MLF-959

Murray Lerner
Murray Lerner 00:08. unseen
Talk about Dylan. He misspoke a year. He said 62 Yeah, but it didn't matter. I'd like a drink of water before going, probably would help. I decided I thought about it. I decided it didn't matter. Let me Okay. Okay. Anyway. So, again, I keep harping on this, did you feel that there was a movement developing that excited you? Because it was music that was creating that movement or being the underpinning of that movement, which was civil rights.
And that was Newport, I thought, civil rights and anti war and, and individuality. You know, uh nonconformity. Did you feel that was performances, but the fact that this was a movement? Did you feel that that this was somehow building a movement that you would like to see built and that it was more than just presenting the full performance?

Pete Seeger 01:22
I was excited that so many young people wanted to carry on these ideas and develop them in their own way. It was understandable, some were more interested in blues, others were more interested in ballads. Some were more interested in instrumental music. Some of them were more interested in humor. And some were interested
I'd say many of them in the broadest sense of the word, were interested in democracy, letting people have their opinion and be heard. Because normally, our opinions are not really heard. The radio is controlled. Television is controlled. Newspapers are controlled. The best thing now that is going on is that things are out of control.
That doesn't mean that everything is good. But there's now the internet and not hundreds but 1000s of little publications. And it's true that money controls big things. But it doesn't have as fast control as it used to have,
tight control.
Back in 1930 30, President Herbert Herbert Hoover said to Rudy Valet, one of the leading popular singers, Mr. Valet if you can sing a song that will make the American people forget the depression, I'll give you a metal.
And you can bet that in the 1930s, a lot of people have wished that we could find a songwriter, a singer who could make these young people forget all this business, about peace and so on, and freedom. It's astonishing that the civil rights movement and the Newport Festival both took place at the same time.
Who knows? Who knows?

Murray Lerner 06:18
Well, the only type of person in America that has that powerful effect on crowds are singers, singers, and they have never been of that persuasion. There are some really right wing ones, but they don't get anywhere.

Murray Lerner 06:38
And I often wonder whether, you know, like, certain kinds of when they get rock arenas, which have 250,000 people, whether that could happen, but it doesn't seem don't seem that music leads to the opposite. Seeger - You're right. Lerner: For some reason. I don't know why. Just to get to a funny question, what is music?

PETE SEEGER TALKS ABOUT NEWPORT FOLK AND JAZZ FESTIVAL ORGANIZER GEORGE WEIN AND TALKS ABOUT THE NEW ORLEANS JAZZ FESTIVAL

Pete Seeger
George was approached by some people in New Orleans, they said, Whatcha do up there in Newport? You should be down in New Orleans. That's where jazz started. And George said, Well, I'd like to go but there may be problems. My wife is African American, and we always work together.
Well, we'll call you back, but they never did until, after the Civil Rights Movement. In the late late 60s, they called and George said, yeah, things have changed. Let's try it. And of course, the the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival became one of the world's greatest, in a sense picked up where Newport left off.

PETE SEEGER TALKS ABOUT MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT AND HOW HE WAS HIS FAVORITE NEWPORT DISCOVERY

Pete Seeger
Well, I like some of the old timers like John Hurt such an honest man. And it almost broke his heart when the two young men who were managing him got in a big argument and fight and split up. He liked them both. And I remember John saying, when somebody asked him what kind of music do you like? He said, Oh, I like all music. He wasn't gonna be pinned down.

Murray Lerner 11:36
They rediscovered him, didn't they in a way they bought him.

Pete Seeger 11:40
It was a young man who listened to his records made back in the 1920s when John was a young man. And in one of the records it said, my home was Avalon. And he looked up in the Atlas yes, there's a little town in Mississippi called Avalon.
And he goes there and said, does a man named John Hurt who plays blues live in this town?. Oh yeah. The other side of the tracks there. Everybody knows him. And next thing he was at Newport.

Murray Lerner 12:18
That was a great one of the great things about Newport that revived some of those people. There were number of them.

