Posted on 02/01/2014 2:52:15 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
I first heard Pete Seeger perform when I was five or six, when I was a red-diaper baby and he was blacklisted and drunk. What I recall most about the encounter was that the tip of his needle-nose glowed bright red. He was performing for a children’s group of some sort at a time when his Communist background kept him out of public venues. His records — not just the Weavers albums, but the early Asch 78′s of the Almanac Singers — were daily fare in my home, along with Woody Guthrie’s children’s songs. My parents knew Guthrie casually; my father once organized a concert for him at Brooklyn College, and my mother was Arlo Guthrie’s nursery-school teacher.
I was not just a Pete Seeger fan, but a to-the-hammer-born, born-and-bred cradle fan of Pete Seeger. With those credentials, permit me to take note of his passing with the observation that he was a fraud, a phony, a poseur, an imposter. The notion of folk music he espoused was a put-on from beginning to end.
There is no such thing as an American “folk.” We are a people summoned to these shores by an idea, not common ties of blood and culture.
~snip~
Seeger’s (and Guthrie’s) notion of folk music had less to do with actual American sources than with a Communist-inspired Yankee version of Proletkult. The highly personalized style of a Robert Johnson and other Delta bluesmen didn’t belong in the organizing handbook of the “folk” exponents who grew up in the Communist Party’s failed efforts to control the trade union movement of the 1940s.
~snip~
I’m willing to forgive Seeger his Stalinism. Some of my most-admired artists were Stalinists...
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
I can certainly forgive someone for being Stalinist. If he repents of his evil ways.
Whitaker Chambers springs to mind.
Then you just don't get what it is all about.
I wish you’d share more stories of your childhood on the Upper West Side. I’m fascinated by it as a subculture.
I saw Pete Seeger in the mid 70’s sometime in Central Park giving a free concert. I don’t hold any animosity toward him or other leftist musicians. They are for the average person/citizen but they embrace a wrong philosophy of failure especially married to. big government solutions. Their leftism is based on feel good emotions and jellied up with their music - some of it being very good. RIP Pete Seeger, you weren’t evil, just on the wrong track to the path of truth.
ICYMI, in the “don’t hold back” area here is an amusing thread linking to a movie review of ‘saving mr. banks” in which John Podhoretz has a complete mental meltdown.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3113561/posts?q=1&;page=51
Excellent
LOL, afraid - I just posted a link to your posting of the Podhoretz “review” of ‘saving mr. banks” without realizing this was your thread too. You are doing a good job of keeping us posted to heartfelt rants!
The Weavers’ version of “Goodnight, Irene” was one of the biggest hits of 1950, but I never understood why, because to me, it made no sense. Leadbelly’s version makes sense.
The BEST commentary on Folk Music was John Belushi in my favorite ever movie “ Animal HOuse” when he walked down the stairs at their Frat party and smashed the guitar of a folk-singing guy on the stairway! summed it all up!
Here are some songs for you, Vozhd.
He was a propagandist for Stalin in particular and Communism generally. His death should be celebrated, not mourned.
That's just it...much of Goldman's taste in music is simply personal. As far as early blues music, I prefer the country blues (Memphis Minnie, Blind Blake) to delta blues musicians like Robert Johnson. Johnson is idolized by many blues guitar players. So many years ago I bought one his records with most of his famous songs. Most of the songs sounded the same, and I never played it again. Condemn me if you want, but I prefer a variety of folk styles even ones from musicians Goldman despised.
By the way, many popular songs came from a variety of sources including Yiddish folk music ("Those Were The Days"). Black musicians certainly contributed a huge amount, but American popular music is not solely the province of one ethnic group.
I agree with Goldman about his dislike of Seeger and all the other commies for trying to politicize folk music. And he's right...most of Seeger's well-known "folk" songs were not really folk songs but neo-folk. Most Americans have never really heard much of the real American folk music.
Saving Grace, by Bob Dylan
If you find it in Your heart, can I be forgiven?
Guess I owe You some kind of apology
I've escaped death so many times, I know I'm only living
By the saving grace that's over me
By this time I'd-a thought I would be sleeping
In a pine box for all eternity
My faith keeps me alive, but I would still be weeping
For the saving grace that's over me
Well, the death of life, then come the resurrection
Wherever I am welcome is where I'll be
I put all my confidence in Him, my sole protection
Is the saving grace that's over me
Well, the devil's shining light, it can be most blinding
But to search for love, that ain't no more than vanity
As I look around this world all that I'm finding
Is the saving grace that's over me
The wicked know no peace and you just can't fake it
There's only one road and it leads to Calvary
It gets discouraging at times, but I know I'll make it
By the saving grace that's over me
We could use some "Power to the People" these days.
Speaking as a huge fan of folk music, I might have smashed the guitar too. Because I've always hated that song. But you sound like a person that hasn't heard much folk music. And I'll bet if I could look at your music collection, I'd probably use most of it for skeet practice.
Whittaker Chambers repented & is a hero for it. His book “Witness” is timeless. And when he renounced communism, Chambers assumed he was coming over to the losing side in history.
Seeger grudgingly made a few Jane Fonda-style backtracks very late in life “Stalin was at times a hard driver” but he always thought himself part of the revolutionary Bolshevik intelligentsia sent to reeducate the masses.
Lovely song. Thanks for posting the lyrics.
“Bluegrass, for example, is uniquely American folk.”
Yes, I love music, but I’m not smart about it - I really rely on hubby who’s very musical - but I’d have to agree that bluegrass is uniquely american.
Years ago hubby turned me on to David Bromberg. At one point I was telling someone about him and she asked “what kind of music does he play?” And in trying to think of how to describe it, I finally said “he plays American music.”
What do you know, but now they describe that whole genre of folk/country/bluegrass/maybe a little vaudeville, etc. as “Americana” music.
There really is no other way to describe it.
I came to see Jim Kewsken and Joanie Mitchell, whom I saw singing outside of a music store in Cambridge. He sucked.
“Yiddish folk music (”Those Were The Days”)
Yes, yes, of course.
I’m not a big Robert Johnson fan, but I really don’t have a great ear, I’m a philistine and I like what I like.
Did you ever read the book “A Confederacy of Dunces”?
There’s a great bit in there when the lefty chick friend of the protagonist travels the south to sing old Negro spirituals that she learned at Columbia U. to the modern day Negroes who’ve clearly (from her point of view) lost touch with their roots. Something like that, anyway! It really encapsulates how the Left views the proles.
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