Re: [xmca] Silvio Rodriguez and Pete Seeger

[Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>]

I have a little story about Pete Seeger once giving me a ride from a  
train station.  It was 1984.  I was the music counselor for an upstate  
New York YMCA camp that brought inner NYC kids out to a woodsy and  
rustic camp for a few weeks.   The camp was built on the fields and  
woods around a farmhouse where Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's  
Cabin (1852).  This farm had also been a stopover on the Underground  
Railroad for African Americans who were escaping slavery on their way  
to Canada.  This was all in Beacon, about 75 miles straight up the  
Hudson River from NYC.

It was my day off, and I was getting off a train returning from NYC,  
where on impulse I had bought myself a bargain-priced old used  
baritone saxophone from some ancient music shop in the Theater  
District.  I hadn't brought my alto with me from Seattle for this  
summer job, and missed having a horn to practice - I was in music  
school at the University of Washington at the time, playing both jazz  
and classical sax.  I had also purchased some camp song books and  
other supplies for what I was doing at the camp, so I was carrying  
quite a bundle of stuff when I got off that train -  and wondering how  
I was going to make the two-mile walk.

I'd heard from the camp director (who was also the source of the above  
history) that Pete Seeger and his family lived on a property adjoining  
the camp.  Well, there Pete was, picking up some people at the train  
station in some old station wagon.  He saw me lugging that big black  
vinyl case with an odd musical instrument of some kind in it, and  
hefting some other bags, and asked me where I was going.  He was quite  
curious about the musical instrument, and remarked that it was an  
unusual sight at the train station.  I told him the Y camp, and about  
the sax.  He said hop in, he'd be glad to give me a ride, and of  
course I accepted.

They asked me some questions about the camp, and we talked about the  
local area, and about some of its history.  I told him it was an honor  
to have met him, that I'd heard him sing at anti-Vietnam war  
demonstrations, etc.  He was already a legend by the late 1960's, of  
course.  Pete and the others in the car wished me luck, dropped me at  
the front office of the camp, and off they went.  It is nice to see he  
is still going strong at 91.

What a great honor and tribute he received from Silvio Rodriguez.   
Thanks for this thoughtful link, Ulvi.

Rodriguez said about Seeger:
"For 91 years, he has been learning songs anywhere to teach them  
everywhere. He has left a little piece of Cuba in the United States, a  
bit of Africa in Italy, an air of Spain in Japan. Borders don’t exist  
for Pete. If there’s a man who can mend dreams, that’s him. His life  
has been an example of fraternity, of love towards human beings and  
Nature. He is a song we should all learn."

- Steve


On Jun 12, 2010, at 4:02 PM, ulvi icil wrote:

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