His music had a profound influence on musical artists such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. His songs hit the top forty numerous times, including such classics as Turn! Turn! Turn!, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, and If I Had a Hammer. He stood up for the 99 percent against the depredations of the 1 percent and their lackeys in political office. Even politicians he supported, such as Franklin Roosevelt, felt his wrath via song, as demonstrated in the video below.
Seeger’s politics and willingness to stand up to government and corporate power got him to
“On July 26, 1956, the House of Representatives voted 373 to 9 to cite Pete Seeger and seven others (including playwright Arthur Miller) for contempt, as they failed to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their attempts to investigate alleged subversives and communists. Pete Seeger testified before the HUAC in 1955.
In one of Pete’s darkest moments, when his personal freedom, his career, and his safety were in jeopardy, a flash of inspiration ignited a song idea. The song was stirred by a passage from Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel “And Quie Flows the Don”. The song was Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Around the world the song traveled and in 1962 at a UNICEF concert in Germany, Marlene Dietrich, Academy Award-nominated German-born American actress, first performed the song in French, as “Qui peut dire ou vont les fleurs?” Shortly after she sang it in German. The song’s impact in Germany just after WWII was shattering. It’s universal message, “let there be peace in the world” did not get lost in its translation. To the contrary, the combination of the language, the setting, and the great lyrics has had a profound effect on people all around the world. May it have the same effect today and bring renewed awareness to all that hear it. In the early sixties, the Kingston Trio scored a top ten hit with the song.
Seeger performed many time with outstanding other talent, such as Johnny Cash below.
More links on Pete Seeger below.
pete-seeger-dies-at-94-his-politics-in-music–US News and World Report
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