tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7144949223593227131.post-86645905500723486752008-07-03T15:31:00.000-07:002008-07-03T15:33:33.523-07:00The return of Seeger<br />Folk icon Pete Seeger makes a rare stage appearance Saturday in Montreal<br /> <br />MIKE REGENSTREIF, The Montreal Gazette<br /><br />Thursday, July 03, 2008<br /><br />The last time I interviewed Pete Seeger was in 1999 just as he was about to turn 80. He was planning to stay close to his Hudson River Valley home and just play a few songs occasionally for school kids or at benefit concerts. It was unlikely, he said then, that he'd travel far enough from home to perform in Montreal again.<br /><br />Almost a decade later, though, the still-vigorous Seeger is on his way back to Montreal. His Saturday concert here kicks off a quickly arranged, and quickly sold-out, tour of small venues that also takes him to Toronto for two nights, Kingston and Ottawa in the company of acoustic blues revivalist Guy Davis and his grandson, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger of the folk-rocking Mammals. The three will share the stage, swapping songs and backing each other.<br /><br />Reached at his home overlooking the Hudson River in upstate New York, Seeger told me he has fond memories of performing in Montreal.<br /><br />"Sam Gesser hired me when nobody else would," Seeger said, referring to the late Montreal impresario who broke into the concert business with a Seeger concert in 1952 when most of the folksinger's performing opportunities were lost to the McCarthy-era blacklist. Gesser, who died April 1, brought Seeger to Montreal often over the next four decades.<br /><br />Seeger is one of the most revered musicians of all time and has been a major influence on the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen - who's done two albums of songs he learned from Seeger LPs - and almost everyone else who's picked up a banjo or acoustic guitar in the past 60 years.<br /><br />Seeger's lengthy résumé includes forming two legendary folk groups: the Almanac Singers, with Woody Guthrie, before both shipped out to serve in the Second World War; and the Weavers, the group that brought folk music to the pop charts with Goodnight Irene and Tzena Tzena Tzena in 1949 before being blacklisted. Seeger has written or co-written scores of enduring songs, including Where Have All the Flowers Gone and If I Had a Hammer, has made hundreds of recordings and has been at the forefront of the civil rights, peace and environmental movements.<br /><br />The rest at:<br /><br />http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html?id=adcd14df-575e-4005-acd6-a07ae208faddSusan Forbes Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772249630429216906noreply@blogger.com