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The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger
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.
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.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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250 people want to read
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April 28, 2019
A short biographical essay about one of the most inspiring of performers and the gentlest of radicals. Song as an expression of the people was more important to him than money and fame, and this little book--based primarily on interviews with Seeger--demonstrates his sincerity and character.
June 16, 2013
Pete Seeger does not wear the mantle of ‘famous person’ very well. There have been times he has said that he would rather you sing his songs than buy his records. And a lot of us know quite a few of his song by heart.
The Protest Singer is a short book, one the author thinks you can read in one sitting. It was published in 2009.
Here is a paragraph from the book jacket that introduces the man and the author:
Pete Seeger was born in 1919 so is in his 90s. He was born in Manhattan and lived in Greenwich Village after WWII. In 1949 he bought 17 acres of land on the side of a mountain in Beacon, NY, sixty miles north of NYC, and moved there with his wife and two young children. They lived in a twelve foot trailer while he built a log cabin for their home.
Born into musical family, he started singing in 1925 when he was six years old. Singing was a part of normal life for him. So he has been singing for almost nine decades and has written songs that we all know: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?; Turn, Turn, Turn; If I Had a Hammer; Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. He also sings some well known standards: We Shall Overcome; Guantanamera; Michael Row the Boat Ashore and a list longer than your arm. Way longer.
When he moved from NYC to Beacon in Duchess County, he was becoming fairly well known as a singer and musician but he wasn’t making much money. Seeger appeared with Paul Robeson, a well known black singer, in a concert in Peekskill, NY to raise funds for a civil rights organization. They had been threatened by the KKK and expected trouble. When they were driving away from the concert, the cars were attacked by people throwing rocks that broke car windows. This was not the last time Pete would have trouble because of his political views and associates.
Some pages in the book are devoted to Seeger’s story about his ancestry and youth.
Seeger had a privileged childhood growing up in Nyack, NY. He started a weekly newsletter at the boy’s boarding school he attended, selling at five cents a copy. His mother wanted him training in classical music but he “couldn’t keep from tapping his foot.” With the experience of doing his newsletter, he decided that he wanted to be a journalist.
Seeger was admitted to Harvard on a scholarship but left in 1938 before the end of his second year. In 1939 Seeger meets up with Woody Guthrie and spends some time with him in Washington, DC recording songs for the Library of Congress. He went with Guthrie to Texas to see Guthrie’s family and they go separate ways for a while. Seeger spent some time riding railroad box cards and earning money playing the banjo. Later Guthrie and Seeger got together informally with a variety of other musicians and performed as the Almanac Singers. Seeger thought they were pretty good for a group with a lot of member turn over that never practiced except when they were performing.
In that time, Seeger wrote to Toshi, his future wife:
When he was in army training Military Intelligence questioned him because they doubted his opinions. He and Toshi married and finally he was sent to a small island in the Pacific. He had been drafted in 1942 and was in the army until 1945. Fresh out of the army he started singing with three others calling themselves the Weavers. They got a job in NYC and were not having much success – no one was coming to see them – when Carl Sandburg heard them, said some positive things and suddenly they had an audience. They released their first record in 1950 and shortly after that had their best seller hit “Goodnight, Irene” Then all of a sudden they were famous and went on the road touring.
The Weavers sold a lot of records during 1950 but Pete didn’t enjoy himself. He was happier playing the clubs and didn’t like being such a public figure. But because of him teenagers were first hearing what was called folk music. The Weavers had a contract for a television show but when an organization Counterattack put out a pamphlet “Red Channels” with 151 names of men and women in radio and television who were involved with suspicious (communist) organizations. The contract was cancelled. The Weavers continued to perform until 1952 when they disbanded and then started singing again in 1955. Pete left the group in 1957 when the group voted (3 to 1) to do a cigarette commercial.
In the early 1950s if you thought, as Pete did, all human beings are created equal and have equal rights, it was evidence that you were a socialist. Pete, who had been a member of the Communist Party in the late 1940s, withdrew from the party in 1949 after he moved to Beacon.
