Talk:Pete Seeger/Archive 1

message: What book? -- Jmabel 02:02, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)
It appears that bracketed "recent book" is dated; appeared in quote within NYT Magazine article 1/22/95. The book is apparently Where Have All The Flowers Gone? A Singer's Stories, Songs, Seeds, Robberies (Bethlehem, Pa.: Sing Out, 1993) at 22 (from note 1.47 in Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970 (Culture, Politics, and Cold War), Ronald D. Cohen (University of Massachusetts Press, 2002).) Scrounged this from the Web; hopefully someone with access to source can straighten out the quote and cite. Jeffreykopp 09:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This still needs fixing; it looks like nonsense as it stands. --Jerzy•t 06:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "[in his recent book]" 

message: It is my understanding that Seeger was never a formal member of the Communist Party. So, he was never able to "leave it," strictly speaking. (anon)
:No, actually he was. I can turn up a citation if needed; I believe he finally said so in the 1980s, explaining that he had no shame about having been so, but wouldn't admit it to HUAC: in front of them, he simply invoked the First Amendment and refused to answer on the basis that his political affiliations were none of their business. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:58, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)
: Found a solid citation: David Dunaway's biography of Seeger, How Can I Keep From Singing, page 42. Pretty much the standard biography. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:03, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)
It says on page 52 of How Can I Keep from Singing that Pete joined the Young Communist League in 1936. This was during the period of the Popular Front when thousands of other people joined to protest conditions in Germany and Spain -- on which the Socialist party was lukewarm (and the Democratic Party AWOL). The YCL's support of the CIO, which was the only union to have a policy against segregation in the workplace, also gave it prestige among believers in human rights. On page 97 of How Can I Keep from Singing it says that Pete graduated to the membership in the Communist Party proper in 1941. He would have been 22. It also says that the Party didn't take him seriously, didn't like folk music much and that Pete was bored at meetings. 
As far as the Almanacs "Songs for John Doe"  --- it should be remembered that the country was gearing up for war and the big corporations were soliciting and getting big defense contracts. The fact that African Americans were officially debarred from being hired in defense plants, at a time when so many people were unemployed, made right-thinking Americans indignant. There was so much anger among black Americans  that in the spring of 1941 A. Philip Randoph began to organize a huge march on Washington. This is regarded by most people as the official beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. The march was called off at the last minute when FDR issued an executive order banning discrimination in companies having government defense contracts (June 21, 1941). It is against this background that the Almanac's album, with songs like "I don't want to fight for Dupont" (issued March, 1941) should be seen. With Hitler's attack on the USSR (also in June)the Hitler-Stalin pact became a non-issue. (Stalin had also had for 10 years a non-aggression pact against Hirohito). How Can I Keep From Singing omits mention of any of this background and is a rather superficial book in my opinion. Particularly as it is focussed primarily on politics and not music. (The author seems to have little understanding of or liking for folk music -- he dismisses Carl Sandburg as "romantic"). Dunaway has a degree in American Studies and is an adviser to National Public Radio.
:: Dunaway tends to disparage and marginalize Pete Seeger's courage and accomplishments, when he writes: 
::In the twenty-first century, the appeal of Pete Seeger is akin to that of a nineteenth-century Romantic figure, the rustic innocent with the magic flute, who appeals to those unable to live fully for the frantic quality of their lives. --Dunaway (2008), p. 421.
::Many of the positions Seeger took -- in favor of civil and labor rights, desegregation, a social safety net, opposition to nuclear proliferation, racism, and pollution -- are now so universally accepted that it is hard to appreciate how lonely it formerly was to hold them, and how vigorously they were opposed by those in power.
:::: Dunaway follows conventional Cold War orthodoxy in marginalizing grass-roots vernacular music as "romantic" "unrealistic" and therefore out-dated and unimportant. During the Cold War the musical comedy, a top-down European importation, was held up as the most truly American music, particularly triumphalist productions such as "Oklahoma" (though that show did have very innovative use of ballet). Jazz was also privileged, because in the Cold War it was important to show Europeans that Americans valued black contributions, so African-American jazz artists were sent overseas by the CIA to impress the foreigners -- though did they play on TV? I don't think so. But at the same time the connection of jazz to grass-roots genres such as folk music and blues was downplayed while its link to to pop "standards" and musical comedy highlighted. Also downplayed was the fact, pointed out by Denning, that almost all the jazz greats were enthusiastic members of the Popular Front. Lead Belly's funeral was a veritable who's who of jazz artists, including Dizzy Gillespie. (Denning himself, however, like Dunaway, also disparages folk singers such as Pete Seeger as being without influence, in his opinion). During the cold war, the native string band tradition was forcibly suppressed by means of blacklisting, but in the 1960s it came back with a vengeance via Skiffle, through Lonnie Donnegan's Lead Belly hits, and the British Rock invasion.96.250.132.71 (talk) 03:53, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: CP membership

