May 3, 2014: Pete Seeger’s 95th Birthday

News

For Pete’s Sake: Celebrating Pete Seeger’s 95th Birthday 

A collection of singers, musicians, spoken word artists, social leaders, and filmmakers will honor one of the world’s most influential folksingers, Pete Seeger, May 3rd, 7:30 PM – 9:30 Pm, at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. The event will celebrate the many phases of Seeger’s life in multimedia and with an abundance of music from across the cultural spectrum on what would have been Seeger’s 95th birthday. Members of Pete Seeger’s family will be in attendance. The concert will also be ASL Interpreted.

Pete Seeger was involved at crucial moments in the Civil Rights struggle in the south. In keeping with Pete Seeger’s commitment to social justice, proceeds from For Pete’s Sake will be going to the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom School in south Minneapolis.

 TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE FITZGERALD THEATER BOX OFFICE, ALL TICKETMASTER OUTLETS, AND ONLINE AT WWW.TICKETMASTER.COM. TO CHARGE TICKETS BY PHONE, CALL 800-982-2787.  All tickets are $30, plus service fees.

Featuring: ROBERT ROBINSON  PRUDENCE JOHNSON  JOHN GORKA  ESTAIRE GODINEZ  CHASTITY BROWN LARRY LONG  JOYFUL NOIZE  PETER OSTROUSHKO  WAUBANEWQUAY DAY  ANN REED  DAN CHOUINARD  TONIA HUGHES  CYRIL PAUL  KEVIN FUHRMAN   BRIAN BARNES  BRITTANY DELANEY  MITCH WALKING ELK  COURTNEY YASMINEH  AIMEE BRYANT PATTY KAKAC  BARB TILSEN  POP WAGNER  TONY GLOVER  CHARLIE MAGUIRE  MARC ANDERSON  JOE SAVAGE  CAMERON WRIGHT  LORNA HER MANY HORSES  TIMOTHY FRANTZICH and ASL INTERPRETED

Minneapolis filmmaker William Eigen will share footage from his critically acclaimed documentary movies about Seeger.  The event will include words and poetry of Pete Seeger recited by community leaders of the many nations of people who call Minnesota home.

“For  Pete’s Sake grew out of encouraging hometowns and communities across  the country to honor Seeger on his 95th birthday. And people responded from Israel to Norway,” says Long. “Our celebration was rooted in Pete’s concept to think  globally and act locally. When I look at the bill, I feel like we’ve really accomplished that. If our featured artists — many of whom have national reach – can fill the house, we will have also succeeded in creating  something that can be replicated by others in other communities.”

RADIO HEARTLAND RECORDING CONCERT; PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT THE CHILDREN’S DEFENSE FUND AND FREEDOM SCHOOL

Radio Heartland will record the concert, and in the week leading to May 3, it will feature Pete Seeger and his inspired music. The 24-hour folk, roots and Americana music stream over 89.3 The Current can is available at www.radioheartland.org. It is also on HD radio at KNOW 91.1 FM HD2 in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Pete Seeger was involved at crucial moments in the Civil Rights struggle in the south.

In keeping with Pete Seeger’s commitment to social justice, proceeds from For Pete’s Sake will be going to the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom School in south Minneapolis. ** Link to Seeger Interview: http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365165330

For Pete’s Sake: Celebration for Pete Seeger’s 95th Birthday is being produced by Larry Long’s American Roots Revue.

In the past, Seeger has fondly said, “I would be proud to be known as ‘the Larry Long of New York.'” Long has been a longtime friend since the ’70s with the legendary folk singing figure whose towering height and simple banjo-strumming tunes could move thousands of festival goers, or roomfuls of schoolchildren to all sing along. Long was also the only Minnesota performer invited to perform at Madison Square Garden in New York for Pete’s 90th birthday celebration, which included an all-star music tribute (http://tinyurl.com/l58cn9e).

For more information — or to interview Larry Long, or feature select participating musicians in studio — please contact Martin Keller, Media Savant Communications Co., 612-729-8585, mkeller@mediasavantcom.com

 

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*MORE ABOUT PETE SEEGER, FROM HIS NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY

“Mr. Seeger was a prime mover in the folk revival that transformed popular music in the 1950s. As a member of the Weavers, he sang hits including Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene” — which reached No. 1 — and “If I Had a Hammer,” which he wrote with the group’s Lee Hays. Another of Mr. Seeger’s songs, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” became an antiwar standard. And in 1965, the Byrds had a No. 1 hit with a folk-rock version of “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” Mr. Seeger’s setting of a passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

A Generation’s Mentor

Mr. Seeger was a mentor to younger folk and topical singers in the ‘50s and ‘60s, among them Bob Dylan, Don McLean and Bernice Johnson Reagon, who founded Sweet Honey in the Rock. Decades later, Bruce Springsteen drew from Mr. Seeger’s repertory of traditional music about a turbulent America in recording his 2006 album, “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions,” and in 2009 he performed Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” with Mr. Seeger at the Obama inaugural

In his hearty tenor, Mr. Seeger, a beanpole of a man who most often played 12-string guitar or five-string banjo, sang topical songs and children’s songs, humorous tunes and earnest anthems, always encouraging listeners to join in. His agenda paralleled the concerns of the American left: He sang for the labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s, and for environmental and antiwar causes in the 1970s and beyond. “We Shall Overcome,” which Mr. Seeger adapted from old spirituals, became a civil rights anthem.

READ MORE AT: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/arts/music/pete-seeger-songwriter-and-champion-of-folk-music-dies-at-94.html?_r=0

**About the Freedom School

The “Mississippi Freedom Summer Project” of 1964 was organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), two leading Civil Rights organizations.  The Freedom Schools movement was reborn in 1992 under the leadership of Marian Wright Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund’s Black Community Crusade for Children® (BCCC®) program to advance this transforming vision of education for all children through the CDF Freedom Schools program.

 

Links to both Freedom School and Children’s Defense Fun:

 

Sponsored by:   Community Celebration of Place   www.communitycelebration.org