Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday Concert and President Obama
On Sunday night Pete Seeger's 90th birthday was celebrated with a concert at Madison Square Garden.
It was great. Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, Ben Harper, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, Rufus Wainwright, Arlo Guthrie, and a dozen or two other headliners performed.
And Pete Seeger, of course.
But here's the amazing thing. In my life, I have never been to a concert (let alone a lefty concert) at which the name of the President of the United States was cheered. At previous concerts I've been to over the decades, the names of Kennedy, Johnson, Carter or Clinton were no more likely to be cheered than those of Reagan or Bush.
GREAT CLIP OF PETE FROM THE 60's, as true today as then.
I mean, who cheers Presidents at concerts? Traditionally, names of Presidents go unmentioned. Or they are booed.
Springsteen said that he never saw Seeger more happy than at Obama's inauguration, noting that Seeger saw Obama's ascendancy as proof that he, Seeger, had "outlived the bastards."
One more thing. The 30,000 people in the audience wildly cheered a letter from Obama saluting Seeger.
Two incredible things there. One, a President salutes a life-long radical (and also has him perform at his inauguration). Two, an audience of aging hippies and 20-somethings goes nuts every time the President is mentioned.
I can't believe I've lived to see the day.
Happy Birthday, Pete Seeger. The America of your music may be in the process of being born.
Who says Pete Seeger is an "ex" red?
I love that old man! Don't know how many times I've seen him and he's just as radical today as he ever was.
May 3, 2009 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, Pete was a radical. Yeah Pete is a radical.
70 years ago Pete was so radical he thought that African Americans should have the opportunity to vote, should have the opportunity to have a decent education, should have the opportunity to reside where they wished, should have the opportunity to play baseball and basketball and football. Ha
What a radical.
Pete Seeger was so radical, he thought all the peasants should have an opportunity to compete with the patricians on a level playing field.
Pete Seeger was so radical, he thought that genetels should not be the deciding factor in whether a person should have equal opportunities.
Yeah. Pete Seeger was a radical. He believed that all were created equal and that they were entitled to certain rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
WHAT A COMMIE RADICAL LIBERAL ROGUE PETE WAS AND IS.
Let us hope there are millions out there like Pete.
Nay, tens of millions.
HA!!!!
May 3, 2009 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Seeger is an 'ex-red' I say bring 'em on!
May 4, 2009 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
For anyone who hasn't seen it, (it has only 2,500 views) there is a great 3 minute video of Seeger in the late 60's (youtube-link below) singing 'Bring 'Em Home' which he did again just a few years ago for the Iraq war, but the earlier one was his best.
Pete Seeger-Bring 'em Home
The lyrics include:
May 4, 2009 12:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I got a CD of Pete Seeger's greatest hits. My God. They aren't writing music like that any more.
May 4, 2009 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Geeeeez Snarky, can you imagine saying let alone singin what these guys said and sang when you KNEW there were people out there who would do everything they could to imprison you?
Ha. And you have CDs. That is great. That means that their risks were not for naught.
May 4, 2009 1:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Blacklisting of Communist Musicians continue
(So much for Change)
USCE: US State Dept failure to issue visa to Cuban composer Silvio Rodriguez to join Pete Seeger 90th birthday concert
http://radionuevosiglo.blogspot.com/2009/05/state-dept-failure-visa-silvio.html
[Marti's "Guantanamera" had to do more with soviergnty, and not that damn 'Gitmo'...]
May 4, 2009 2:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget The Weavers. Pete, Happy 90th, we love you down in Savannah. You know where, in the city square:
Tzena, Tzena, Tzena - The Weavers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyX-Rc8A1cg
May 4, 2009 3:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seeger is a fine musician and public-spirited citizen. That is a rare combination nowadays, and it is great to hear that he is still around and still performing.
A note of caution, however. In the 1960s, I don't think there were many sold-out performances by Gershwin or Irving Berlin inspiring hopes that JFK would fulfill the dreams of the roaring '20s. This report thus underscores not only the hope and faith placed in the new administration, and the urgent need for change that it represents, but also the intellectual and cultural poverty out of which it has emerged.