Shortly after the Weavers resumed their singing, Seeger was summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the US Congress. Pete’s decision was to agree to talk about himself but not testify against others. His father had been forced out of his job in 1952 when he also refused to testify against others. He appeared before HUAC and in spite of lengthy questioning refused to testify against any group or person. Eventually he was found in contempt and sentenced to one year in jail, a sentence that was overturned in 1962, seven years after it all started.
In answer to the question, Have you seen any pattern to your life?” Seeger answered in part:
John Cronin, the director of the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, tells this story about Pete Seeger:
The appendix of the book includes the ten points of “The Purpose of Music,” by Charles Seeger, Pete’s dad. It also includes the transcript of Pete’s testimony before the HUAC in August 1955.
There are also several dozen black and white photos included in the book. And let me say straight out that I hate it when there are photos and the captions for all of them are on a separate page at the back of the book. Like in this book!
This is easily a four star book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading although going back several generations of family history was a bit much in a short book. The book does have a ring of authenticity and had the cooperation of Pete. The author talks about it being, at Pete’s suggestion, a book you can read in one sitting. I had to take some breaks but I did read it in one day when I could devote myself to reading.
The Protest Singer is a short book, one the author thinks you can read in one sitting. It was published in 2009.
Here is a paragraph from the book jacket that introduces the man and the author:
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.
Pete Seeger was born in 1919 so is in his 90s. He was born in Manhattan and lived in Greenwich Village after WWII. In 1949 he bought 17 acres of land on the side of a mountain in Beacon, NY, sixty miles north of NYC, and moved there with his wife and two young children. They lived in a twelve foot trailer while he built a log cabin for their home.
Born into musical family, he started singing in 1925 when he was six years old. Singing was a part of normal life for him. So he has been singing for almost nine decades and has written songs that we all know: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?; Turn, Turn, Turn; If I Had a Hammer; Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. He also sings some well known standards: We Shall Overcome; Guantanamera; Michael Row the Boat Ashore and a list longer than your arm. Way longer.
When he moved from NYC to Beacon in Duchess County, he was becoming fairly well known as a singer and musician but he wasn’t making much money. Seeger appeared with Paul Robeson, a well known black singer, in a concert in Peekskill, NY to raise funds for a civil rights organization. They had been threatened by the KKK and expected trouble. When they were driving away from the concert, the cars were attacked by people throwing rocks that broke car windows. This was not the last time Pete would have trouble because of his political views and associates.
Some pages in the book are devoted to Seeger’s story about his ancestry and youth.
“I come from a family of doctors and shopkeepers and intellectuals,” he[Seeger] said. A great-uncle, Franklin Edson, was mayor of New York. He was a well-to-do lawyer, and he came in as a kind of compromise candidate served only one term. He christened the Brooklyn Bridge.
Seeger had a privileged childhood growing up in Nyack, NY. He started a weekly newsletter at the boy’s boarding school he attended, selling at five cents a copy. His mother wanted him training in classical music but he “couldn’t keep from tapping his foot.” With the experience of doing his newsletter, he decided that he wanted to be a journalist.
Seeger was admitted to Harvard on a scholarship but left in 1938 before the end of his second year. In 1939 Seeger meets up with Woody Guthrie and spends some time with him in Washington, DC recording songs for the Library of Congress. He went with Guthrie to Texas to see Guthrie’s family and they go separate ways for a while. Seeger spent some time riding railroad box cards and earning money playing the banjo. Later Guthrie and Seeger got together informally with a variety of other musicians and performed as the Almanac Singers. Seeger thought they were pretty good for a group with a lot of member turn over that never practiced except when they were performing.
In that time, Seeger wrote to Toshi, his future wife:
“There have been so many failures. You don’t know. Every song I started to write and gave up was a failure. I started to paint because I failed to get a job as a journalist. I started singing and playing more because I was a failure as a painter. I went into the army as willingly as I did because I was having more and more failure musically.”
When he was in army training Military Intelligence questioned him because they doubted his opinions. He and Toshi married and finally he was sent to a small island in the Pacific. He had been drafted in 1942 and was in the army until 1945. Fresh out of the army he started singing with three others calling themselves the Weavers. They got a job in NYC and were not having much success – no one was coming to see them – when Carl Sandburg heard them, said some positive things and suddenly they had an audience. They released their first record in 1950 and shortly after that had their best seller hit “Goodnight, Irene” Then all of a sudden they were famous and went on the road touring.
