The Music of My Childhood

Picture this - a finished basement with wood paneled walls, the stereo with a turntable on a set of shelves along the long wall that stretched from the end of the steps to the back of the basement. Sitting on the floor is a young, blonde-haired child with plastic-framed glasses, holding an album cover as his father places the LP onto the turntable and closes the cover. The sound of applause crackled out of the speakers and filled the room. Then that classic banjo sound kicked in shortly after.

The album is Children’s Concert at Town Hall and the artist is the incomparable Pete Seeger. Seeger was the sound of my childhood, alongside other folk heroes like Dylan, Baez and many more. He lived a long, amazing life - living to the age of 94. He died on this day in 2014.

For today’s Throwback Thursday, we look back on the life of one of the greatest musicians and activists there ever was and ever will be.

Born into a musically gifted family (His father was the influential musicologist Charles Seeger, and his mother, Constance, was a violin instructor at Juilliard), it was most likely the introspective poems of his uncle, Alan Seeger, that most inspired Pete’s songwriting. Leaving Harvard after two years in 1938, Seeger hitchhiked and rode freight trains around the country, gathering country ballads, work songs, and hymns and developing a remarkable virtuosity on the five-string banjo. In 1940 he organized the Almanac Singers, a quartet that also featured the folk singer and composer Woody Guthrie

As a solo performer, he was a victim of blacklisting, especially after his 1961 conviction for contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal in 1955 to answer questions posed to him by the House Committee on Un-American Activities concerning his political activities.Although Seeger’s conviction was overturned the following year in an appeal, for several years afterward the major networks refused to allow him to make television appearances. In later years the controversy surrounding the performer gradually subsided.

As a solo performer, he was a victim of blacklisting, especially after his 1961 conviction for contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal in 1955 to answer questions posed to him by the House Committee on Un-American Activities concerning his political activities. Although Seeger’s conviction was overturned the following year in an appeal, for several years afterward the major networks refused to allow him to make television appearances. In later years the controversy surrounding the performer gradually subsided.

Seeger was always active politically and remained the most important voice in folk music, spurring a revival in the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1990s Seeger was regarded as a cherished American institution. The motto inscribed on his banjo—“This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender”—seemed to have been proven correct. In 1994 he was awarded a National Medal of Arts, the first of many honors that he received as the century approached its turn. Seeger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, and the following year he received his first Grammy Award.

I could write so much about Seeger and his legacy. But I’ll tell you about the impact it had on me. It showed me that music could mean something and make a difference. In how you listened and in what you truly heard. Seeger always seemed to be the relative that you looked forward to having over to your house. He brought his banjo and song after song, story after story. Until the last of the embers of the fire went out in the fireplace.

Folksinger and fellow activist Billy Bragg wrote that "Pete believed that music could make a difference. Not change the world, he never claimed that – he once said that if music could change the world he'd only be making music – but he believed that while music didn't have agency, it did have the power to make a difference." Bruce Springsteen said of Seeger's death, "I lost a great friend and a great hero last night, Pete Seeger," before performing "We Shall Overcome" while on tour in South Africa.