Arlo Guthrie Remembers Pete Seeger: 'He Brought Humanity Together With His Actions'

[G_j]

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/5893661/arlo-guthrie-remembers-pete-seeger-appreciation

By Arlo Guthrie | January 31, 2014 11:50 AM EST

The first time I ever got involved in anything that could be called controversial was when my class in the fifth or sixth grade took a trip to hear a Pete Seeger concert. I was going to school in Brooklyn, and the class went to the venue in a little school bus, and outside the concert, the John Birch Society was picketing. They had all these pamphlets and they were yelling, "Pete is a Commie," and calling him all kinds of names.

I walked up to one of the John Birch Society members and asked, "Is this really true?" He said, "Oh, yes," and I said, "Give me those pamphlets. I'm going to help you out." They gave me and my classmates all of the pamphlets and we just put them in our pockets and walked into the venue, so there were no more pamphlets for them to give out.

That was my first political action and it was due to Pete. I had met him once or twice as a child. He was was a friend of my father, not my friend yet, but through the years we bridged that gap.

Pete took over the annual Weavers reunion concert at Carnegie Hall that had been a mile marker in the blacklist era of the mid-1950s. He asked me to join him in 1968. It became a Pete and Arlo concert, and for the next 30 years we did two nights, the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.

That continued until some time in the '90s when he said, "I can't do those big events anymore. I can't sing like I used to. I can't play like I used to play." I said, "Look at our audience-they can't hear like they used to hear. Shouldn't be a problem." He did it for a few more years and eventually I inherited that date at Carnegie Hall and kept inviting Pete every year.

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