Pete Seeger: The Man Who Brought Politics to Music
Summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, Seeger refused to wriggle out of trouble by taking the Fifth and made himself an "unfriendly" witness. While awaiting trial for contempt of Congress, and likely imprisonment, he threw himself into the civil rights movement. It was Seeger who introduced Martin Luther King to We Shall Overcome and advised civil rights activist to form their own group, the Freedom Singers. "Songs have accompanied every liberation movement in history," he wrote. "These songs will reaffirm your faith in the future of mankind." As a songwriter, Seeger was never mainstream again, not least because his protest songs were snubbed by broadcasters. With 60s anti-war songs such as Waist Deep in the Big Muddy and Bring Them Home, he was largely preaching to the choir. But he retained his power to popularise other people's songs. At a New York hootenanny in 1946, he was the first to make Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land feel like a new American classic and 23 years later he led half a million anti-war protesters in a chorus of John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance, which, he said, "united the crowd as no speech or song had been able to all afternoon". In 1974, he was the first to record Estadio Chile, the last song Victor Jara wrote before his murder by General Pinochet's thugs. Throughout his 94 years, Seeger's principles never wavered, his optimism never faltered.