The Weavers sold a lot of records during 1950 but Pete didn’t enjoy himself. He was happier playing the clubs and didn’t like being such a public figure. But because of him teenagers were first hearing what was called folk music. The Weavers had a contract for a television show but when an organization Counterattack put out a pamphlet “Red Channels” with 151 names of men and women in radio and television who were involved with suspicious (communist) organizations. The contract was cancelled. The Weavers continued to perform until 1952 when they disbanded and then started singing again in 1955. Pete left the group in 1957 when the group voted (3 to 1) to do a cigarette commercial.
In the early 1950s if you thought, as Pete did, all human beings are created equal and have equal rights, it was evidence that you were a socialist. Pete, who had been a member of the Communist Party in the late 1940s, withdrew from the party in 1949 after he moved to Beacon.
I realized I could sing the same songs I sang whether I belonged to the Communist Party or not, and I never liked the idea anyway of belonging to a secret organization.
Shortly after the Weavers resumed their singing, Seeger was summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the US Congress. Pete’s decision was to agree to talk about himself but not testify against others. His father had been forced out of his job in 1952 when he also refused to testify against others. He appeared before HUAC and in spite of lengthy questioning refused to testify against any group or person. Eventually he was found in contempt and sentenced to one year in jail, a sentence that was overturned in 1962, seven years after it all started.
In answer to the question, Have you seen any pattern to your life?” Seeger answered in part:
“I always hated the word career,” he said. “It implies that fame and fortune are what you’re trying to get. I have a life’s purpose. In the old days I felt it should be helping the meek to inherit the earth, whether you call the working class the meek or not.
. . .
“These days my purpose is 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,” he said. “Whether we cooperate from love or from tolerance, it doesn’t much matter, lut we must treat each other nonviolently.”
John Cronin, the director of the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, tells this story about Pete Seeger:
About two winters ago, here on Route 9 outside Beacon, one winter day it was freezing – the war in Iraq is heating up, and the country’s in a poor mood. I’m driving south and on the other side of the road I see from the back a tall, slim figure in a hood and coat. I can tell it’s Pete. He’s standing there all by himself, and he’s holding up a big sign of cardboard that clearly has something written on it. Cars and trucks are going by him. He’s getting wet. He’s holding the homemade sign above his head – he’s very tall, and his chin is raised the way he does when he signs – and he’s turning the sign in a semicircle, so that the drivers can see it as they pass, and some people are honking and waving at him, and some people are giving him the finger. He’s eighty-four years old.
I know he’s got some purpose, of course, but I don’t know what it is. What struck me is that, whatever his intentions are, and obviously he wants people to notice what he’s doing. He wants to make an impression, anyway, whatever they are, he doesn’t call the newspapers and say, “Here’s what I am going to do, I’m Pete Seeger.” He doesn’t cultivate publicity. That isn’t what he does. He’s far more modest than that. He would never make a fuss. He’s just standing out there in the cold and sleet like a scarecrow getting drenched. I go a little bit down the road, so that I can turn around and come back, and when I get him in view again, this solitary and elderly figure, I see that what he’s written on the sign is “Peace.”
The appendix of the book includes the ten points of “The Purpose of Music,” by Charles Seeger, Pete’s dad. It also includes the transcript of Pete’s testimony before the HUAC in August 1955.
There are also several dozen black and white photos included in the book. And let me say straight out that I hate it when there are photos and the captions for all of them are on a separate page at the back of the book. Like in this book!
This is easily a four star book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading although going back several generations of family history was a bit much in a short book. The book does have a ring of authenticity and had the cooperation of Pete. The author talks about it being, at Pete’s suggestion, a book you can read in one sitting. I had to take some breaks but I did read it in one day when I could devote myself to reading.
July 6, 2018
This slender, charming profile of Pete Seeger is precisely the book he wished for when he told author Wilkinson, "no, not ANOTHER book about me...how about one that can be read in a single sitting?" What we thus have is a nicely illustrated (from Pete's collection), relatively longish New Yorker piece that captures a great man on the move in his twilight years and gets him and others to reminisce about deeds large and small that, added up, make for the proverbial Life Well Lived.