message: Is this the same pete Seeger who wrote Abiyoyo? I believe it is but am not sure.
*Pete released an LP in the early 1960s with many memorable children's songs.  One was the song, "Abiyoyo" which I believe had African origins, or some such thing. Some others I remember included "Let's go riding in the car", "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)", and one that began, "What did you eat in the woods all day, Henry my son?"  Great memories for me at age 5 in 1965 to play over and over.  --leahtwosaints (talk) 22:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Author? 

message: Pete Seeger would have starved to death in the "Great Man's" gulags like so many millions of his truly innocent victims.  Instead he made quite a bit of money (dare I say he became rich?) off of the very system he still claims to hate; capitalism.  What a hypocrite!
The bit about small "c" communism is a hoot too.  Do you really believe that garbage?  Call it whatever you like; communism, socialism, fascism etc..., it all adds up to misery, slavery, and death.  They all share one thing in common and that is an abridgement of property rights which is the most fundamental of all "human rights."  The extent to which a man's right to own and control property is truncated, that man becomes property.—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[Special:Contributions/{
}|{
}]] ([[User talk:{
}|talk]]) 06:49, :39, & :51, 5 August 2005 
:The previous comment is anonymous (surprise!) and was made 4 Aug 2005. And other than that, I'm not feeding the troll. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:01, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
::Well, I figured that someone needed to bluntly state just what Pete Seeger's greatest "contribution to society" actually was and what its (all too predictable) results were.  He certainly isn't the only one, but still his aid and support of despots from Hitler, to Stalin, to Mao, to Pol Pot, and most recently to Hussein in some way helped those murderous bastards do their vile work by giving cover to them and by blunting and/or delaying the efforts of those who could have stopped or mitigated it.
::Someone who is that consistently wrong and apparently so callous to the effects of his actions deserves no better than the fate that I described.  Anyone can be mistaken, but Seeger and his fellow travelers display a wanton disregard for the truth, and then seek cover under the lame "I MEANT well" excuse.  
::Seeger has stated that he wants us to go back to the time when we lived in small villages and “took care of each other.”  Just because he lacks the mental capacity to understand his place in the extended order in which we live and the benefits of that order, he thinks that there must be something inherently superior to that primitive life when people died from simple infections and daily scratched their sustenance from the soil.  Such a world view is so warped that it makes me wish that he could have his wish, as long as others who don’t share his views aren’t forced to live in the utopia (hell) that he would create.  Then we could watch the idiots destroy themselves and get on with the business of life in the real world.—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[Special:Contributions/{
}|{
}]] ([[User talk:{
}|talk]]) 16:06, 10 August 2005
:Aug 10, presumably the same person. This is not your blog. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:06, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
And now he has jumped on the antisemitic BDS bandwagon. What a surprise ... and no mention of it in the article ... what a surprise.
Seeger has supported every fascist cause beloved of the brown-black-red so-called 'left', from the gulags to the BDS.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.14.17.50 (talk) 19:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  If there were any justice... 

