So I learnt today that Pete Seeger has died, and was somewhat surprised to hear the one line obituary only mentioned his 1960s protest songs.
It is somewhat understandable because just about everyone knows a Pete Seeger song even if they don’t know the name. His protest songs (and protest songs he popularised) were covered by others before, during and after the 1960s.
But he was more than that. He was also a deeply committed political activist from the 1930s all the way through to his death. With his banjo labelled “This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender”, Covering issues such as racism, fascism, environmentalism, and war, he was one of the few people of whom you could say: “When the barricades go up, if you’re not on his side of the barricade, you’re probably on the wrong side”.
If you work through the list of awards he received during his lifetime on the Wikipedia article (link at the top), the ones for music leap out at you. But if you look closer, only 1/2 are directly for music; many are for his activism or children’s writing.
There was a lot more to Pete Seeger than just a few popular folk songs.
“There is hope for the world.”