{"id":2071,"date":"2017-10-17T16:41:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T21:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=2071"},"modified":"2017-10-18T12:12:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T17:12:23","slug":"pete-seeger-american-or-un-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2017\/10\/17\/pete-seeger-american-or-un-american\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Seeger: American or Un-American"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Seeger performing on banjo<\/p><\/div>\n

Growing up, every first Friday of the month my mom and I would go to folk music sing-a-longs with groups of her folk music loving friends. It was always a lot of fun; we sang great tunes by Pete Seeger, Bill Staines, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and much more, accompanied by guitars, drums, and fiddles. As a kid I always thought Pete Seeger embodied what it meant to \u201cbe American.\u201d My mom worked with the Madison Folk Music Society, and actually met Pete Seeger a couple of times. Upon finding this video entitled \u201cFolk singers linked to alleged \u2018Communist Conspiracy\u2019\u201d I was shocked to learn that Pete Seeger was accused of being a communist (and didn\u2019t deny it,) mostly because I had heard such negative things about the ideology and such positive things about Pete Seeger from my mom. I was surprised that she never mentioned this to me.<\/p>\n

Many consider Pete Seeger to be the father of the folk music revival, and it\u2019s no wonder why. He was born into a musical and pacifist family in 1919, and spent his adolescence playing the ukulele and four-string banjo. After dropping out of Harvard at 19 to become a journalist in New York, Seeger discovered he was talented at playing the five-string banjo and knew he wanted to learn more about folk music. He then worked for Alan Lomax at the Archive of American Folksong at the Library of Congress. After meeting Woodie Guthrie in 1940 and traveling the country together playing music for gas money, Seeger and other folk musicians started Almanac Singers. This group aligned with left-wing social movements, as they specialized in anti-war and pro-union songs. A representative example of their political message is evident in the song \u201cWhich Side Are You On?\u201d While this song was originally written as a union organizing song for miners enduring a violent struggle with mine owners, its lyrics fit very well with Seeger\u2019s questioning of politics and his advocacy for radical social change. Here is a video with the original recording of the Almanac Singers “Which Side Are You On?”<\/p>\n