Pete Seeger 12:28
Of course, some of the best were no longer alive. But Frank Warner was there who had learned the ballot of Blue Mountain Lake from 90 year old oh, ex lumberjack. Can't remember his name. And he tried to sing The Ballad of Blue Mountain Lake just the way this 90 year old man had taught it to him.

PETE SEEGER SAYS HE DISAPPROVES OF RECORDS - LIKES LIVE MUSIC - I'D RATHER MAKE IT THAN LISTEN TO IT ON A RECORD

Pete Seeger
Oh, probably, well, there's all sorts of things I, you might say I disapprove of records. I do not list like to listen to records. I'll listen to it if I have to, just because somebody wantsto know what I think of it.
But I don't really enjoy listening to records. Uh I give them away, or they sit stacked in boxe.

Murray Lerner
Your own records I mean.

Pete Seeger
my own records or anybody's records. I don't enjoy listening to. I remember as a child listening to them and saying I'd rather make music than listen to it on record.

Murray Lerner 15:48
You then you get into the spirit of the songs I end the film with you're leading Down By the Riverside. And it's very powerful, and you're leading it you see, and how did you you often were the leader in in a lot of these groups and so on, rather than just being part of

Pete Seeger 16:10
well, songs made up by African slaves are some of the world's greatest songs. They took some good ideas from European American music. For example, a slave might be listening at the window of the big house when there was a dance going on. And there was a fiddler playing the Irish, washerman, TITI TITI TITI TITI TITI TITI.
out in the fields, the cotton fields the next day,
they slowed it down - Pete sings - rockin' my soul in the bosom of Abraham rockin' my soul in the bosom of Abraham. Same tune, just a different rhythm and new words.
And all around the world now people say, Oh, I love American music. And I think what they love is the African element, which was developed. The guitar was not an unknown instrument in America 100 200 years ago, usually played why rather elegantly, Pete mimics playing guitar - boom, boom,

Murray Lerner 19:22
To what extent does music help this change?

Pete Seeger 19:25
Oh, music was part of the civil rights movement uh actually the best song I've written in the last 10 years. I don't know if I can sing it. (tunes his banjo)

Pete Seeger 25:40
And I've got to memorize it, because I'm singing it the day after tomorrow, or is it tomorrow, no the day after tomorrow? I've got to go down, even though I'm getting up the sick bed. And I'll get a couple of people to help me. And we'll get our little Sloop Club singing it.

PETE TALKS ABOUT HIS "SLOOP" CLUB WHICH IS A BRANCH OF HIS CLEARWATER ORGANIZATION - "SLOOP CLEAR WATER PROJECT" TALKS ABOUT THAT FESTIVAL THAT STARTED AFTER NEWPORT IN 1969 - TELLS THE "STONE SOUP" STORY

Pete Seeger 26:02
That's my main organizational life these days. It's a local branch of the Clearwater organization. And we have a potluck supper on the first Friday of the month. We started about 40, almost 40 years ago is was 1969 when the Clearwater first sailed up the Hudson, just when Newport ended was the start of theSloop Clearwater project. And we had a little Festival on the waterfront. Music food.
And Toshi has a bit we have a big iron pot, I once bought it for $3. And I said, how come the little one is $20 He said, Ah these tourists, they just want to look pretty.And they they'll buy the little one, but the big one was only $3. And now, we told the story of Stone Soup, you know, the old story.

PETE DEMONSTRATES HIS " RECYCLE" SONG THAT HE PLANS TO SING AT THE NEXT SLOOP MEETING

PETE TALKS ABOUT THE MYSTERY OF MUSIC AND SYMBOLS - TALKS ABOUT TAKING THEIR KIDS OUT OF SCHOOL AFTER THE NEWPORT FESTIVAL IN 1963 - FOR A FULL YEAR - SAMOA - SAMOAN GREETING SONG - TALKS ABOUT WORLD MUSIC - INDONESIA , CALCUTTA

Murray Lerner 35:30
How did they respond to your music?

