A giant of the folk music world, musician and social activist Pete Seeger was and remains one of the most significant figures in American music history. Throughout his lifetime, he worked to expand the role of music in daily life, putting on vibrant and courageous performances that were encyclopedic in their exploration of the world. Harnessing his vast knowledge of the origins of songs, Seeger was able to find teachable moments at every turn, empowering his audiences to build active communities and forge paths to a better future in the midst of a troubled, angry world. A century after his birth, our present time is as troubled as ever, but if Seeger has taught us one thing, it’s the ability to remain optimistic in unsettling times. Kronos Quartet now channels this optimism in Jacob Garchik’s Storyteller, a new work written for Music for Change: Seeger @ 100, its new program celebrating the folk legend’s immense contribution to American culture.
Pete Seeger was born in Manhattan in 1919 to ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger and concert violinist Constance de Clyver Edson Seeger, a pair who would provide an enduring musical backdrop throughout his childhood. When they decided to embark on a cross-country expedition to bring classical music to rural areas, they built their own trailer and brought the whole family with them, stopping along the way to perform for local farmers. To their surprise, the local farmers would always reciprocate by sharing their own musical traditions, planting in young Pete the seeds of a passion that would go on to fuel his entire career. Galvanized by these early experiences, and later, by stepmother and folk music composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, Pete began singing and learning to play the ukulele, eventually moving on to the five-string banjo for which he is best known today.
The early 1940s found Seeger performing with The Almanac Singers, a group that came on the scene as pro-labor, anti-war activists. After service in World War II, Seeger rose to fame with his Almanac-inspired quartet The Weavers, performing in major venues and landing hit records on the charts by the group’s second year. Their success was abruptly interrupted, however, when in the hysteria of postwar McCarthyism, Seeger’s prior affiliation with the Communist Party landed him on the blacklist, the effects of which he would continue to feel for the next 17 years.
Subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee—the investigative council charged with sniffing out Communist threats—in 1955, Seeger refused to discuss his political beliefs, not by pleading the fifth, but by invoking the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and association: “I am not going to answer any questions as to [...] my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this.” This bold move would result in his 1961 conviction and yearlong prison sentence for contempt of Congress. “I am proud,” Seeger said at the ruling, “that I never refused to sing to any group of people because I might disagree with some of the ideas of some of the people listening to me. I have sung for rich and poor, for Americans of every possible political and religious opinion and persuasion, of every race, color, and creed. The House committee wished to pillory me because it didn’t like some few of the many thousands of places I have sung for.” The indictment was dismissed on appeal the following year.
Despite being shut out of national exposure, Seeger remained as active as ever in the following decades. He churned out political numbers such as “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”; he participated in reworking the hymn “I Will Overcome” into the iconic Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome”; and he contributed a strong voice against the American war in Vietnam, penning great anti-war songs like “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” and “If You Love Your Uncle Sam (Bring ’Em Home).” Taking a page from his parents, Seeger took his family on a nine-month expedition across two dozen countries abroad, performing for hundreds of thousands of listeners and collecting rural traditions from around the world. From Ghanaian fishermen rowing songs to Indonesian court dances, Irish fiddle tunes to Indian classical sitar music, the Seegers were able to document the globalization and creolization of folk and popular music, modeling how the act of learning about others is effectively indistinguishable from learning about ourselves.
“My job,” Seeger said in 2009, “is to show folks there’s a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet.” Considering Kronos’ own 45-year history of global exploration and musical activism, it is only natural for the group to take on Seeger’s commitment as an extension of its own work. Through newly commissioned arrangements of his original and popularized songs, Kronos journeys through Seeger’s expansive repertoire, enlisting voices of other musicians along the way who are endeavoring to pass on his legacy the same way he passed it on to them. In the process of celebrating Seeger @ 100, Kronos founder and artistic director David Harrington hopes to extend the spirit and inspiration inherent in Seeger’s life work. “He celebrated beauty and the pleasure of singing together, while also alerting his listeners to issues that needed to be worked on,” Harrington says. “He explored the wide world through music; he questioned wars and injustice; he taught us about responsibilities we have as citizens; and he had immense courage. When the work of Pete Seeger is examined in its entirety, we find that he has pointed a way forward for musicians and the community around us since the beginning.”
Program note by Reshena Liao.
Jacob Garchik's Storyteller was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by the FreshGrass Foundation, the David Harrington Research & Development Fund, and the Stoyanof Commission Fund for the 2019 FreshGrass Festival at MASS MoCA.