message: City Journal article on "America's Most Successful Communist" is certainly hostile to Seeger in tone, but well researched and actually a pretty decent article, whatever its politics. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:15, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
It's decent enough when it covers Seeger himself, but the author clearly doesn't have much of a clue about political protest song before the mid-thirties.   His claim that there was no tradition of social protest in American song before Lomax and Seeger contradicts the available evidence - such as the recorded output of Blind Alfred Reed, Haywire Mac, or Uncle Dave Macon in the 1920s, to name but three.   That there was greater comercial interest in this kind of material from the late 1930s is clear, but the assumption of the author that it *started* then seems unsustainable.   This rather invalidates the writer's entire thesis.
A distasteful attempt at rewriting history, IMO.--84.69.84.133 12:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Not to mention the Wobbly bards. Someone researched Seeger, but didn't research history. Still, this is probably the pick of  the anti-Seeger links that have been placed in the article at various times, and we should have at least one, so I think until something better comes along it should be kept. And, frankly, I suspect that the chance of finding an anti-Seeger article by someone who has done their research on the level typical of people who feel attached to the tradition is relatively slim. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:52, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recently added link 

message: We say, "He has often sang and is associated with the song 'Joe Hill'." (Words by Alfred Hayes, music by Earl Robinson, by the way.) Certainly one of the (thousands of) songs in his repertoire, and I suppose that most people who know the song today learned it directly or indirectly from him, but the same could probably be said for 100 other songs, including "Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)", Cisco Houston's "Way Out There", and Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes". Heck, without him there's a fair chance almost no one would know the song "Erie Canal" or (in the English-speaking world) "Die Gedanken Sind Frei". Is he really particularly identified with this one song? Can someone give a citation for that? If this was just an excuse to get Joe Hill's name into the article, we can mention him singing this song and mention him singing Hill's parody of "Casey Jones". -- Jmabel | Talk 06:21, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joe Hill 

message: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website has Pete Seeger's birthday as May 19th, 1919.
Is there a question as to his birthdate, or is that just a mistake?
Yalith 18:06, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dave Dunaway's well-researched biography How Can I Keep From Singing gives May 3 (p.33 in the 1990 trade paperback). I'd be astounded if he's wrong. And he doesn't mention any doubts about the date. - Jmabel | Talk 18:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthdays? 

message: A recent anonymous edit now says that in January 1968 Pete Seeger sang "The Big Muddy" through the whole way on the Smothers Brothers show. I'm pretty certain that is wrong: I was watching that night and already familiar with the song. I'm quite certain he did not get to sing the verse that begins "Now I'm not going to point any moral…" Does someone have a decent citation on this? I've left a note on the anonymous user's page, an IP address with only a few edits, but they all relate to Seeger or other members of the same family; as usual, that's a bit of a crapshoot in terms of reaching the person. - Jmabel | Talk 02:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes.  Here, from You Tube:  Pete Seeger - Wimoweh & Flowers Gone
This is from a controversial episode of the Smothers Brothers. Originally, Pete sang his song "Waist Deep In The Big Muddy" in between these two songs but CBS deemed it too political to air and deleted it from the broadcast. However, he did perform the song on a subsequent broadcast and this time CBS allowed it to air. That version is available on Youtube:
You can also see the full seven minute performance here:
I hope this is helpful!!  --leahtwosaints (talk) 00:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Very helpful, especially the last one in that it gives the full context of the broadcast performance (and shows that my memory was wrong: the key last verse is there). Can anyone work out how we cite that? YouTube itself is not a "reliable source"; can we even provide this as a "convenience link" in a citation, given that this YouTube clip is probably a copyright violation? Has this been legally published on DVD somewhere (which would be citable)? - Jmabel | Talk 19:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You would cite it to the episode number, and I guess the original date of broadcast. Seeger appeared on these episodes: 10 September 1967 (Season 2, Episode 1) and 25 February 1968 (Season 2, Episode 24).  You don't need to link to IMDB, though.  The Smothers Brothers website also has this, but the episodes are listed there in order of production, not broadcast.  The Youtube link would generally go against policy.--Pharos (talk) 19:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This would clearly be the second one: the first is the censored appearance earlier in the season. - Jmabel | Talk 01:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that's why I mentioned both of them, in case you wanted to know about the censored appearance too.--Pharos (talk) 01:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

text:  I'm really sorry, since I'm pretty much a newbie here.  What I did do was put Seeger's name and "Big Muddy" in the You Tube Search Engine.  I found the results like this:  However, one of the users, "2old2rock" has now had this clip on You Tube for nearly a year, and she does always place a copyright disclaimer on the clips she posts.  I KNOW that often, after years of non-use of TV clips of all kinds, most major companies put them up for bid. If we email the people who uploaded it, (simple enough), there's always a slim chance that they've heard from the owner OR, have bought the rights, as a friend of mine did for a series of Little Feat concerts for next to nothing. Last thought: Pete worked as an archivist of folk music in D.C. If he was so rare a guest on TV in the 1960s is it possible that a copy of the performance might have been placed there? Grasping at straws, granted... --leahtwosaints (talk) 08:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Big Muddy 

