Happy Birthday, Pete Seeger
Happy Birthday to Pete Seeger, the legendary folk singer, union activist, environmental champion and jolly hell-raiser who turns 90 years old today.
If you get a chance, take a few minutes and hum or sing a few lines from “This Land Is Your Land,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” “If I had a Hammer,” “We Shall Overcome,” “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” or any other Seeger tune and give a birthday wish to a man who has walked the walk, talked the talk and sung the songs for 90 years.
Seeger has been closely connected to the progressive movement from the 1930s through today. He was there during the 1940s and 1950s “red scare,” with black lists and Joe McCarthy, the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, the environmental movement and today’s continuing struggle for justice.
Washington Post music critic J. Freedom du Lac calls Seeger
one of the most significant artist-activists in 20th-century American music.