And well-lived it was. Seeger was of course a pioneer in the folk-music phenomenon that blossomed on college campuses from the 1950s through the early 1960s, up to the momentous spike driven into its chest by Bob Dylan at Newport in 1965. (Throw in the release of Dylan's sneering payback song, Positively 4th Street, in the fall of 1965.) But Pete he was so much more than that, as an advocate and an activist, first as a naive American Communist, gentle despiser of Capitalist economics and commercial culture and supporter of the propaganda picture of the Soviet Union as the progressive Hope of the World, and later as a Universal Soldier for all the right things: racial equality, world peace, the First Amendment, anti-poverty, anti-hunger, the environment (following Rachel Carson in the early 1960s), and, almost selflessly, so much more. We talk about public intellectuals. Pete was something of a public conscience of a Whitmanesque American vision.
The stories Wilkinson tells of Pete's personal courage and conviction are many. One that stood out at the time and, still, today is his stand-off with the House Committee on Un-American Activies (which, in its efforts to negate the First Amendment, was itself a supremely unAmerican activity). Rather than taking the Fifth, which many erstwhile leftists and Communist Party members resorted to when called before HUAC, Seeger refused to discuss his views, friendships, or events at which he performed and the attendees thereof, claiming these were his personal concerns and thus leaving him free, on the basis of the First Amendment, to decline comment. Others witnesses, included Elia Kazan on the same day as Seeger's testimony, informed on erstwhile friends and colleagues. Seeger, however, said, repeatedly, "it's really none of your business." For this he received 10 citations for contempt of Congress and, after trial, a year's sentence in prison (which the appellate courts through out--he never served). For progressives, Seeger came out of his HUAC encounters covered in glory and assumed a place as one of the most estimable people of the left.
But if you come to the story of Pete Seeger, it's because of the music and its history as the background sound of Depression-era labor rallies, Communist Party celebrations, and FDR/New Deal support activities. The music's distinguished practitioners and advocates of the time--Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, Lee Hays, the Lomax family--walk on and off the set, but only Guthrie rivals Seeger in influence, and, in truth, doesn't really come close: Woody was a facile, indefatigable songwriter who in a day could compose dozens of lyrics and set them to traditional melodies. Seeger, on the other hand, walked around with an immense catalogue of songs in his head--including Woody's, and Lead Belly's, and countless hundreds of others: he constantly solicited and wrote down lyrics from his thousdans of interlocutors--and wrote his own iconic songs, but he was also the great teacher of and advocate for communal singing. He truly, and cheerfully, believed, as did his folk musicologist father, that songs were purposeful means of marshalling public song participants into motivated activism. (Listen, for example, to Seeger's famous 1960 Bowdoin College concert, at which, time after time, he teaches his enthusiastic audience their parts, four-party harmonies, and gets them all to raise the voices in powerful song.) Wilkinson also tells several lovely late-life stories of Pete performing the same feat in kindergarten classes and in college classrooms, where the students' first reaction is, typically, "Who is this old man with the banjo? And why is he here today?" He also tells the relatively less known story of the sloop Clearview and Seeger's role in the clensing of the Hudson River.
Seeger died in 2014 at the age of 94, nearly a decade after Wilkinson finished his profile. He has left us with a beautifully satisfying portrait of a great man that fully captures the significance of its subject. For many, however, and particularly for me, it will nonetheless be an hors d'oeuvre, a tidbit that leaves one wanting to know more. And more I prompty ordered--many believe David King Dunaway's How Can I Keep From Singing, revised in 2008, to be "definitive"--and greatly look forward to reading.
