Dieser Internet-Auftritt kann nach dem Tod des Webmasters, Peter Strutynski, bis auf Weiteres nicht aktualisiert werden. Er steht jedoch weiterhin als Archiv mit Beiträgen aus den Jahren 1996 – 2015 zur Verfügung.

This Land is Your Land

Zum 90. Geburtstag Pete Seegers, des Titanen der amerikanischen Folkmusik / Pete Seeger: Elder Statesman of Topical Song

Anlässlich des 90sten Geburtstags von Pete Seeger dokumentieren wir das von ihm bestimmt schon zigtausendfach gespielte und gesungene "This Land is My Land" von Woody Guthrie in der selten abgedruckten Originalversion sowie eine Würdigung seines politischen Werks von John Pietaro (englisch). Den Anfang macht aber eine kurze Einführung in sein Leben.

Stationen seines Lebens *

Pete Seeger wurde am 3. Mai 1919 als Sohn des Musikwissenschaftlers Dr. Charles Seeger und der Geigenlehrerin Constance de Clyver Seeger in New York geboren. Nach einem abgebrochenen Soziologiestudium an der Harvard-Universität widmete er sich der Sammlung von amerikanischen Volksliedern und Südstaaten-Blues. Daneben spielte er mit dem 5-saitigen Banjo eigene Lieder, in denen er sich mit der Arbeiterbewegung, mit Minderheiten und mit der "Dritten Welt" solidarisierte.

1941 gründete Pete Seeger zusammen mit Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays und Millard Lampell The Almanac Singers. Im Jahr darauf rief er in New York mit Peoples Song die erste Volksmusikerorganisation ins Leben, die sich nach seinen Intentionen "deutlich von den gelehrten Volksmusikgesellschaften abgrenzen" sollte.

1946 wirkte Seeger im Spielfilm "To Hear Your Banjo Play" mit und im folgenden Jahr war er bei der Produktion des Folk-Musicals "Dark of the Moon" dabei. In diesem Jahr gab er auch erstmals das "Peoples Song Bulletin" heraus, den Vorläufer von "Sing Out!".

1949 gründete er zusammen mit dem Sänger Lee Hays sowie Ronnie Gilbert und Fred Hellermann das Quartett „The Weavers“. 1950 erschien zum ersten Mal das von ihm mitgegründete Folk-Magazin "Sing Out!", das Vorbildcharakter für zahlreiche andere Publikationen ähnlicher Art hatte. 1955 verweigerte er vor dem unsäglichen Komitee für unamerikanische Aktivitäten die Aussage. Als Folge davon wurde er in den folgenden 17 Jahren von den kommerziellen US-Medien boykottiert.

1959 fand auf seine und Theodore Bikels Anregung hin das erste Newport Folk Festival in Newport in Rhode Island statt. Von 1963 bis 1964 ging Seeger zusammen mit seiner Frau Toshi auf eine Welttournee, die sie beide um den gesamten Erdball führte.

1969 war er Mitbegründer der Umweltschutzorganisation "Clearwater". 1972 erschien sein Buch The Incompleat Folksinger, das ein Standardwerk über die amerikanische Folk-Musik wurde.

In den sechziger Jahren, während der Renaissance der Folk-Musik, drang Seeger mit seinen Liedern für Frieden, für die Gleichberechtigung der Schwarzen und für die Emanzipation der Arbeitenden in die Herzen eines jungen Publikums. Die Jugend, die sich an seiner Seite gegen den Vietnamkrieg und für die Bürgerrechte engagierte, hatte ein feines Gespür für seine Ehrlichkeit und hielt auch zu seiner eher konservativen Auftrittsweise: Als 1965 am mittlerweile populären Newport Folk-Festival der ihn als ein Vorbild ansehende Bob Dylan erstmals mit einer elektrischen Gitarre auftrat, wollte der eingefleischte Unplugged-Fan Seeger ihm den Strom abdrehen, und das anwesende Publikum buhte Dylan aus. Das hingegen war nicht Seegers Absicht; so gab er später an, er sei damals nur wütend gewesen, weil durch die laute Beschallungsanlage die großen Worte der Dylan-Songs nicht mehr verständlich waren.