May 4, 2009 5:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many honorable radicals, such as Michael Harrington and his associates, fought injustice in America while never forgetting or excusing the evil of Stalinism. For the great majority of his life, Pete Seeger was not one of them. He followed the Soviet party line after the Hitler-Stalin Pact, after Kruschev's "secret speech," after the Hungarian invasion, after the suppression of the Prague spring. http://www.nysun.com/arts/time-for-pete-seeger-to-repent/56379/
Very, very late in life, Seeger seems to have recognized some of his error. In 2007 (!) he wrote a song criticizing Stalin, and admitted to the (admittedly sometimes rabid) ex-radical Ronald Radosh that he had been too soft on Stalin. http://www.nysun.com/arts/seeger-speaks-and-sings-against-stalin/61666/
Does Seeger's work on noble issues such as civil rights excuse his almost lifelong devotion to Stalinism? I think it's a much tougher question than the comments above seem to acknowledge.
Martin Amis wrote an important book, Koba the Dread, asking why so many on our side seem to find sympathy for Stalinism to be quaint or charming, even though Stalin's crimes were almost as enormous as Hitler's. This nostalgia for Pete Seeger is Exhibit A.
May 4, 2009 6:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
You may have a point Econwatcher that Seeger made some wrong decisions in his political life. You want to delve into the questions of whether lifelong devotion to civil rights "excuse"those wrong decisions and positions. Here is a harder question which may shed some light on your Seeger question...the case of Thurgood Marshall who actively played ball with the FBI (which at that very time itself was actively branding every civil rights advance as being engineered by communist stooges) being a despicable informer against Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers. His "reliability" as an informal FBI operative provided him and his overwhelming personal ambition with the credentials that enabled his ascent to Solicitor General and later Supreme Court Justice as his assistant Randall Kennedy has indicated
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/636.html
To me what the Marshall case illuminates is how enormous the gap between the two cases are. If one is to take a measure of the moral character of a man, it does not seem to me that the scope of his political views is the correct measure. If anything I think it incredibly admirable to recall Seeger's courage in defending a position that he and millions of others believed was morally good when that position was under incredible vicious attack (even though in the end he came to realize some aspects of his own position was laden with monumental problems as well. You are perhaps not being fully honest. Seeger did not go around the country singing praises to Stalin. He did belong to the Communist Party for a while and fought for progressive causes primarily. It is the old tactic of the right to reduce that life of political activism involved with ALL social isues to support for Stalin. That is not an accurate historical record to put it mildly). Some of his positions may have been wrong, but his actions (unlike Thurgood Marshall's) always reflected courage and integrity, his political positions undertaken at great personal cost to him (he was threatened with prison and blacklisted for at least a decade, his passport was confiscated)...all for his views. Marshall on the other hand had fame and fortune bestowed on him for his underhanded actions, and his deceit.
May 4, 2009 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
The article you cite regarding Thurgood Marshall does not support the conclusions you make. Do you have other information that you haven't cited?
May 4, 2009 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your comment lacks specificity so I am not even sure what issue you are questioning. However if I correctly understand you, I think you are wrong. The article does support the "conclusions" I raise. Here is what Randall Kennedy says in the article (maybe it is relevant to what you are asking about):
"He did not become Solicitor General and a Supreme Court Justice purely on the basis of his skills as an attorney. He (like everyone else who attains high appointive office) obtained these posts after having first demonstrated his reliability to those in a position to offer such positions. "
You may not like what his supporter and assistant Kennedy says, but it certainly supports the "conclusions" I raise.
Here is what Denton Watson (former Public Relations officer for NAACP) from the Marshall wing of the NAACP said about the origin of Marshall's antipathy for Communists and other radicals:
(http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/705.html)
"Communists greatly embarrassed the NAACP by taking over the defense of the Scottsboro Boys,” the nine black youth from Alabama who were framed on a rape charge and sentenced to death. “The Scottsboro Boys case,” Watson continues, “alerted [the NAACP] to the Communists' real goal: to organize blacks as a fifth column in the international struggle to undermine capitalism and to get the West to disarm."
In point of fact, the Communist Party came to the defense of these young men when the arrests took place in 1931, while the NAACP ignored the case. Thousands of CP members and supporters conducted an international struggle which saved the Scottsboro defendants from the electric chair.
The official civil rights leaders, for fear of offending the political establishment, refused to say a word about the Scottsboro Case for months. They only made it an issue when it became clear that their silence was undermining their support among blacks and politically conscious workers and intellectuals of all races. Even then, their central goal was to discredit the CP. “After that,” as Watson states in his New York Times column, “the association waged a long and ultimately successful battle to keep Communists out.”