And well-lived it was. Seeger was of course a pioneer in the folk-music phenomenon that blossomed on college campuses from the 1950s through the early 1960s, up to the momentous spike driven into its chest by Bob Dylan at Newport in 1965. (Throw in the release of Dylan's sneering payback song, Positively 4th Street, in the fall of 1965.) But Pete he was so much more than that, as an advocate and an activist, first as a naive American Communist, gentle despiser of Capitalist economics and commercial culture and supporter of the propaganda picture of the Soviet Union as the progressive Hope of the World, and later as a Universal Soldier for all the right things: racial equality, world peace, the First Amendment, anti-poverty, anti-hunger, the environment (following Rachel Carson in the early 1960s), and, almost selflessly, so much more. We talk about public intellectuals. Pete was something of a public conscience of a Whitmanesque American vision.
The stories Wilkinson tells of Pete's personal courage and conviction are many. One that stood out at the time and, still, today is his stand-off with the House Committee on Un-American Activies (which, in its efforts to negate the First Amendment, was itself a supremely unAmerican activity). Rather than taking the Fifth, which many erstwhile leftists and Communist Party members resorted to when called before HUAC, Seeger refused to discuss his views, friendships, or events at which he performed and the attendees thereof, claiming these were his personal concerns and thus leaving him free, on the basis of the First Amendment, to decline comment. Others witnesses, included Elia Kazan on the same day as Seeger's testimony, informed on erstwhile friends and colleagues. Seeger, however, said, repeatedly, "it's really none of your business." For this he received 10 citations for contempt of Congress and, after trial, a year's sentence in prison (which the appellate courts through out--he never served). For progressives, Seeger came out of his HUAC encounters covered in glory and assumed a place as one of the most estimable people of the left.
But if you come to the story of Pete Seeger, it's because of the music and its history as the background sound of Depression-era labor rallies, Communist Party celebrations, and FDR/New Deal support activities. The music's distinguished practitioners and advocates of the time--Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, Lee Hays, the Lomax family--walk on and off the set, but only Guthrie rivals Seeger in influence, and, in truth, doesn't really come close: Woody was a facile, indefatigable songwriter who in a day could compose dozens of lyrics and set them to traditional melodies. Seeger, on the other hand, walked around with an immense catalogue of songs in his head--including Woody's, and Lead Belly's, and countless hundreds of others: he constantly solicited and wrote down lyrics from his thousdans of interlocutors--and wrote his own iconic songs, but he was also the great teacher of and advocate for communal singing. He truly, and cheerfully, believed, as did his folk musicologist father, that songs were purposeful means of marshalling public song participants into motivated activism. (Listen, for example, to Seeger's famous 1960 Bowdoin College concert, at which, time after time, he teaches his enthusiastic audience their parts, four-party harmonies, and gets them all to raise the voices in powerful song.) Wilkinson also tells several lovely late-life stories of Pete performing the same feat in kindergarten classes and in college classrooms, where the students' first reaction is, typically, "Who is this old man with the banjo? And why is he here today?" He also tells the relatively less known story of the sloop Clearview and Seeger's role in the clensing of the Hudson River.
Seeger died in 2014 at the age of 94, nearly a decade after Wilkinson finished his profile. He has left us with a beautifully satisfying portrait of a great man that fully captures the significance of its subject. For many, however, and particularly for me, it will nonetheless be an hors d'oeuvre, a tidbit that leaves one wanting to know more. And more I prompty ordered--many believe David King Dunaway's How Can I Keep From Singing, revised in 2008, to be "definitive"--and greatly look forward to reading.
April 23, 2021
Enjoyed the casual style of this biography. It would be almost more appropriate to call it a dictated memoir as it's clear that the majority of the content comes from a series of interviews with Seeger and his wife, but the author does add some independently researched stories.
June 28, 2009
Intimate in the title is the key to this book. The events of Pete Seeger's life are highlighted, many of which are well known, but the pearls of the book are the quotes that are included from their conversations as Seeger answered questions about his journey through life.
"People ask, is there one word that you have more faith in than any other word,"he told me, "and I say it's participation. I feel that this takes on so many meanings. The composer John Philip Sousa said,'What will happen to the American voice now that the phonograph has been invented? Women used to sing lullabies to their children.' It's been my life work, to get participation, whether it's a union song, or a peace song, civil rights, or a women's movement, or gay liberation. When you sing, you feel a kind of strength; you think, I'm not alone, there's a whole bunch of us who feel this way. I'm just one person, but it's almost my religion now to persuade people that even if it's only you and three others, do something. You and one other, do something. If it's only you, and you do a good job as a songwriter, people will sing it."
