Aww….he was my favorite, my age, (well, maybe a bit older!) and for sure, my era. This Land Is Your Land, baby. It’s about time, no?
And, I want a hat like that to get older with more grace and humor than I’m currently displaying in my sartorial combinations.
©Pat Coakley 2009
PHOTOGRAPHY CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
This is the 11th post in my series called “Driving to the Inaugural.” I am driving from my computer with the assistance of memory and past images and television and internet. Triple A doesn’t have road service for this journey even though I have a premium membership. Here are the others in the series:
Pete Seeger was the guy who wanted to take an axe to Bob Dylan’s sound system at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 when Dylan went electric.
Seeger is all about not wanting things to change and evolve. Although Seeger wears liberalism on his sleeves, he’s socially, actually a Fabian conservitive.
Don’t worry, this will be my last comment on the performers at the inaugural concert as there’s not many of them I respect (don’t even get me started on Bruce Springsteen), although I do love and have high hopes for Mr Obama and wish him all the best in the world.
Oh, Razz…really? My Pete This Land is Your Land? I had heard about that Dylan concert and the uprising against his electric guitar. I thought it was the crowd not one of his fellow musicians! Good grief. Music is sort of like politics, isn’t it? People have strong opinions. Yikes. I guess I don’t know enough about all of this!
I had actually just read on yahoo’s main page the other day that “This Land Is Your Land” had different intentions than the ones implied. However, he looked like he was having a great time yesterday & I really appreciated that. It was one of my favorite parts of the show as well. Isn’t he 88? or 82? He has some years on you!
Do you have any clear photos of Seeger’s hat? I’d like to make one like it. Thank you!
Conni, he’s 89! Yes, older technically but sometimes I feel much older.
Lethe, This is a “clear” photo in my portfolio! I’m laughing as my niche is blurry photos. This actually is uncharacteristically sharp! Sorry, this is the best one I have. But, I think you should make one.
Some folks are caught up in a myth about Pete, axes and Dylan. Get your facts straight. Both Dylan and Seeger have debunked it and have always had great mutual respect for each other. We’re talking about Newport Folk festival and the incident around the poor and distorted sound quality to which Pete objected. He asked that it be fixed and said, “If I had an axe I’d cut the cable,” out of frustration. Sorry folks, no axe in site. He wanted to hear the words. To be sure, he enjoyed an earlier blues guy play the day before and was thrilled by Roger McGuinn’s Rickenbacker on Turn! Turn! Turn! At his recent 90th birthday he was serenaded with “Maggie’s Farm” and and there were plenty of electric guitar masters around. And even now he DOES use an axe, but to split wood every morning. Look it up. Great pictures; great essay. Thanks.
Butterball.
Perhaps you need to read a little more carefully. “Wanted to take an axe to” is different to “took an axe to”. I too have seen the interviews of what Dylan and Seegar had to say about what happened. Dylan was deeply hurt by Seeger’s response to his music because he held Seeger in such high regard and respected him.