Pete Seeger, an amazingly influential musician, and my personal hero passed away yesterday at 94. A huge inspiration to me as a musician and to many others, I'm not ashamed to say I teared up when I read the news. If you've ever sang a protest song, if you've ever enjoyed folk music, you have Pete Seeger to thank. An activist, an amazing musician and a genuinely nice guy (I had a chance to meet him at the Newport Folk Festival a few years ago), he kept playing music up until the day he died, touring with his grandson in his nineties. He wrote song that inspired people, and inspired people to sing along. "We Shall Overcome," a defining song of the civil rights movement in the 1950's and 60's was co-written by him, along with timeless folk classics like "Turn, Turn, Turn", "Goodnight Irene", "Waist Deep In The Big Muddy", "If I Had A Hammer" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and yet remained humble, shunning commercialism. He didn't care about being popular, he cared about making a change and inspiring people to sing. If you don't know who he is, google him right now, you'll thank me. Probably the most badass 94 year old out there (in addition to marching with the Occupy protesters at
age 92, he still lived in the cottage he built with his hands in 1949, and was chopping wood and playing music not a few days before he passed).
I can't express in words how much his music has inspired me, and how much his actions as a musician have inspired me as a person. Rest in peace, Pete Seeger: thank you for taking some of the early blows so that music could be what it is today.
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