message: I added a few details to the paragraph about Seeger's TV show. A complete index of these programs are on  but I did not want to link it from the article as the VHS copies offered on that page are no longer available.
I cannot determine how widely it was carried other than "various educational stations," so I don't know if NET distributed it, but presume they did. It was seen in Oregon, so it went a bit further than "regional." I saw one mention of it being seen in Canada although whether that was the CBC or cross-border reception is also unknown.
A New York Times article of 1/23/66 describes the program but the personal page where it was reproduced is gone; it can be fished out of Google's cache  or Wayback 
(I describe the program as "hourlong" though all the sources I found who mention a length specify 52 minutes. Perhaps commercial spots were hoped for in syndication.) Jeffreykopp 19 April 2006
:*There's quite a few clips of Rainbow Quest on Youtube.com if anyone is interested. Just go there and do a search for Rainbow Quest or Pete Seeger. Hanako 19:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rainbow Quest 

message: It should also be noted that Pete Seeger was related to the American Trench Poet Alan Seeger, who was his Uncle or some other relatively close relation. --V. Joe 20:05, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alan Seeger

message: I assume that "Issablle" is a misspelling, but what is the correct spelling? - Jmabel | Talk 18:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Granddaughter 

message: Since the page for Toshi Seeger was deleted for non-notability, could more information be placed here?  I admit tha a quick look around gave me nothing but perhaps others know of good places to look.
While you are at it, further information on the rest of the family, father, mother, and children, could also be added. His father, Charles Seeger, has his own page and was professor of Ethnomusicology at UCLA when Tinya attended there.  I only know the latter because I read short notice in the Golden Bear at the time.
JimCubb 21:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  All Family 

message: We've been back and forth about half a dozen times as to whether his property is in the Town of Fishkill or the City of Beacon. Does someone have a citation on this, or is there just going to be a slow edit war? - Jmabel | Talk 07:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: According to most publications, for example The Nation, Pete and his wife, Toshi, live in a house he built in Beacon, New York, an upstate town along the Hudson River.  Whether it's technically Fishkill or technically Beacon may still be debatable.  I always thought it was Beacon.  --Yalith 05:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

text: And, for what it's worth, in "Sailing Up My Dirty Stream", he sings, "I live right at Beacon here". to the best of my knowledge, he has never mentioned Fishkill in a song. - Jmabel | Talk 04:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

text: And, in one of the articles in Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground a quote is prefaced by something like, "Speaking from his home in Beacon, New York..."  I think the article was a reprint of a 1995 Bosoton Globe piece. -MrFizyx 12:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where he lives 

message: Was Fred Hellerman not a founding member of the Weavers along with the three listed?71.145.157.54 18:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm. I can't swear he was "present at the creation", but he was certainly in the group by the time they recorded. - Jmabel | Talk 06:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weavers 

message: The Spanish Civil War songs Seeger is listed here as recording in 2006 seem to be exactly the list of what he recorded for Moe Asch (a recording I grew up with). Were there really any 2006 recordings? (His singing voice is pretty nearly gone.) Or were these just a reissue of old material? Either way, it seems to me to get disproportionate mention in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 05:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Months have gone by and this has not been addressed. - Jmabel | Talk 07:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spanish Civil War songs 