And the pictures; they show a man working hard for that participation from himself and from others with grace and joy and sticking by what he believes is right no matter what. Pete Seeger is a man to be thanked and copied, we need more like him.
"People ask, is there one word that you have more faith in than any other word,"he told me, "and I say it's participation. I feel that this takes on so many meanings. The composer John Philip Sousa said,'What will happen to the American voice now that the phonograph has been invented? Women used to sing lullabies to their children.' It's been my life work, to get participation, whether it's a union song, or a peace song, civil rights, or a women's movement, or gay liberation. When you sing, you feel a kind of strength; you think, I'm not alone, there's a whole bunch of us who feel this way. I'm just one person, but it's almost my religion now to persuade people that even if it's only you and three others, do something. You and one other, do something. If it's only you, and you do a good job as a songwriter, people will sing it."
And the pictures; they show a man working hard for that participation from himself and from others with grace and joy and sticking by what he believes is right no matter what. Pete Seeger is a man to be thanked and copied, we need more like him.
July 30, 2012
The book is essentially a set of vignettes of Pete Seeger intended to be read in one sitting, like an extension of the New Yorker pieces author Alec Wilkinson is known for. The portrait represents an interesting attempt to capture a version of the man in a few brushstrokes or as a short cinema verite portrayal. For background, two appendices parallel his father's precepts for a theory of music as a language for participation with Seeger's stonewalling testimony at his hearing with the House on Unamerican Activities Committee. Ultimately, Seeger is revealed to not be very political, but simply one who strives to live simply and contribute to a world where all are equally respected. His interest in anthropology and preserving the environment are clarified. The famous scene of his wanting to axe the cables at Bob Dylan's electronic performance at Monterrey is discounted by him as not anti-rock, but due to not being able to hear the lyrics. Seeger sees the loss of commercial perfomance jobs during his blackball years as no great loss. He truly seems as happy playing for school children as he did playing with the Weavers. His relationship with Woody Guthrie unfortunately is given short shrift, as Wilkinson stays closely with the current perspective of the octogenarian Seeger, for whom Guthrie exists in a 50 year old set of memories.�
May 7, 2023
The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger, Alec Wilkinson (1952- ), 2009, 152 pages, ISBN 9780307269959
A nice introduction to Pete Seeger (1919-2014). Many photos. Includes the transcript of Seeger's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, August 18, 1955.
A nice introduction to Pete Seeger (1919-2014). Many photos. Includes the transcript of Seeger's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, August 18, 1955.
December 31, 2015
In a short book, the author manages to convey a real picture of both the public and private Pete Seeger - one of the few people that I continue to admire after learning the facts of his life.
April 22, 2023
I learned a lot of things that I never knew about Pete Seeger before. For example he went to Harvard and left after about two years because he was against one professor opinion of Adolf Hitler. Pete Seeger wanted to be a journalist when he was younger, however after having success as a musician that simply wasn't going happen. This is the story about Pete Seeger that impressed me the most. Pete Seeger started an organization for the purpose of cleaning up Hudson River in New York. Now here's the part that I found most impressive about Pete Seeger. Someone in the Organization asked Peet Seeger to step down, because he felt that executives of big business companies would not donate money to help clean the Hudson River if Pete was in the organization, because as he told Peete Seeger it would be best if Pete Seeger resigned form the organization because executives in cooperate America would think of Pete Seeger as a radical. Because there's no ego with Pete Seeger he thought about it and said I think your right, and than resigned. Because this book is not divided up into chapters some parts of it are hard to read and can be confusing at times, however this is still worth reading in spite of that.
March 2, 2018
The book was short, but provided a nice overview of Pete's life. He was one of my 2 favorite folk singers (Stan Rogers is the other), and one who I've seen live years ago, so this was someone I wanted to learn more about. I am more impressed with Pete now than I already was. An example of how he lived is how he built his own house from scratch along the Hudson, living humbly. He is one of the key people in getting the Hudson much cleaner today than when I lived near it years ago.
