The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger
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A true American original is brought to life in this rich and lively portrait of Pete Seeger, who, with his musical grace and inextinguishable passion for social justice, transformed folk singing into a high form of peaceful protest in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on his extensive talks with Seeger, New Yorker writer Alec Wilkinson lets us experience the man’s unique blend of independence and commitment, charm, courage, energy, and belief in human equality and American democracy.We see Seeger instilled with a love of music by his parents, both classically trained musicians; as a teenager, hearing real folk music for the first time; and as a young man, singing with Woody Guthrie and with the Weavers. We learn of his harassment by the government for his political beliefs and his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1949. And we follow his engagement with civil rights, the peace movement, and the environment—especially his work saving the Hudson River and building the ship Clearwater. He talks ardently about his own music and that of others, and about the power of music to connect people and bind them to a cause. Finally, we meet Toshi, his wife of nearly sixty years, and members of his family, at the house he built on a mountainside in upstate New York.The Protest Singer is as spirited and captivating as its subject—an American icon, celebrating his ninetieth birthday.From the Hardcover edition. The Barnes & Noble Review "My purpose," Pete Seeger explained last year, chopping wood at his New York cabin, "is in trying to get people to realize that there may be no human race by the end of the century unless we find ways to talk to people we deeply disagree with." The folk musician, who turns 90 this May, has long embodied the courage not only to sing about, but also to act on, his convictions, and author and New Yorker writer Wilkinson has crafted a slim biography that tunes in to Seeger's life with a clear, unhurried frequency. The Protest Singer offers a straightforward and accessible record of Seeger's idiosyncratic choices and patriotism. He toyed briefly with Communism, though, Wilkinson reveals, "[t]here is no conceit that he has more emphatically embraced than that all human beings are created equal and have equal rights." After six years in the army, he reunited with his wife and children in 1948 and began performing folk songs with three friends who called themselves the Weavers. Within a year, they'd sold four million albums. Summoned to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, Seeger was indicted for contempt and sentenced to a year in jail, and this book includes the entire transcript as an appendix. The judgment was thrown out, but only after being blacklisted did Seeger find himself unshackled from the commercial world, happily free to return to singing for kids in schools. Wilkinson's portrait comes out as unfussy as its subject, and Seeger's example of peaceful living, as intelligible as his songs. --Sarah Norris