message: The last thing I heard this musical titan sing was "Bring Them Home."  In 2003 he did an updated version of the original written in 1965.  He prefaced his singing with spoken prose about putting his life on the line to defend his country and would do so again, in a heartbeat, if he believed her to be in peril.  But just as in Viet Nam, the invasion of Iraq has proven to be foolish in the extreme, and appears to be having the opposite effect of its intended objective.
What in the HELL is the difference whether or not he was drafted?  I graduated from high school in 1965.  My 19th birthday present that year was, "Greeting:  You will report to Fort Wayne for induction into the United States armed forces in three weeks."  I had one brother on Navy active duty and another who was E3 reservist.  I visited the Naval Armory and was sworn into the USNR the next day.  I went to school, spent a year at sea and saw some real combat as throttleman on a Fletcher class destroyer, USS Mullany (DD-528) in the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club.  Although only on active duty for 18 months, I served the whole six years on drills before and after active duty and on the USS Bauer (DE-1025).  So who was the bigger draft-dodger, Bill Clinton, who ran off to England, or GWB who took an oath and put on a uniform?  As military veterans, Seeger, GWB and I have earned the right to a political opinion about war.  Junior makes me hurl, but that is MY problem.  That is why I sometimes listen to his speeches through the Spanish translation on Univision, or listen later to someone with a more functional brain.
Matt Watroba played some of "We Shall Overcome:  Complete Carnegie Hall Concert [LIVE]" on his radio programme on WDET-FM.  Matt spoke about how you can hear every sound that the audience makes--as close as they could get our ears into that concert.  He also said, "If you want to learn how to work an audience, listen to this album."  It was recorded in 1963, five months before JFK was killed, and the 60's exploded.  It runs for over 2 hours constantly and leaves in Pete's introductions and mistakes.  If you listen to this album, and then say that, "I hate him!", you have a hole in your soul.  Since wiki hardly mentions him, visit my page, and I will tell you more about Matt Watroba.--W8IMP 02:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most Recently 

message: Barely a mention of Moe Asch here, but during the lean years of the late 1950s Seeger recorded numerous albums of American folk songs for Asch's Folkways label. Probably deserves more mention: not a particularly commercial part of his career, but a significant body of recording, and all still in print from Smithsonian Folkways. - Jmabel | Talk 07:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moe Asch 

message: When I was a toddler, in the very early 1960's, my mother, who was a folk singer had acquired a lot of Sing Out! Magazines from the end of the 1950s and early 1960s.  They appeared quarterly, I think, always with a little floppy recording of a folk song featured that could be placed on a 45 RPM record, as well as other various songs, etc.  She kept those magazines like a treasure trove, (I remember new ones arriving as late as 1969, but am unsure after that..) until she died when I was 20.  I was told that Pete was the person who used the familiar pen name of "Johnny Appleseed" to comment on political happenings, because he had either been blacklisted by McCarthyism, or because he feared it would happen, I'm not clear on which.  Just something I thought was meaningful, if anyone is familiar with it.  --leahtwosaints (talk) 08:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Sing Out! Magazine'' 

message: Pete Seeger for  Nobel Peace Prize:
http://www.nobelprize4pete.org/  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.1.200.212 (talk) 14:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Nobel Prize

message: I notice that the Japanese Wikipedia has a very thorough discogrphy of Pete Seeger
* http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%A9%E7%94%A8%E8%80%85:Mahopa/%E7%B7%B4%E7%BF%92%E5%B8%B3
while you have none. why? Ogg (talk) 14:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Plenty of good Seeger discographies out there; not sure it's a terribly valuable addition for us to duplicate that. - Jmabel | Talk 05:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure there's a ton of great Dylan discographies out there, but wikipedia has one. Somebody should include a Seeger discog. Friendship hurricane (talk) 17:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Absence of discography 

message: I've added mention of two other brothers, Charles (an astronomer, who was a colleague of mine) and John (I do not know his profession).Bill Jefferys (talk) 21:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, John Seeger was also principal/headmaster at the  Fieldston school - I've added that with a cite. Tvoz/talk 20:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Siblings Charles and John 

message: Who is Pete Seeger's mother? No mention of who she is, only his step mother. Friendship hurricane (talk) 17:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: His mother's name was Constance. She was a noted classical violinist. I do not have a maiden name at the present time. Bill Jefferys (talk) 19:51, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

text: With help from one of Charles L. Seeger's grandchildren, I have learned that Constance Seeger's maiden name was Edson; a New York Times clipping confirms this, and I've included that in a new reference. Bill Jefferys (talk) 13:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mother 

