Seeger is, quite literally, a folk hero—in the sense that he collected, wrote, and popularized many of America’s essential songs: “Turn, Turn, Turn,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “This Land Is Your Land,” “We Shall Overcome.” (It was originally “We Will Overcome”; Seeger thought the vowel in “shall” made it sound more dramatic.) But he is also a folk hero in the sense that Paul Bunyan is a folk hero. His nine decades seem almost mythic, complete with a perfect origin story, trials, dangers, and big quixotic inspirational victories.... Through it all, Seeger remained the idealist’s idealist.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
"A LIVING ARCHIVE OF AMERICA’S MUSIC AND CONSCIENCE, A TESTAMENT OF THE POWER OF SONG AND CULTURE TO NUDGE HISTORY ALONG": Thank you, Pete Seeger, for a legacy of song and commitment to American values which cannot be matched. As Sam Anderson wrote in 2009,
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