Pete Seeger
"If I Had a Hammer" is a song you are likely to sing at a Pete Seeger concert - he is not content to have audiences passively listen to his music. For Seeger, music has always been a communal experience, intended to rile people up and bring them together. Born in New York in 1919, Pete Seeger grew up in a musical and politically active family. He took up the banjo in his teenage years. He studied at Harvard, but left before graduating, instead opting to travel through the South assisting scholar Alan Lomax with his field recordings of folk music. In 1940 Seeger met Woody Guthrie at a labor union event, and the two formed the music collective the Almanac Singers to write and perform songs about war, organized labor, and social justice. Later Seeger went on to form the Weavers, whose leftist leaning songs attracted the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee. After refusing to answer questions, Seeger was blacklisted in 1955, and thus barred from many concert venues and record labels. Unlike many other performers, Seeger was able to maintain a following. He was active in the Newport Folk Festivals during the 1960s and was a strong voice in the civil rights movement. In the 1970s and 80s Seeger became committed to the environmental movement through the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and he has continued educational and performance programs around this issue. In 2006 Bruce Springsteen released a collection of songs associated with Pete Seeger - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.