message: I see that the page for Pete's wife, Toshi Seeger, was deleted for non-notability. I think she probably would make the notability threshold if someone did their research to show why, but as an alternative is there any reason not to make that page redirect here, and possibly add more about her in this article? - Jmabel | Talk 17:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Belated reply to this - I agree that a credible article could be written about Toshi, and would be interested in  helping out with it. I missed the previous article and deletion.  There are admins who will provide copies of deleted articles for this purpose - Joe, do you know any off hand? If not, I'll find one.  Meanwhile, I created a redirect to Pete, as I can't see why that would be objectionable. And yes, if we can get some sourcing, some of the material above from IP96 would be suitable for adding into Pete's article pending a separate piece on Toshi. Tvoz/talk 21:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Toshi Seeger 

message: Might want to add a mention of his album Story Songs and possibly an article on the album itself. I've always (well, since it came out in the early 1960s) considered it a standout of his solo career. - Jmabel | Talk 17:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Story Songs'' 

message: The image :Image:Weavers.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here.  In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page.  Please check
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This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --01:22, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Image copyright problem with Image:Weavers.jpg

message: I see that our selected discography lists a couple of the Smithsonian American Favorite Ballads CDs. No objection to that, but shouldn't we list the original (and I would think more significant) 1950s American Favorite Ballads and Frontier Ballads LPs? The Smithsonian series are not straight re-issues, they overlap but do not exactly duplicate the original LPs. - Jmabel | Talk 16:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discography: American Favorite Ballads 

message: The quotes should be moved to wikiquote, and just a link to wikiquote left here. DrKiernan (talk) 14:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotes 

message: Removed several POV remarks which I found inappropriately "suck-up." I will blockquote them all. 
Seeger's adoption of the twelve-string guitar doubtless inspired other folk performers to follow his example, ensuring its survival and contributing to its popularity in the 1960s and 70s.
Something of such importance needs a citation, it also makes P.S. sound like a visonary (which he more or less is,) but which isn't NPOV
Seeger continued his principled support of civil and labor rights, racial equality, international understanding, and anti-militarism
Removed "principled" as needlessly POV. 
But it is Pete's infectious enthusiasm, tireless energy, lifelong commitment and ability to "teach" audiences of any size, age or background that has raised him above his contemporaries. 
Seriously POV, and completely unneeded. Pete did this, Pete did that, the reader can decide for himself whether PS is "great" or "not great."
He did not mention that Pete had not been a Communist Party member for 57 years, or that many other Americans had changed their minds in similar fashion.
Opinion. The intelligent reader can do math. Somewhere in the article it should say. "PS left the CPUSA on X date" The writer of the guardian article is or is not mendacious, but the reader can decide. A lie of omission, all Jesuitical remarks aside, is not as good as an absolute lie, and this not an op-ed about how great a person/songwriter/politician PS really is/isn't. 
Thanks for your patience. V. Joe (talk) 17:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Egregious POV

message: The list of 90th birthday events is getting bloated. It is certainly non-encyclopedic: worth at most one sentence, not a screen's worth of listings. I'm not interested in fighting about it, though. Can we just agree to cut this way back next week, when it's no longer a current event? - Jmabel | Talk 04:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, next week is fine. Perhaps they could all be placed into one footnote. Bearian (talk) 18:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved it into a footnote - maybe still too much, but that's better than in the text.  (PS-Hi Joe! It's been a while!)  Tvoz/talk 20:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  90th birthday 

message: 'Roosevelt and Churchill's arms embargo to Loyalist Spain' - Churchill was neither prime minister nor foreign secretary at the time of the Spanish Civil War. I'm not a historian - I don't know if British policy in this area can be attributed to a particular politician (or indeed American policy to Roosevelt). I suggest 'the American and British arms embargo to loyalist Spain'.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.40.101 (talk) 00:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spanish Civil War 

message: The section " a memorable concert " sounds more like a piece of slightly fawning journalism than 'pedia-like. Words like "unfortunately" and other colour commentary have no place here.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.15.65.130 (talk) 14:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I was just coming here to say something similar.  I'm sure it was a wonderful and healing concert - aren't all of Pete's? - but unless there is a third-party source describing it and talking about some special significance that particular concert had, it's really not appropriate to include a whole section to it.   It's one of many, and it has way too much weight in this article  - I think we have to bring it down to a sentence or two in the activism section, and find a source that speaks about its significance.  I would guess there are such sources.  Meanwhile, regrettably, I think it has to be removed.  Tvoz/talk 20:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  A memorable concert needs rewrite or omission 

