From “People’s Artist” for the Communist party to a smash commercial success in television, the record industry and swank night clubs throughout the country may seem like an insuperable jump. Especially when accomplished in almost no time flat.
Not so for Pete Seeger, founder, director and member of the Weavers, that folk-singing quartette which has practically revolutionized music publishing by popularizing such hits as “Good Night Irene,” “Sweet Violets” and “On Top of Old Smoky.”
Pete has a long record of singing for the revolution—the Communist revolution, that is. And when the Daily Worker on June 19, 1949, named him “People’s Artist”—a term borrowed from the Russians—it didn’t only mean he’s got a good singing voice. It meant he’s in there pitching Commie propaganda.
Since then Pete and his Weavers have hit the jackpot. They’ve played Ciro’s in Hollywood, the Blue Angel and the Strand Theater in New York, the Capitol in Washington, the palatial Shamrock Hotel in Houston, the Thunderbird in Las Vegas and the Riverside in Reno. They’ve appeared in the Milton Berle and Faye Emerson TV shows and on the Colgate Comedy Hour. Their recordings, by Decca, are going like the pancakes you’ve heard about.
Last month they were scheduled for the Dave Garroway TV show over at NBC. At the last moment the Weavers pulled out. Conflicting rehearsal schedules, they said. That was after Counterattack, the weekly newsletter on communism, published in New York, told about their background.
Currently, they were booked for the Ohio State Fair. The contract was canceled after someone inquired at Counterattack.
After the CP’s May Day parade in 1949 three of the four Weavers staged a review for the cultural division of the Communist party. Lee Hays wrote the script and was MC. Pete, who got top billing, and Ronnie Gilbert were in the cast.
SOURCE “New York World Telegram, August 2, 1951.
It was according to the Daily Worker, “a special performance in honor of ‘the 12.’” namely the 12 indicted Red leaders, seven of whom are now in prison and four in hiding.
They presented, said the Worker, “sing-songs of peace, civil rights and Aesopian language.” the latter being the expression used in the Communists’ trial to describe Commie deceit.
In May, 1950, the Weavers sang at the funeral of Bob Reed, Daily Worker music critic. And last year they entertained the founding convention of the CP-controlled Distributive Workers union, a merger of three of the unions booted out of the CIO.
From there on they started to play the big circuit. Their itinerary included the Boy Scouts and Rotary clubs, according to the Weavers.
Their original sponsor was People’s Songs. Inc., now called People’s Artists, a CP outfit which entertains at party conventions, May Day affairs and other functions, specializing in class-struggle songs.
Pete was national chairman of People’s Songs when it took over the entertainment side of the Henry A. Wallace- for- President campaign in 1948. Under his leadership it published a “Songs for Wallace” folio, which included ditties like “Friendly Henry Wallace,” “Henry Wallace Man,” “Hollering for Wallace” and We’ll All Join Gideon’s Army” (words by Paul Robeson).
Pete, who has taught at the CP’s Jefferson School, got his ideological start with the Almanac Singers which, in words put to music, tried to undermine America’s defense program during the Hitler-Stalin peace pact. One of their favorite ballads ran like this:
“Oh. Franklin Roosevelt told the people how he felt.
We damn near believed what he said.
“He said, ‘I hate war’ and so does Eleanor.
“But we won’t be safe till everybody’s dead.”
After Hitler invaded Russia, the Communist Party quietly rounded up all recordings of the Almanac Singers and destroyed them.