From My Shelves – Pete Seeger

From My Shelves is a series of occasional posts that look at items
from my personal collection to which I have a special attachment.



Pete Seeger’s Greatest Hits (1987)

It was my first piece of personal music.  The album was “Pete Seeger’s Childrens Concert at Town Hall”.  A wonderful bit of interaction from the folk music legend with an audience of small children.  My memory says it was a birthday present, wrapped in silver paper (aluminum foil?) and hidden on top of the refrigerator.  The perfect hiding spot from a kindergarten aged child.

There was a lot of folk music in the home in which I grew up.  I remember Peter Paul and Mary, and the Kingston Trio.  A half century later I still recall snatches of many of their songs (much to the frustration of Kid Phlipside, since I don’t ever seem to retain whole songs!).  But this record was mine.  It is tied to my first public performance, when I mimed the story of “Abi Yoyo” to my kindergarten class at show and tell.  It was the beginning of a fandom that would expose me to great songs of the nation and political concepts.  Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is  Your Land” to the  Cuban patriotism in the lyrics of Jose Marti in “Guantanamera”.  Music that expected me to enjoy it and think about it.

Pete Seeger was a pivotal figure in the folk muisc monvement that began in the late ’40s, then gained strength in the ’50s before exploding in the ’60s.  His work with the Almanac Singers and the Weavers set the stage for much of what would follow with people like Bob Dylan.  Seeger remained an activist up to his death at age 95. 

I wore out and eventually lost that original disc.  Today, I make do with the Greatest Hits album that came out in the late ’80s.  Many of the songs I remember from the original (especially ‘Abi Yoyo”) are here plus other songs that I’ve learned to love since.  It includes the songs that became huge hits for others, like “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”, and “Turn, Turn, Turn”, plus “Little Boxes”, “We Shall Overcome”, “Waist Deep in Big Muddy”, and “This Land Is Your Land”.  So many of those songs have been integral to forming who I am.  Seeger’s death in 2014 hit me especially hard.  His lifelong dedication to his ideals remains the gold standard for how I want to live my life.

Happily the music still lives on.  Here are two great songs.  The first he wrote, and the second he helped popularize.  I think he would have approved of the project.