Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday, celebrated with a huge concert in New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, went largely unnoticed here in Asheville. But Asheville should have been celebrating right along, because it was here that Seeger found his banjo, his inspiration.
Billboard.com reports the concert, and notes the presence of at least one Asheville musician — Warren Haynes.
As an archivist of the American folk songbook, Seeger wrote or popularized most of the songs on the set list, which included many fresh arrangements of traditional blues ballads and spirituals. Roger McGuinn sang “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (a Seeger-penned No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965, as performed by McGuinn’s band The Byrds) with his signature Rickenbacker 12-string and a voice that sounds as clear as it did 45 years ago. Richie Havens performed “Freedom/Motherless Child,” the slave spiritual many would remember as the tune used to open Woodstock. Warren Haynes led an electric cover of Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm,” a nod to one of the most infamous myths of the folk music movement when Seeger tried to cut Dylan’s power when he “went electric” with that song at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
But the concert wasn’t driven entirely by Sixties nostalgia. For better or worse, the performers tethered the songs to current events, including the continuing scourges of pollution and war, and the producers made efforts to address all generations.
The Huffington Post also has a short write-up, and that’s where I got the photo.
But back to Seeger’s Asheville connection. It was here that he discovered the banjo. I noted the reference in this blog post.
His family was not just musical, but musicological; a teenage Seeger was converted to the five-string banjo at a folk festival in Asheville, N.C., he’d attended with his father, composer and ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger. He would become a kind of Johnny Appleseed of the instrument.
Asheville would do well to remember Pete’s song, his message, his purpose. Hopefully Pete remembers Asheville. Happy Birthday to Pete. Hope you can come back and play for us sometime.
4 Comments
Peggy moved away a year or so ago, but still maintains some connections to Ashvegas (and still owns a home here).
doesn’t his sister live here too?
Brian, thanks for that.
Vegas,
You missed a major Asheville connection at last night’s Seeger concert. Asheville’s very own Tyler Ramsey was on the bill — taking the stage with BoH band mate Ben Bridwell to accompany Roger Mcguin of the Byrds on Turn,Turn, Turn. NY Times and Rolling Stone name checked them and singled out their performance as a highlight.