The spokesman
By David Brooks
From the Mexican newspaper La Jornada
NEW YORK – The point is that we should all sing, says Pete Seeger, a troubador who has devoted himself for seven decades to give a voice to everyone, especially sing to something that is in plain view but relegated to invisibility: the struggle for the dignity of the American people.
His concerts are never about him but about everyone present. The collective chorus is, to him, the essential expression of human solidarity. He always invites the audience to sing along: "Participation, that’s what my job is all about," he says.
And that solidarity is born from love and anger against all injustice. "If you want to have great love, you’ve got to have great anger," he sings in "Letter to Eve," which ends with: "Eve, go tell Adam, we got to build a new garden […] for all o’ God’s children."
Seeger was 94 on May 3. He was a participant in and musical accompanist to the great social movements of this country, the labor movement and the antifascist struggle of the 1930s and ’40s. He was a target for McCarthyism in the 1950s, fought for civil rights in the 1960s and in recent decades has remained in the environmentalist movement. He has been against U.S. interventions in Latin America and has joined the movements against the wars, even the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The greatest promoter of folk music in the 20th Century, inspired by his friend and mentor Woody Guthrie, he has recorded more than 60 albums, including several for children. He has confronted bullies and endured persecutions that attempted to silence him. He has taught generations how to play banjo (his textbook is considered to be the best to learn that instrument) and has been an inspiration for musicians of every kind, from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen.
He has been decorated with the Kennedy Center Honors (by then-President Bill Clinton), the Presidential Medal of Arts, a career Grammy and many others here and abroad, such as the Félix Varela Medal in Cuba. He was inducted to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame by Harry Belafonte and Arlo Guthrie, Woody’s son.
His banjo bears this inscription: "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."
"Music can distract you from your sorrows a while, music can console you from your sorrows, music can express your sorrows and sometimes music can do something to overcome your sorrows," Seeger said once.
For his 90th birthday, more than 40 famous artists – including Dave Matthews, Joan Baez, and Tom Morello – celebrated with a huge concert at Madison Square Garden.
Among them was Springsteen, who said: "Don’t be fooled by his looks. He looks like your granddad, but only if your granddad can kick your a**. He sings with the voice of the people [and] slashes with a knife the false illusions of our country." Yet, "while he reveals its worst failures, he also celebrates its best angels."
The son of a music teacher and a concert violinist, Seeger went to Harvard for a while but dropped out to tour the United States with a musicologist who rescued the popular songs of the American Southeast.
His successful musical career, as a member of The Weavers, was interrupted by McCarthyism. Summoned before Congress’ anti-communist committees, he was one of the few who refused to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights and simply refused to answer questions about whether he was a member or ally of the Communist Party. In turn, he accused the lawmakers of violating democratic principles such as freedom of speech.
As a result, in 1961 he was declared in contempt of Congress and a federal court ordered his imprisonment. In prison, he gave the first, and perhaps the only musical press conference to talk about his case.
Seeger’s sentence was overturned in 1962, but for a long time thereafter he was blacklisted, as many other artists were. He and his songs were banned from the radio, television and concerts.
At that time, he participated in the growing civil rights movement headed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Along with other musicians at the Highlander Center, he composed a new version of an old gospel song that became the movement’s anthem: "We Shall Overcome."
In 1963, Seeger sang before the Lincoln Monument during the famous march led by King in Washington, the event where King delivered his "I have a dream" speech.
On Jan. 20, 2009, 46 years later, he stood again before that monument, this time as a guest to the official concert for the inauguration of the first black president of the United States, Barack Obama.
With Bruce Springsteen, Seeger sang his friend Woody Guthrie’s "This Land Is My Land," with the original, subversive lyrics that are almost always left out. For example:
"As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said ‘No Trespassing.’
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me."
In the late ’60s, he launched what has become one of the most famous and enduring environmental initiatives. Through concerts, he collected funds to build a sailing ship like that ones that existed in the 19th Century, the Clearwater. Ever since, the ship has sailed up and down the Hudson River seeking to clean one of the nation’s most majestic and most polluted rivers. In more than four decades, that initiative has helped restore marine life in the Hudson.
In his version of Beethoven’s "Ode to Joy," played on the banjo, Seeger has added new lyrics:
"None shall push aside another, None shall let another fall; Work beside me sisters and brothers, All for one and one for all."
He is the spokesman for the other United States.
