Picking Up Where Pete Left Off

One of the regrets I have as a musician and as a concert goer is that I never got to see Pete Seeger. Oh sure, I’ve viewed videos. I’ve heard him sing. I’ve joined in with the tv and recorded sing-alongs. But I never got a full in-person Pete experience.

Many people have stories about Pete Seeger. Most everybody knows about the day Bob Dylan brought his electric guitar to the Newport Folk Festival, and how Pete supposedly wanted to take an axe to the sound system. Jay Sweet, the current producer of the festival, tells of how Pete went missing and was found climbing the stage scaffolding so that he could listen to The Decemberists. Kim and Reggie Harris were friends with Pete and have hundreds of tales about their encounters. After Pete passed in 2014, Reggie wrote a song in Pete’s honor called “High over the Hudson”

Arlo Guthrie toured with Pete numerous times and told the story of the time he and Pete were performing at a folk festival in Denmark and 30,000 people all started singing “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” It’s one of my favorite Pete stories, and since I don’t have a personal Pete story, I sometimes paraphrase Arlo’s tale when my wife and I perform it at one of our Wattle & Daub shows. What’s nice is when the people in our audiences raise their voices because they know the song, too. Pete was right. We are indeed stronger when we sing together.

The year that Pete died was the first time I went to the Newport Folk Festival. On my way to Rhode Island, I drove over the Tappan Zee Bridge that spans the Hudson River. It was being replaced at the time, but I couldn’t help but remember the work Pete devoted to restoring the river to its pristine beauty. Some people suggested they rename the bridge after Pete, but the New York mucky mucks decided to honor a former governor.

Still, Pete’s environmental legacy is the stuff of yet more stories. Garnet Rogers claims and his late brother Stan were performing at a folk festival when at the end of the three days they spied a rather tall lanky figure with a large trash bag picking up garbage. They recognized Pete and decided that they better not let this father figure of folk embarrass them, so they joined in. Midwest singer-songwriter Joe Jencks tells a similar story albeit it a different festival and Pete being slightly older. I’ve heard the same story about five or six times, from five or six different performers. Maybe Pete did this all the time. Maybe these five or six people were at the same festival, saw Pete, and joined in picking up the trash. Maybe it really was all separate festivals and Pete just silently went about his collecting and shamed all these people into joining him.

I like to think that Pete did this all the time. That’s why, since I never got to see him live, I want to carry on his legacy a bit if I can. My wife and I love to get our audience to sing along with us, but when I get home to Illinois and I’m out walking, I grab a bag and my pointy stick. It’s not a festival grounds, but I like to think I’m picking up were Pete left off.






This is a picture my wife took of me at our local train station.