Do you have further information that might give me greater insight here?
May 4, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with LEP. Your conclusions do not follow from what is in that article.
First, perhaps you have other information, but it is not mentioned in the article that Marshall informed on Carmichael, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. All the article mentions is that he cooperated with the FBI. And even that is tentative since, as Kennedy states, it is not clear that everything in the file is accurate.
Second, in judging Marshall's moral character, you need to take into account ALL the motivations for his actions. Perhaps ambition was one reason for his actions. But Kennedy states pretty unequivocally that that was secondary to the decisions that needed to be made to support the civil rights movement. Marshall was correct in perceiving that legal and social equality for blacks was dependent on keeping Communists out of the NAACP. If opponents of civil rights could brand the organization as a Communist front, then the cause of civil rights would be set back.
Almost every successful great leader has had to face decisions like this - whether to do something ruthless in support of the larger cause. Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus. Roosevelt authorized the Japanese internment camps. Ben Gurion authorized the sinking of a ship carrying arms to the Irgun, a rival Jewish faction fighting for Israeli independence. Churchill destroyed the French navy. And so on. Some of these decisions don't look so good in hindsight and were almost certainly unnecessary. But others probably were. No knowing very much about the history of the NAACP, it's hard for me to judge Marshall's actions. But on the surface, it seems that he was as ruthless as he needed to be to advance the cause and his actions, though unsavory perhaps, do not significantly diminish him in my eyes.
May 4, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Brad, you may be right that what Marshall did was necessary for the ends he was after, but I am bothered by the act of informing on erstwhile allies (clearly in a number of struggles such as stopping the executions of the Scottsboro boys) to the state force (the FBI and Hoover) that played such an instrumental role in neutering opposition to racial oppression and discrimination. Frederick Douglass disassociated himself from John Brown (who he knew) but never informed on him even if that would have been opportune; John Brown was also an unbridled radical and had some (temporary) negative effects on the abolition cause. Martin Luther King was also accused ferociously by the same Hoover/FBI of being Communist, being a communist front, aiding the Soviets etc, but that did not prompt King to inform or collaborate with the FBI and even with those charges (which I think were pretty inevitable for any group vigorously pursuing civil-rights) or maybe those charges were even helpful, progress was made and certainly not entirely or even mainly by Marshall (whose contributions were large and undeniable). Lastly you say the article did not support what I said originally. Here we part company. I think it did. I quote again from Randall Kennedy:
"All of these considerations also explain why it would be unsurprising to me if documents revealed that, on occasion, Marshall passed on to the FBI information about persons within the civil rights community whom he believed to be prone to actions, particularly any resort to violence, that might seriously besmirch the reputation of that community. Skeptical of the non-violent civil disobedience of Martin Luther King, Jr., Marshall detested the volatile rhetoric and militant posturing of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers. (One of Marshall's favorite items in his chambers was a cartoon from Jet magazine showing him about to slam a gavel down upon some unkempt persons labeled as black power "militants.") I would think, then, that in Marshall's view, informing the FBI of readily accessible information about misguided agitators was merely a harmless ploy"
May 4, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
All the article says is that Marshall detested Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. It doesn't explicitly say he informed on them. But he might have. Again, if you have other information, then fine.
Perhaps the best way to think about Marshall in contrast to King or Douglass was that Marshall and the NAACP were intent on working within the system for black equality whereas the others were outsiders trying to overturn or substantially modify it. In truth, both were probably necessary. Marshall realized that black separatism was a non-starter. The goal was to use the existing laws and institutions to further the cause. As such, he would logically be much more sensitive to anything that would besmirch the reputation of the NAACP and, by extension, himself. This doesn't necessarily excuse becoming an informant, but it does help explain his perspective. But in any case, for me, it doesn't really change very much.
May 4, 2009 7:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
This sort of music has always been more about feeling good than thinking carefully, leading to the sometimes deplorable results you mention. But, at least it was good music. Nowadays, people listen to tuneless noise, try to pretend that it's music and try to feel warm and glowing while putting their critical faculties into idle. Small wonder that old-timers like Seeger, who could craft a beautiful and memorable melody, are so popular.
May 4, 2009 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think that if Pete Seeger failed to criticize Stalin himself or demounce Stalinism enough that it has or should have any impact on the work of his life here in America. And so what does it mean that he didn't denounce Stalin anyway? It doesn't mean he supported the crimes of the Stalinist era.
