Pete Seeger and Raffi, Beacon, New York, April 25, 2012. Photo by Jim Brown, used with permission.
On October 21, 2011, Pete joined Arlo Guthrie, Suzanne Vega, Lucy Kaplansky, Tom Paxton, Guy Davis, and David Amram at Symphony Space in New York City to honor George Wein, the founder of the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals, as well to raise funds for the Clearwater’s Environmental Educational Programs. Following the concert Pete marched with about 1,000 others the 30 blocks to Columbus Circle in support of the Occupy Wall Street protest that was much farther downtown. His commitments and energies had seemingly not flagged. About the same time Noel Paul Stookey, the Paul of Peter Paul and Mary, penned a wonderful tribute song, “Not That Kind of Music”:
Sometime he’d play the banjo
Songs from other lands
Sometimes it was the 12 string
Or just the sound of clapping hands
But there always was this moment
Kinda hard to understand
When the music became bigger than the man*
Pete celebrated his 93rd birthday on May 3, 2012. The writer and political activist Peter Dreier captured the event with an overview of Pete’s life in the Huffington Post, beginning: “A few years ago some of Pete’s fans launched a campaign to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. It is time to resurrect that effort.” And he concluded: “Every day, every minute, someone in the world is singing a Pete Seeger song. What a remarkable life he’s led!” Dreier has also included a portrait of Pete in The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame.*
A week later in the Huffington Post, May 11, 2012, Raffi Cavoukin, the popular children’s performer known simply as “Raffi,” published “My Pete Seeger Spring: A Visit to Say Thanks.” He had spent some time at Pete’s house on April 25, trading stories. “I told Pete I was writing a tribute song for him, so my audiences might come to know his songs. (Now I’m thinking about a Raffi Sings Seeger CD),” he explained. “He’s about 30 years older than me, which means that many who know my music may not know his. And what a treasure trove his repertoire is …. Pete’s musical passion gave people a voice and songs to sing.” Raffi was only one of the most recent of the thousands who have trekked to Beacon over the decades to sit at the feet of the master and partake of his wisdom. The stories might not always be fresh, but coming from Pete they were always fascinating, as millions have learned, including when he talked and performed on TV’s popular Comedy Central Colbert Report on August 6, 2012. And the recordings continue to appear: Pete Seeger, Live at Mandel Hall 1957 (Chrome Dreams 2012), Pete Seeger, The Complete Bowdoin College Concert 1960 (Smithsonian Folkways Records 2012), Pete Remembers Woody (Appleseed Records 2012), Pete Seeger and Lorre Wyatt, A More Perfect Union (Appleseed Records 2012).*
On November 24, 2012, Pete appeared in Arlo Guthrie’s “Annual Thanksgiving Concert” at Carnegie Hall, a long tradition. Three weeks later, December 14, he joined Harry Belafonte, Jackson Browne, Bruce Cockburn, and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter for a fundraiser at the Beacon Theater in New York to support the Native American activist Leonard Peltier’s petition to be released from prison after 37 years. And the saga continued, although Toshi’s death on July 11, 2013, brought to a sad close their seventy-year marriage and vital partnership.