message: This article appears to have some missing text following the fragment "In a 1995 interview with The New York Times Magazine,". I examined the four most recent edits, but the problem does not occur there. I don't have time to fix this, perhaps someone else can? David spector (talk) 03:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing Text 

message: If we are having a section on Israel, we should also mention his support for Israel in its early years. He is, after all, the man from whom most Americans who know the song "Tzena, Tzena" learned it. - Jmabel | Talk
:I think so. North8000 (talk) 10:00, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a big WP:WEIGHT or WP:UNDUE issue here.  A whole paragraph about one concert, and one possibly controversial comment (out of a lifetime of such), doesn't seem appropriate in a biography covering 70-plus years in the public eye. PhGustaf (talk) 20:04, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that you are both agreeing. (?) Either way, we should try very hard to avoid overblowing/overcovering  brief moments here. North8000 (talk) 11:15, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

text: Not sure exactly what you are planning to do, but IMHO you should give it a try.  Right now that whole three paragraph section looks not only overblown but also confusing. IMHO that entire Israel section needs condensing and summarizing. North8000 (talk) 10:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Then feel free to condense and summarize (and preferably add some balance, as suggested). Because if it is left to me, I will simply remove the section. - Jmabel | Talk 16:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm fine with dumping it. PhGustaf (talk) 17:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm also fine with dumping it. North8000 (talk) 18:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israel 

message: Can someone here please archive the really old connents here on this talk page? It's insane having to pick through discussions which took place in 2005, 2006, etc.! Thanks. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 03:29, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving 

message: I just surfed in here and the first paragraph of the lead section is good, but then it seems to focus on a little part of Seeger's work instead of the broader scope about him. Does anyone else with perhaps "fresh eyes" see that -where it then focuses upon a couple of Seeger's notable songs, and then all the cover bands who recorded it? Seriously, I feel that part could be mostly moved to another part of the article, or placed on the song pages instead. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 03:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that you are right the the lead could use a lot of work, right now it's sort of a list of music related items. Also I think that the first sentence in the second paragraph (essentially that he is best known for those three songs) is wrong and OR.   But we also have to keep in mind that his music is the main reason he is famous.   Also, there are many readers that don't really know who he is, and seeing that he either wrote or is behind so many of those things is useful to give a reader and understanding of his place in things.  North8000 (talk) 12:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with the lead 

message: Hello
I have long had my eye on this article as an interesting one to improve, particularly sourcing and citing, and perhaps some expansion in some areas.   So this is just heads up to regular editors here of my plans.  I will be going slowly, and will endeavour to use  edit summaries or talkpage comments to explain my changes; but please feel free to bring any concerns or suggestions too, and if anybody would like to help, that would be great! --Slp1 (talk) 14:36, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool. One suggestion would be any wording regarding his place in history, or more specifically, in the 40's material here we are looking at the beginnings of and possibly the founder of the folk revival. Also to me the discussion of his/their music should be expanded a bit....it's mention seems more like just brief notes in a biography type section. I'd help more except that I do not have the expertise on this to do it.  North8000 (talk) 15:43, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coming edits 

message: The last section states that Jim Musselman read case Seeger v. United States and it changed his life, yet I cannot find such a case. There is the 1965 case United States v. Seeger, which deals with a different person, Daniel Andrew Seeger, a Quaker and conscientious objector who refused to enlist for military service, but does not appear to have anything to do with free speech or the Freedom of assembly clause of the First Amendment. What case is Musselman refering to? — Loadmaster (talk) 17:30, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The source it cites includes a conversation that included Pete Seeger where he acknowledged it, so it appears to be real.   But it did not describe  it.  North8000 (talk) 17:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Seeger v. United States'' 

message: Noticed that "iconic" it has been taken out and put back in a few times recently.   I agree with Xenophrenic  that it should stay in.  It IS sourced, not that that alone is an argument for keeping it in. One objection could be that the term is POV / laudatory, but thee are two other meanings of the term which are more applicable here.  One could refer to his importance in the stated field (the American folk usic revival) which I think few would disputee.  It also has a specific meaning (sort of representative, stereotypical or emblematic) which I think is very useful information for the article. In fall 2010 there was also a discussion of this (though not brought to a conclusion), see above. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:27, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The rudeness of the response aside.... first, a correction,  a wp:RS periodical calling him that is sourced. That doesn't mean that it is above question (or even right) but such constitutes sourcing in Wikipedia.  Second, don't know where the "wonderful" came from but the definition I had in mind (from dictionary.com)  is  "a person or thing regarded as a symbol of a belief, nation, community, or cultural movement" and there is a preponderance of info/sources which indicate that Seeger is this with respect to the 20th century folk revival. I'm not wedded to any particular outcome on this, I just think that we should discuss it intelligently and then implement the decision in the article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:18, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: "Iconic" in lead