Besides, what Pete Seeger has done that counts is right here at home. He was right on civil rights. He was right on unionizing workers. He was right on women's rights. He was right on being anti-war. He was right on just about every genuine issue before the nation throughout his life. He gave more to others than most people will ever even consider. I'm not willing to besmirch all his good work because he wasn't anti-Stalin enough for some people.
May 4, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
*Almost* as enormous?
Stalin killed some 30 million people. Hitler wasn't even in his league.
May 4, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
About 70 million died in WW2. The Allies suffered about 61 million deaths and the Axis about 11 million. The Soviet Union lost 23 million people. Its population was about the same as the US, and we lost only a half million. Vietnam is another example of disproportionate losses. We lost 58,159 and North Vietnam lost over a million. Our population was about 10 times Vietnam.
May 4, 2009 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
A little history is in order, Seeger was a singer and private citizen.
The US government worked with Stalin during the war and with Nazi criminals after the war. Seeger never built V-2 missiles with slave labor for Hitler, Werner von Braun did, and then the US gov't hired him and 50 of his cohorts for NASA (see book "The Rocket Team").
Up until 1945 Stalin and the Soviets were heroes who helped America stop Hitler. Americans gave their lives shipping armaments to Russia through Nazi blockades to reach Murmansk.
Stalin's Army and the US/Allied forces celebrated when they met in 1945, and General Patton was censured for implying we should use the defeated German Army to invade Russia and topple Stalin.
The US government imported Nazi's (who used or approved the use of slave labor and were exempted from the Nuremberg trials) for our space program and we recruited agents from Nazi Reinhard Gehlens SS Gestapo for our new and developing CIA.
Henry Kissinger screened the Germans in Germany at the end of the war in his position with US Army intelligence, and they were allowed to continue their work, for the US, not Hitler.
May 4, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I played this for my buddy Readytoblowagasket a coupla weeks back. Here's one of my favorites from Pete Seeger, "Talkin' Union":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvPHQb-acCE
May 4, 2009 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
My favorite performance from Pete was when, outdoors in front of the Washington monument back in September of 1981, he sang "Which Side Are You On" with the little old lady who actually wrote the song back in Kentucky in the 30's. She was probably in her 80's or 90's then. She was small, frail, and her voice was strong and clear as was Pete's. There were at least 100,000 people there, it's hard to say exactly. Most were union people. And they were all singing.
"They say in Harlan County,
no nuetrals you will find there.
You'll either be a union man
or a thug for J.H. Blair!
Tell me,
which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?"
To say that it was moving is an extraordinary understatement.
May 4, 2009 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nice video but it left out some workers who could also use a union (the workers in this picture were not being exploited by communists but by capitalists here in the good ole USA) link
May 4, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I grew up listening to Pete and Arlo in concert, and have had the chance to talk a bit with his grandson Tao too.
So happy to see him outlive the bastards.
May 4, 2009 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
MJ: Thanks for the review! I was there too. There's nothing quite like 30,000 people singing "This Land Is Your Land" and "Amazing Grace" together. I had no idea "Amazing Grace" was written by a former slave runner (John Newton), after he became a minister. Hearing Pete's story really wobbled a few voices while singing out (mine included).
SONG - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rgefRhKU_0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace
Show highlights: Besides Seeger, of course, the Springsteen/Tommy Morello Tom Joad was great. But the performance that blew me away was Ritchie Havens' Freedom/Motherless Child. Just like the Woodstock performance, but with another 40 years of richness. Oh yeah, he gave a massive karate kick to end the song - pretty nifty from a near-70 year old!!
May 4, 2009 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely right!
(GOSOX too)
May 4, 2009 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
:)
http://nobelprize4pete.org/
If anyone out there doesn't have Springsteen's Seeger Sessions, run (don't walk) to go get it!
May 4, 2009 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
what more can be said about the great Pete Seeger?
either you know and feel what he stands for or there is no way to make someone see who doesnt.
in a country where 2 politically parties , both corrupt, are deemed somehow to represent the diverse views of 300 million people we need always to celebrate and remember the Pete Seegers.
"Springsteen said that he never saw Seeger more happy than at Obama's inauguration, noting that Seeger saw Obama's ascendancy as proof that he, Seeger, had "outlived the bastards."
We will be watching and hoping Pete......
May 4, 2009 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pete Seeger - a true American hero. I hope he gets a Nobel Prize!
