by Robert Wilkinson
We finish our Sunday sessions with a music legend and a very funny songwriter! I gave you the other two pop and soul/funk May 3 superstars on Friday and yesterday, and you get the folk icon today! The funny guy is after Pete’s set.
Pete Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an activist and folk icon for over half a century! There’s little I could say to add to the legend that was Pete Seeger, so I’ll let his music speak for him. This year I’ve added a bunch of performances with the Weavers and his amazing work in the 60s!
Pete began his career with the legendary Weavers. This is one of the songs they are most famous for! This is the version which the world knew before Hugo and Luigi hired a lyricist to give it words, changed the name, and gave it to the Tokens who gave us the version which topped the charts. Pete’s the only one in history who ever gave his royalties to Solomon Linda, who wrote it. “Wimoweh”
Last year’s live 1956 performance of this tune has disappeared, but I found this great live performance from sometime in the early 60s! For your enjoyment, here’s Pete Seeger doing his iconic composition, "If I Had A Hammer"
Live in Melbourne in 1963, Pete gives us the classic “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore”
From June 1963 at Carnegie Hall, 4 big ones! “If You Miss Me At The Back Of The Bus,” “Little Boxes,” “I Ain't Scared Of Your Jail,” and “We Shall Overcome.”
From the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, Pete’s having fun with “Green Corn”
From the legendary show Rainbow Quest, in 1966, I have two complete episodes. The first is Rainbow Quest with Hedy West, Mississippi John Hurt, and Paul Cadwell
The show closed with a bang! This was the last episode, with Pete, June Carter Cash, and Johnny Cash on the Rainbow Quest ship! Rainbow Quest with Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash
From Berlin in 1967 when the Cold War was still raging, Pete gave them the ultimate civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome”
Here are two that he did in September 1967 during the original taping of that legendary Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour episode, the first time he had been on television since he was blacklisted in 1950! “Old Joe Clark” and “Turn Turn Turn”
One of his more famous songs! He was originally supposed to perform this song on that September 1967 show, but the CBS censors pulled the plug. He got to come back in February 1968 and perform “Waist Deep In The Big Muddy”
Here’s an entire 47+ minute concert in Sweden in 1968! Pete Seeger in Sweden - 1968
Here Pete and Arlo perform a traditional tune that Woody added some words to, which most of us have heard at one time or another. They’re both pretty young, so I’d put this at 1968 or 1969. “You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley”
From 1970, Pete and Johnny Cash singing “Worried Man Blues”
Pete joined ex-Weaver bandmate Fred Hellerman in 1976 at the Phil Ochs tribute concert and performed this very funny Phil Ochs classic about the many ways to evade the draft! “Draft Dodger Rag.”
From 1993 at the Wolftrap, here Pete with his grandson singing harmony, offers us one of the more beautiful poems ever written by the great Cuban poet Jose Marti, “Guantanamera”
From 1993, live in Barcelona, a great live performance of one of his greatest tunes, the iconic anti-war tune, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”
With Arlo, another great live performance of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”
Here Pete turns in a great performance of my favorite tunes written by the legendary Lucky Wilbury! “Forever Young”
From the very first show in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Music Masters series in 1996, Pete give us a Woody Guthrie classic! “Hobo’s Lullaby”
For our closer, here's Pete at Farm Aid 2013 at age 94! Introduced by Mellencamp, he launches into "If I Had A Hammer," and is joined on stage by Willie, Neil, and Dave offering up the Woody Guthrie standard “This Land is Your Land.”
For our encores, we go back to the Weavers! This is the genesis of the folk movement in the US, and they were the best of the best. There’s not much film footage of this blacklisted group, but I found three they did in 1951!
We’ll begin with the Weavers performing their signature number “Goodnight Irene.”
From that same collection, they perform Woody Guthrie’s “So Long” and we finish with “The Roving Kind”
Here’s the 1950 version which influenced the Kingston Trio’s 1958 version which was the inspiration for Brian Wilson’s Beach Boys version in 1966.“(The Wreck of the) John B”
Last year I had the 1957-58 album The Weavers At Home showing them at their best, but it’s disappeared. So instead, here’s the album Wasn’t That A Time
Here’s their legendary 1963 Carnegie Hall performance celebrating their 15 years as a group! This is 49 minutes of extraordinary music done by extraordinary musicians! The Weavers Reunion at Carnegie Hall 1963 (Set list: “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Banks of Marble,” “Woke Up This Morning,” “Ramblin' Boy,” “Poor Liza,” “Train Time,” “Wimoweh,” “San Francisco Bay Blues,” “Guantanamera,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Come Away Melinda,” “Study War No More,” “Goodnight, Irene,” “'Round the World.”)
Here’s the full 2018 hour and 8 documentary of the Weavers! The Weavers: Wasn’t That A Time!
Last year I had a great 15+ minute clip of all their 1951 videos titled “The Weavers – All the 1951 Videos” but this year it’s gone.
As a Fitting epitaph, here’s a great 5+ minute tribute clip done by the Newport Folk Festival celebrating Pete! “In Loving Memory of Pete Seeger”
Thanks to Steve Taylor, we have this great Library of Congress audio interview of Pete! Off the record interview with Pete Seeger, 1988-03-22
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On a much stranger and funnier note, May 3 was the birthday of singer, songwriter, and producer Jerry Samuels (May 3, 1938 - March 10, 2023). While most have never heard of him, it’s because his stage name was Napoleon XIV, and he is known for one of the greatest one hit wonder tunes of all time!
For your remembrance and enjoyment, “Napoleon XIV” giving us his hit that went all the way to #3 in 1966, the very weird “They’re Coming To Take Me Away Ha Ha”
From 1956, his first foray into pop music, a do wop ditty under his own name called “Puppy Love” (not the later hit for Paul Anka!)
He also co-wrote this hit for Adam Wade in 1961 under his son’s name Scott David. “As If I Didn’t Know” as well as this hit for Sammy Davis Jr., “The Shelter of Your Arms”
We’ll close this bizarre short set with something he did in 1966 called “I Owe A Lot to Iowa Pot”
© Copyright 2025 Robert Wilkinson
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