Am 25. April 2006 hat Bruce Springsteen ein neues Album mit dem Titel "We Shall Overcome - The Seeger Sessions" auf den Markt gebracht. Springsteen hat hierzu 15 Seeger-Songs neu aufgenommen.

Im September 2008 veröffentlichte Appleseed Recordings ein neu aufgenommenes Studio-Album At 89. Neben einigen Auftritten in den USA und Kanada während des Sommers 2008 spielte Pete Seeger am 29. September 2008 live in der Late Show with David Letterman, wobei er das Publikum dazu ermunterte, den Refrain eines politisches Liedes mitzusingen. Hier kann das Video von dem großartigen Auftritt des 89-Jährigen angesehen werden [EXTERNER LINK)].

Am 18. Januar 2009 gehörte Seeger zu den Musikern, die beim "We Are One"-Open-Air-Konzert zur Amtseinführung des 44. Präsidenten der USA, Barack Obama, in Washington vor dem Lincoln-Memorial spielten. Bruce Springsteen, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger und Pete Seeger traten gemeinsam auf und trugen Woody Guthries "This Land Is Your Land" vor. Leider ist dieses beeindruckende Konzert nicht mehr frei im Internet verfügbar.

* Gekürzt und leicht geändert nach: Wikipedia; http://de.wikipedia.org

This Land is My Land

Pete Seeger sang das bekannte Lied am 18. Januar 2009 in der Originalversion von Woody Guthrie, u.a. mit der ansonsten selten gehörten 6. Strophe. Wir dokumentieren das Lied in dieser Version.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, under shadow of the steeple
At the relief office, I saw my people
As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling
This land was made for you and me.

A great high wall there tried to stop me
A great big sign there said private property
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing
That side was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

Pete Seeger: Elder Statesman of Topical Song

By John Pietaro **

Born 90 years ago this May 3, Pete Seeger has been a tireless performer of topical song and a champion of global folklore, focusing his strongest efforts on that which was created by, for and about, the so-called common man. The product of a Left-wing composer father and a concert violinist mother, Pete almost singlehandedly resurrected, of all things, the 5-string banjo and introduced its application as a fiercely American instrument, one derived from African origins and developed by the sweat and blood of the oppressed. In his wake, the banjo-or at least his banjo-- became a symbol of the power of song and an icon of more than one "folk revival". It still sings with pride in light of the passage of time.even Bob Dylan's decision to go electric. No matter what, Pete and his music were always there and continue to ring out today.

During the depth of the Great Depression, Seeger took to folk song collecting with his father, Charles Lewis Seeger, a member of the Composers Collective of New York who saw the need for the dissolution of the Modernist, experimental music Collective once he became convinced of the revolutionary potential of traditional song. The mission was clear: American workers needed to hear accessible music with radical content; he never looked back and clearly neither did Pete. In the 1930s, Daily Worker arts columnist Mike Gold wrote of the need for, "a Communist Joe Hill", to offer musical organizing on the front lines: a few years later Woody Guthrie came to prominence in the political Left. Guthrie, a firestorm of creative energy and radical philosophy was introduced, in 1940, to a young Pete Seeger by folk archivist Alan Lomax and the two became inseparable. Once Woody had taken up Pete's offer to join him in the Almanac Singers, they wrote and performed music together and Seeger, through musical and political osmosis, rapidly morphed into a new kind of cultural force.