Pete Seeger 35:32
Oh, they liked it. The European rhythms have gone around the world. And I was able to get people even singing a few simple things with me, a word here or a word there. When it came to India, I was able to get them to sing because they know the English language. So many there.
I think we had 20,000 people in a big city park in Calcutta. And the record has just been released because somebody found it taped it we made it be made. It's very good quality tape. Part Mai Dan And we sang a wide range of songs I sang for two hours for them. No translation necessary. In Calcutta at least, most knew English

Murray Lerner 36:44
They responded to string instruments i guess

Pete Seeger 36:47
of course, some they'd already heard some of the songs in advance before we left India. Oh, no, pardon me. This was only 15 years ago, my grandson and I. and my wife went back to India. And this time we sang indoors. But I went, we visited a small village.
And the man recognized me because my picture had been in the Bengali newspaper in this village. He didn't know English. But he ran and he pointed me said Pitt Sigger because that's the Bengali language it didn't print the exact pronunciation right. He runs and gets his five year old granddaughter, and with her in his arms, he sings me We Shall Overcome in the Bengali language.

PETE SEEGER IS ASKED ABOUT " ELECTRIC MUSIC " AT NEWPORT - "THE FOLK MUSIC OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY - WHAT DID HE THINK ABOUT BUTTERFIELD - OFFERS NO OPINION 'I LIKE TO SKATE TO MUSIC" BUT IT DO NOT LISTEN TO RECORDS - OFFERS LITTLE TO NOTHING ABOUT ELECTRIC MUSIC AT NEWPORT

Murray Lerner 38:52
just to get back to one other point about Newport electric music a-flowing

Pete Seeger 39:00
Electric music will probably be called the folk music of the of the second half of the 20th century.

Murray Lerner 39:07
I think so ,but you deal with feel negative about it or the way

Pete Seeger 39:11
some some of it's great. I'm like John Hurt. All depends.

Murray Lerner 39:21
In other words, what did you think of Butterfield that that year? in '65 And what did you think of Paul Butterfield that year?

Pete Seeger 39:28
Well, I don't listen to records so I only heard him then, it wasn't fair to judge him. On what what they made then. I will say that I like to skate. I say I never listened to records. No, I like to skate to music. But my favorite music. I've tried listening skating to Beethoven. I've tried skating to bluegrass. The best music to skate to is steel drums from Trinidad. I love them. I used to if I hadn't In a banjo picker, I would have been a steel drummer. I love steel drums I could play them fairly well back in 1955 56 I went down to Trinidad and learned to to play them and a little bit how to make them I put out a book on how to how to make steel drums. But uh I tried bluegrass is not good to skate to I don't think, nor jazz. Nor a lot of other kind, but steel drums. I'll go for

Murray Lerner 40:43
Just to get back to this question

PETE SEEGER TALKS ABOUT TALKING TO BOB DYLAN AND LOVING HIS JOHN WESLEY HARDING ALBUM " WHEN I WAS SKATING" TALKS ABOUT GANDHI

Pete Seeger 40:45
Oh and I did. I got back to Bob, because his record of John Wesley Harding came out. And I played that over and over and over while I was skating, I must have listened to it 20 times 30 times.

Pete Seeger 43:42
And when he's told that we are followers of Gandhi, he won't know shall I throw up that food that I enjoyed eating? Should I not do that dance that was so nice. My feet really liked to follow.
My brother's a teacher. He taught primary school kids. And he also ran a summer camp with his wife for 50 years. And he sometimes you get the same kid in school that he would have in summer camp.
And he says if he has 11 years, he can cure a bully. Now I would say to scientists if you want an important scientific job, find out how to identify a bully when they're only one or two or three years old, and how to cure him or cure this person. And my brother says you have to give them experiences and suddenly realize how good it makes you feel for somebody looking at you say, Oh, thanks a lot. And it makes you feel good.

Murray Lerner 44:56
Music Music by the way generally tends to make people feel But I don't think you ever have the same kind of reaction to your singing and so on as this Indian fella had , did you have have that in America?

CU THE HAND OF PETE SEEGER RUBBING AGAINST THE STRINGS OF HIS BANJO

CU Seeger strums banjo and sings his iconic tune, Quite Early Morning