A Teacher Blogs

One of Pete's many friends in the music business was Johnny Cash -- the fabled Man in Black . Cash himself had been a bit of an outlier in the country music establishment. No doubt, some eyebrows were probably raised  when he married June Carter, whose legendary family were country music's royalty and pioneers of recorded music for the masses. Cash had a fierce independence musically. His songs were the brooding homilies of a man who chose his own path and vision, and who wrestled with his demons. I'm unaware if Johnny Cash ever stated publicly his views on the Vietnam War while the US was still involved, but this song provides some clues.  Stylistically,  Singing in Vietnam Talkin' Blues is pure Woody Guthrie, who, coincidentally, had taught Pete how to perform talking blues . Cash's two final verses surely are a departure from President Nixon's aspirations to "peace with honour." Certainly, nowhere in the tune does Cash invoke the necessity...

Pete Seeger's iconic long-kneck five-string banjo with its enduring message. Pete Seeger's defiant appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee hurt not only his prospects for appearing on television, but also prevented him from getting bookings in major concert halls in the US. Pete continued to tour and work where he could. International audiences were more obliging, as his music was known around the world. He had a unique arrangement with Folkways Records, which allowed him to record whenever inspiration struck. Many children's songs would be added to his repertoire as he even toured summer camps for kids around the world.  This young audience would grow up and pay money to see him perform on college campuses. Still, Pete was denied access to US television during the second folk boom of the early sixties. A touchstone moment in the sixties folk boom was the 1963-64 television show Hootenanny , which featured popular folk and pop artists of ...

A departure from my usual politically-charged fare -- sort of. I've been a guitar player and folk music lover for more than four decades. More recently, I took up the five-sting banjo. Music has been my companion in my teaching journey.  And so has the wonderful spirit of Pete Seeger.  So let's write about that. Im sure his biographers have struggled with how to begin to tell the story of Pete Seeger . The choices are endless. He was the son and step-son of accomplished musicians -- in particular, his father, Charles Seeger , was a pioneer of ethnomusicology. Pete would follow his father's path, albeit less academically, hopping freight trains with Woody Guthrie ; recording and transcribing all-but-forgotten music on the backroads and in the backwoods of America with Alan Lomax ; popularizing the twelve-string guitar (introduced to him by Lead Belly ) and the five-string banjo; pioneering the long-kneck banjo; singing and playing for any audience that invit...