message: Pete Seeger's memory is almost certainly confused, as he describes himself as the MC. The MC at that concert was certainly not Pete Seeger at all, but Peter Yarrow. I think Pete had forgotten all the details and was actually giving an ad-hoc explanation for what "might" have happened. Bruce Jackson even says that the audience was booing Yarrow, not Dylan, and they were upset that the Dylan/Butterfield set was too short not that it had been electric (though Dylan appears to have believed the latter). The whole festival seems to have become rather disorganized. John Cohen, Pete's brother-in-law, says that Pete was upset over the sound because it really bothered the elderly Charles Seeger, who wore a hearing aid. John Szwed says that earlier that day while Dylan was rehearsing, Texas folklorist Mack McCormick really did pull the plug on Dylan and his electric band because they wouldn't relinquish the stage, which he (McCormick) needed to rehearse his own group of black ex-convicts. "I pulled the plug, and that got their attention", he recounted. So there really was a grain of truth beneath all the hype. It is all on the Wikipedia page about Dylan going electric (now an inline citation). Mballen (talk) 05:38, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: More on urban legend about  "cutting the cable"

message: These sources do not belong in External links. I have moved the link farm from there to this talk page where they do belong. Warning: I didn't check them to see if they follow criteria per WP policy, so be careful in choosing any potential references I've moved here. Thank you! --Leahtwosaints (talk) 01:08, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree that we need to do something, but moving all of the external links to the talk page is not a good idea.  And there is a LOT of good academic material in these links.      Where possible they should get worked in as cited references, but that will take time. Possibly some should be "for further reading" and others should stay in as external links. North8000 (talk) 12:36, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no severe issue, and this will take time to evolve, especially working some in as references.    Most of that material is very substantive.  I'm going to put it back in and then we can evolve it to a shorter list over time. North8000 (talk) 12:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, and I got it down to 11 North8000 (talk) 19:42, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources belong here, not in external links! 

message: Thomas Arnold swapped in a different picture.   I think that the previous one (with green background) was a better for the top (most prominent place)    I did not revert but restored the deleted picture elsewhere in the article North8000 (talk) 20:27, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: What do others think. North8000 (talk) 23:09, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I think both portraits are good, and both worth having. I'm not fussed about which is at the top. Unfortunately there is a question about the copyright status of the black and white one. The metadata says it is copyright Corbis (which I wouldn't necessarily trust) but some seemingly careful sites are crediting "Terry Cryer/Corbis" and I think Terry Cryer is a plausible attribution. The file description on Commons credits Library of Congress (which in itself is also credible) but I have not found it there, particularly at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=pete%20seeger where other good portraits include the 1955 one in this article. I shall ping the uploader and will likely seek opinions on Commons. Thincat (talk) 09:55, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: (added later) There are a lot of musician articles which I wish would follow what you just said.  But I tend think that because of that nature of what he does that Seeger is in his prime as much in the green picture as in the gray picture. North8000 (talk) 12:59, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

text:  Thincat (talk) 10:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It has been deleted from Commons, Thincat (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess that makes this discussion moot and our decision easy. North8000 (talk) 17:05, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Top picture

message: The structure of this article is very messy.  Under "Musical career", it skips from the late 1950s to "recent work" in the 2000s, with no mention of what he did in the 40+ years in between.  Some of his musical career seems to be covered in the section on "Activism", but again that section goes all over the place, in terms of any chronological or logical order.  It would be better if the sections on "Solo career and the folk song revival" and "Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan" were taken out of that section and put (back?) in the "Musical career" section.  I'm happy to do some work on the article myself, but I thought I'd check here first to see if any regular editors of the article have any strong views on the matter.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:35, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Messy article structure