May 4, 2009 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was at the concert last night, and it was really something special. Here's a short clip of Pete leading the audience in an "Amazing Grace" sign-a-long:
http://www.gotchamediablog.com/2009/05/pete-seegers-90th-birthday-concert.html
May 4, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure if you remember the optimism and love that greeted Bill Clinton's first inauguration. His election *was* the counterculture taking the helm. Remember the image of the tie-died Oxford-schooled Vietnam protester? The 'first black president'? If Clinton in his first 100 days had been mentioned at a Pete Seeger concert, he absolutely would have been cheered wildly -- a hell of a lot more than would have been Reagan or Bush. I think the cheers at Seeger's 90th birthday party probably had a special, deep resonance because they carried the affirmation that something truly historic happened this election, something in line with what Seeger like so many others had been fighting for all these years. That's a subtle difference though, but I think more accurate than the one M.J. describes.
May 4, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
God bless Pete, 90 and still going...happy b-day!!!
He was the musical conscience of America in a very turbulent time and I think it is great that he is still here now at this historically notable time in history. We've come a long way, farther than he might have imagined at the time, but still have a long way to go. But as I am wont to say sometimes the pace of progress can be maddeningly slow but it steadily marches on...thanks to people like Pete Seeger.
Just as an aside...his son Bob and Bob Dylan weren't there? Maybe his son didn't perform but was there but what about Dylan? I know Dylan was incredibly influenced musically and as a person by Pete.
May 4, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
My bad on his sons name. Monday morning brain cramp.
May 4, 2009 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for posting this MJ...I think that cultural forces, such as our music, are powerful forces which can shape our politics and the course of history. Too bad there are far fewer artists out there with doing what Pete Seeger did in the past and making those kind of contributions...now it seems it is only about the $$.
May 4, 2009 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pete Seeger is still being raked over the coals because he was a pacifist in February 1941, when the segregated US army was drafting blacks and housing them in inferior conditions to white draftees while denying them training in combat or as pilots and instead restricting them to servile positions. In May, 1941 Roosevelt, who was threatened by a huge civil rights march on Washington, declared an end to Jim Crow in hiring for all corporations receiving government defense contracts (they had refused to hire black workers) by federal decree. Roosevelt thus avoided the March, which did in fact take place under the same leaders in 1963. In May Hitler also attacked Russia.
Seeger changed his position, abandoned pacifism, and enlisted in the war right after Pearl Harbor in December of that year, as did millions of other Americans. The army, however, continued to consider him a subversive because of the populist potential of songs that could be sung among friends in ones own living room.
Believe me, he was excoriated not for supporting Stalin but for criticizing Du Pont and other US big businesses -- the same ones who had no problem at all supporting Hitler's concentration camps and even helpfully supplied the technology to run them.
May 4, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
A Note From Native American Political Prisoner, Leonard Peltier to Pete Seeger:
Hello my OLE friend and Happy Birthday! It fills my heart with happiness to see you've endured all these years. I hope your celebration is well attended and worthy of your life's accomplishments. If i could be there, i'd embrace you as the longtime friend and hae been to me. Perhaps one day soon.
Unfortunately as you know, i cannot attend due to being unjustly incarerated now for more than thirty years. I continue to struggle for my freedom despite attempts to silence me through my detention, and even most recently an assault. But my voice will continue to sing out for real justice and freedom, as opposed to the illusion we have been force fed. Real justice means justice for all and real freedom includes freedom of the truth. I have been able to hold on all these years thanks to the support of friends like you.
I hope you and your circle of friend are able during your revelry, to find a few moments to renew your support of me and my case. Please contact my sister
Betty Ann at the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee and pledge whatever support you can, as it continues to be desperately needed. One day we'll be able to share such a celebration properly. May the Creator bless you and keep you, my bother, as we are all related.
In the spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier.
Kari Ann
Assistant Coordinator
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
May 4, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
M.J.'s moving comment inspired me to open up the YouTube of Pete and Springsteen at inauguration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5KnYADCSms
One nation. What an idea!
May 4, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
My very first concert, when I was just a child, my mom took me (at my request) to that Seeger/Guthrie tour in the late 70's.
Hard to believe he's still going.
May 4, 2009 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
May 5, 2009 1:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday Celebration Photos
http://www.msg.com/photos/pete-seegers-90th-birthday-celebration/slide/1/
Happy Birthday Man!
May 8, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink