Most people will know
that the American folk singer Pete Seeger died on Monday this week. Not much jazz connection there, I grant you,
except that during the early part of his career, Seeger played tenor banjo in a
jazz band. However, his music is part of
the soundtrack of the lives of many people who were young in the 1950’s and
60’s, and younger people will have heard his music as recorded by others. He wrote Where
Have All the Flowers Gone after reading the phrase by chance, and he is
well known for such songs as If I Had A
Hammer; We Shall Overcome; and This
land Is Your Land. Readers may
remember that he sung the last mentioned song at the Inauguration of President
Obama in 2009. Indeed he contributed
greatly to the American Civil Rights movement through his music, and was
blacklisted for being a communist in the 1950’s, along with many a jazz
musician I would guess, but other readers will know more about this than I do.
Perhaps it’s time to
give some of his tunes the jazz treatment if this hasn't already happened. If I
Had A Hammer, maybe?
There’s a very
comprehensive obituary online, from the Guardian.
Ann Alex
1 comment :
Everything said and written about Pete Seeger since his death is absolutely true but I did hear a joke recently which said that folk music died when the performers realised that everybody already had a hammer.....
Post a Comment