December 1, 2018
In dit boek schetst Alec Wilkinson een portret van Pete Seeger, die vooral bekend is van songs als "We shall overcome" en "Where have all the flowers gone" en die in één adem te noemen valt met Woody Guthrie als folk-protestzanger. Dit boek vormt een mooie introductie tot wie Seeger is en waar zijn muziek voor staat.
January 22, 2025
Short concise recounting of Pete seegers life. Weaves between personal small details and a larger narrative. Someone who harnessed the power of song to unite people across societal lines. Classism can cross through every identity and at every turn he was labeled and barred from places for being “communist”. A great history of class struggle that is still relevant today.
May 18, 2025
“The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger” by Alec Wilkinson delivers exactly what the name suggests.
As someone who is often bored by long, drawn-out biographies that include many unnecessary details, I really appreciated the conciseness of this book.
I was able to finish this book in just a few days but still felt that I learned a lot about Seeger’s life and career.
As someone who is often bored by long, drawn-out biographies that include many unnecessary details, I really appreciated the conciseness of this book.
I was able to finish this book in just a few days but still felt that I learned a lot about Seeger’s life and career.
August 7, 2022
A lot of this rating comes down to my love of the subject I think. 1-2 stars worth, if I'm honest. The author does a good job painting an aesthetic picture of Seeger but sort of stops there. The rest is essentially a timeline of life events. Maybe that's all it needs to be.
August 8, 2017
Glad I read it. Love Pete's ideals. Think it was too much for me (or him) to live up to. Learned a lot by reading this book.
October 26, 2017
I must have already read too much about Pete Seeger because this little book didn't offer anything new. It is well written, and it is short, so it would be a good entry into Pete Seeger's life.
April 3, 2021
Love is the only way to Turn, Turn, Turn hate back to Love.
January 25, 2022
Excellent short book that gives you a great insight into Pete Seeger and his life and music. This has tipped my curiosity into delving into more books about Seeger which i'm pleased with
January 29, 2022
The writing style, while purposeful to show a glimpse of a singer in a different light, was incredibly distracting to the story.
April 4, 2022
Little Seeger history book with some of the things he did in his life and a beautiful collection of pictures. A good book to start learning about Pete and who he was a person.
May 8, 2024
Fine, slightly hagiographic introduction to a key figure in American music. An inspiring idealist.
February 14, 2025
Good if you are a fan of Pete. I have always considered him one of my heroes. The sections on his involvement with Communism and his blacklisting are very interesting.
February 21, 2025
I love Pete I love Asheville I love socialism I want to learn the banjo. They should’ve made a movie about this mf for real
September 8, 2011
Pete Seeger is one of my heroes, so this isn't a very unbiased review. I'd say that it's not a great introduction to Seeger if you don't know a little bit about him; but since I love him, I thought the author did a wonderful job of allowing me to feel as though I'm just dropping in on a conversation outside the cabin in Beacon.
“I always hated the word ‘career.’ It implies that fame and fortune are what you’re trying to get. I have a life’s purpose. In the old days I felt it should be helping the meek to inherit the earth, whether you call the working class meek or not…These days my purpose is 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. Whether we cooperate from love or tolerance, it doesn’t much matter, but we must treat each other nonviolently.”
And: "Folk songs frequently contain every kind of trouble and harm. Often they are songs people sung to themselves or with their neighbors to commemorate a disaster or to give themselves courage or to console themselves for losses and defeats and suffering and hardship. Sometimes they celebrate victories, but typically there is more misfortune than triumph. Folk songs have a lot of dark corners. They don't muse so much. They don't describe life from a balcony overlooking a harbor from which the boat is departing at sunset with your sweetheart. The folk song version of that is We-were-to-wed, but-I-killed-her-instead."
“I always hated the word ‘career.’ It implies that fame and fortune are what you’re trying to get. I have a life’s purpose. In the old days I felt it should be helping the meek to inherit the earth, whether you call the working class meek or not…These days my purpose is 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. Whether we cooperate from love or tolerance, it doesn’t much matter, but we must treat each other nonviolently.”
