS copies offered on that page are no longer available.

I cannot determine how widely it was carried other than "various educational stations," so I don't know if NET distributed it, but presume they did. It was seen in Oregon, so it went a bit further than "regional." I saw one mention of it being seen in Canada although whether that was the CBC or cross-border reception is also unknown.

A New York Times article of 1/23/66 describes the program but the personal page where it was reproduced is gone; it can be fished out of Google's cache [2] or Wayback [3]

(I describe the program as "hourlong" though all the sources I found who mention a length specify 52 minutes. Perhaps commercial spots were hoped for in syndication.) Jeffreykopp 19 April 2006

• There's quite a few clips of Rainbow Quest on Youtube.com if anyone is interested. Just go there and do a search for Rainbow Quest or Pete Seeger. Hanako 19:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current Political Affiliation

Obviously this has been discussed a great deal, and I don't normally work on music pages, but I noticed a user had added "Communist" to the front end description, unlinked. Given the body of the article itself, and the debate over "communism with a small c," I removed it for now. Thought I'd make note of it, though, should anyone care to reword or place back in in a clearer context. I pulled it both because it seems to be in question and because articles for other artists with known Communist ties like Dashiell Hammett don't insert that as a description in the first sentence. Aleal 01:29, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category edit war

There seems to be a slow edit war afoot. Various editors move this article either from Category:American communists to Category:American socialists or vice versa. Can we reach some consensus on this? Does anyone have a source revealing how Seeger self-identifies his politics in recent years? Is it possible he belongs in both categories? Niether category? -MrFizyx 15:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me that the problem is poor definition of categories. As I remarked above

On the socialist/communist point: ultimately, I don't really care that much, but I can't remember ever hearing Seeger use the word "socialism", only "communism". I'm not saying he hasn't, just that I can't recall it. I agree with you about the connotations of that word in contemporary America [that not being affiliated with any party, he is what most people would call a socialist, not a communist], and I can't imagine Seeger being unaware of them, but as far as I can tell, he's continued to be consistent in his own choice of word.

He is a former member of the CPUSA; he has not been a member in over 50 years.

If the category were decently defined, we could resolve this. Until then, we are counting angels on the heads of pins. - Jmabel | Talk 06:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alan Seeger

It should also be noted that Pete Seeger was related to the American Trench Poet Alan Seeger, who was his Uncle or some other relatively close relation. --V. Joe 20:05, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Granddaughter

I assume that "Issablle" is a misspelling, but what is the correct spelling? - Jmabel | Talk 18:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where he lives

We've been back and forth about half a dozen times as to whether his property is in the Town of Fishkill or the City of Beacon. Does someone have a citation on this, or is there just going to be a slow edit war? - Jmabel | Talk 07:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

According to most publications, for example The Nation, Pete and his wife, Toshi, live in a house he built in Beacon, New York, an upstate town along the Hudson River. Whether it's technically Fishkill or technically Beacon may still be debatable. I always thought it was Beacon. --Yalith 05:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

And, for what it's worth, in "Sailing Up My Dirty Stream", he sings, "I live right at Beacon here". to the best of my knowledge, he has never mentioned Fishkill in a song. - Jmabel | Talk 04:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

And, in one of the articles in Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground a quote is prefaced by something like, "Speaking from his home in Beacon, New York..." I think the article was a reprint of a 1995 Bosoton Globe piece. -MrFizyx 12:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weavers

Was Fred Hellerman not a founding member of the Weavers along with the three listed?71.145.157.54 18:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)jomo

Hmm. I can't swear he was "present at the creation", but he was certainly in the group by the time they recorded. - Jmabel | Talk 06:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't have any appeciable contribution to make, but have been Seegar/Weavers fan since I was a kid. I wanted to thank the people who have put the effort into this page, and also comment that the talk pages, on Wikipedia, are one of the great benefits. One can come to them to see more information than is properly in the article, and see the discussions that lead to the content. Boomcoach 18:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)