Early on Pete developed a strong kinship with the political Left and quickly became a first-call performing artist for May Day parades in New York City and radical Labor unions around the country. Seeger became a prominent part of Communist Party cultural organizations, anti-fascist collectives and American Labor Party rallies throughout the 1940s and into the `50s, even as the specter of HUAC haunted his musical groups, the Almanacs and then the Weavers, as well as his organization People's Songs. By 1961, he too would be subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee which riddled him with questions that scandalized not only his patriotism but that of the many he'd been associated with. To his credit, Seeger refused to name names, but he did offer to sing for the HUAC inquisitors. They refused his offer and called it contempt of Congress.

A victim of the same tenacious Blacklist that had torn apart Hollywood and the CIO in the post-war period, Pete sang for college students and children, when no one else cared to listen...or, rather, when no one else could hear. And when he could not sing for them, he sang for the trees and forest life about him. Seeger was hell-bent on allowing music to touch deep, whether as a weapon or as a healing force. Uniquely, he almost always achieved both in tandem.

By the time folk music became an area of commercial success for the record business during the 1960s, Seeger was seen as a founder, an elder, but still a contemporary. If the forces of reaction shut him out of broadcast television or commercial radio, his voice resounded loudly as a songwriter. Pete's songs "Turn, Turn, Turn", "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", "If I Had A Hammer", "The Bells of Rhymney", among others, were smashing successes for other artists, all of whom paid tribute to the composer during their performances. As has been widely reported, it was left to the Smothers Brothers and their irreverent, cutting-edge television program, to break the Blacklist. When the networks refused to allow Seeger on to perform his "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy", a stinging anti-war song driven by Pete's grinding 12-string guitar, the Brothers fought back. It may have been a death-blow for their show, but they ultimately prevailed; Seeger was seen by millions on that historic night and the Blacklist, this terribly fascistic device used to silence so many, was effectively killed off.

With the wisdom of a sage, Seeger has made it a mission to keep the older songs of struggle alive, even through adversity. In performances all over the world, Pete presents the songs of Guthrie and Wobbly icon Joe Hill alongside the music of slaves, native peoples, workers, immigrants, farmers, men and women. He offers us the lost union songs and the disappeared music of repressed peoples. Pete taught us traditional songs of the Spanish Civil War--in Spanish. He sang the praises of Leadbelly, who never got to hear his song "Goodnight Irene" become a Weavers hit in 1951. Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter had died the year prior, but Seeger made sure that his widow would continue to receive royalties, as he did for the family of Solomon Linda, the composer of "Wimoweh", an African song which immortalizes the symbol of the sleeping lion as an avenger-in-waiting, contemplating the atrocities committed by white imperialists.

While it is true that Pete has become a beloved figure with the passage of time, one celebrated at Madison Square Garden this May, and was given Kennedy Center honors a decade ago, his radical heart remains integral to his spirit. Performing for President Obama's inaugural celebration this January, Pete sang Woody's anthem, "This Land is Your Land" along with Bruce Springsteen and Seeger happily led the crowd on some of Guthrie's lesser-known, revolutionary verses including the one about that damned symbol of the high wall tagged "Private Property". In his lifetime, Pete stood onstage with Paul Robeson during "The Peekskill Riot" and marched with Dr. King through the bloodiest of Civil Rights battles. He was a loud opponent of the Vietnam War and a prime voice of the environmental movement. In more recent years, Seeger could be found, during the entire sickening debacle of the Bush Administration as an active part of protest actions, and still stands each week at a peace vigil in New York's Hudson Valley, through broiling heat and frozen winds.

Pete's songs are truly the story of 'the folk', and so they tell the people's story. Long before Howard Zinn wrote his 'A People's History of the United States', Pete Seeger sang it. He stands then and now as the very model of the cultural worker. Taking the distant advice of Joe Hill, he recognized long ago that more can be said in one topical song than in a hundred pamphlets. But, even in silence, Pete's philosophy can be understood by anyone who gets close enough to read what he long ago adorned on his banjo head: 'This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It To Surrender'.

** John Pietaro is a cultural worker and labor organizer from New York-www.flamesofdiscontent.org

published by portside, May 1, 2009


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