And: "Folk songs frequently contain every kind of trouble and harm. Often they are songs people sung to themselves or with their neighbors to commemorate a disaster or to give themselves courage or to console themselves for losses and defeats and suffering and hardship. Sometimes they celebrate victories, but typically there is more misfortune than triumph. Folk songs have a lot of dark corners. They don't muse so much. They don't describe life from a balcony overlooking a harbor from which the boat is departing at sunset with your sweetheart. The folk song version of that is We-were-to-wed, but-I-killed-her-instead."
Read
October 28, 2010Much as I prefer to be snide about New Yorker writers, this Alec Wilkinson -- a former cop and rock 'n roll musician (if his pithy bio on the flap is to be believed) is a heartfelt guy, not very intrusive, who occasionally finds himself in a syntactical snarl -- like most of us. And Pete Seeger is quite different than one imagines -- haunted by self-doubt and internal ridicule. "Most everything I've done has been a failure," he says, trying to explain the Clearwater sloop. He chops wood almost every day! Or did in 2008! At the age of 89. His original log cabin is unused, and perhaps I should move in there. I keep meaning to tell my wife that. I was a little disappointed that Pete is a real pacifist. Somehow I thought he was a little smarter than that. Alec ingeniously avoids discussing Obama, so his book won't be "dated." One time a guy came to a Pete Seeger concert to assassinate him. But he was converted by Pete's music. He explained this afterwards, to the "protest singer." (Kind of a weird title. In fact, Pete's idea is not so much to protest as to sing extremely old songs.) Mr. Seeger revised "We Will Overcome" into its present form! Like many people, his life was changed by traveling the world for a year.
July 14, 2009
When the author asked Pete Seeger if he could write a book about him he said that too much had been written already and that all the books were too long-what was needed, he said, was a book that could be read in one sitting. I didn't quite finish this in one sitting but had we not been having my son's birthday party on the day I started it, I'm sure that I could have.
This is far from being an complete biography of Seeger's life but it hits a lot of the major highlights. It reads like a conversation with a man recalling his life. If I knew nothing of Seeger's life this book might not have been enough but after watching the PBS documentary on him I had a general sense of things-the book served as kind of a refresher. Pete Seeger is an amazing person and I am truly impressed with what he has been able to accomplish in his life. Books like this make me feel hopeful that things can change.
This is far from being an complete biography of Seeger's life but it hits a lot of the major highlights. It reads like a conversation with a man recalling his life. If I knew nothing of Seeger's life this book might not have been enough but after watching the PBS documentary on him I had a general sense of things-the book served as kind of a refresher. Pete Seeger is an amazing person and I am truly impressed with what he has been able to accomplish in his life. Books like this make me feel hopeful that things can change.
February 16, 2014
A good summary of the life of a man who has long been a hero of mine. The transcript of his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955 by itself
makes worthwhile adding this book to your bookshelf: A sample, when invoking the 1st Amendment (and risking a jail sentence) rather than the 5th Amendment when refusing to discuss his political affiliations: "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it." A profile in courage. I have included a link that contains glimpses Pete's various activities
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/vid...
July 30, 2013
I realllllllllllly wanted to love this book. I adore Pete Seeger. This was less a biography and more a series of stories, not in chronological order. I kind of like the chronological element of biographies - you can see how a person started out, their origins, and what they do with their life etc. I suppose his life is well-known enough? The author explains very early on that Mr. Seeger said so much has been written and overwritten about him - he wanted something short that could be read in one sitting. This is definitely short and I read it in a few hours or less. If you really like him and know enough about him already, you might find this interesting. Otherwise, you won't come away from this book feeling like you understand the whole person -- you should start with a different bio first. I found some of the stories interesting.
November 17, 2009
Though I found the subject matter very interesting, the format of the book proved to be a bit confusing. Wilkinson doesn't divide the book into chapters and includes all the photo captions on a page in the appendix. At times I was confused as to whether I was reading Seeger's story or his father's. This book was based around interviews conducted near Seeger's 90th birthday. One of the highlights of the book is "Seeger's Testimony before the House of Un-American Activities Committee August 18, 1955" which was included in the Appendixes. After years of teaching The Crucible by Arthur Miller to high school students, it was interesting to see an actual transcript of the line of questioning during the communist-hunt in America.
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