STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Pete Seeger died last night in New York. He was 94. Seeger was a folk singer, a political activist, an environmentalist, eventually an icon. He was also a major advocate for the five-string banjo. So, to get a proper appreciation of Pete Seeger, it helps to turn to a banjo player, and we have just the man. Here's our longtime, former newscaster Paul Brown.
PAUL BROWN, BYLINE: Pete Seeger was a tireless campaigner for his own vision of a utopia marked by peace and togetherness. His tools were his songs, his voice, his enthusiasm and his musical instruments, as he told NPR in 1971.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IF I HAD A HAMMER")
BROWN: Pete Seeger came by his beliefs honestly. His father, Charles Seeger, was an ethnomusicologist and pioneering folklorist whose left-wing views got him into trouble at the University of California. Charles Seeger introduced his son to some of the most important musicians of the Depression era, including Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BROWN: Seeger and Guthrie became fast friends, although they didn't agree on all things. They crisscrossed the country, performing together.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BROWN: Seeger said that as early as 1941, they found themselves blacklisted.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
BROWN: Seeger was a member of the Communist Party in those early days, though he later said he quit after coming to understand the evils of Joseph Stalin. Following World War II and service entertaining the troops, Seeger teamed up with Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman to form the astonishingly successful folk group the Weavers.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOODNIGHT IRENE")
BROWN: Their version of Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene" hit the top of the pop charts in 1950. Other hits followed, including "On Top of Old Smokey," "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You" and "Wimoweh." Ronnie Gilbert said that from the start, Seeger's performances were transcendent, whether you were on stage with him or in the audience.
RONNIE GILBERT: You got the sense that he was saying and singing way beyond the moment that he was in, the place that he was in. Alone on a stage in front of thousands of people - literally, thousands of people - everybody got it. Everybody got his passion for music. People absorbed his passion and his ideals.
BROWN: If the Weavers hit an emotional and cultural sweet spot in postwar America, the "red scare" quickly soured it. Seeger refused to answer questions before Congress in 1955 about his political beliefs and associations. He was held in contempt and nearly served a jail sentence before charges were finally dropped in 1962, on a technicality. But the troubles with Congress finished the Weavers as a major touring and recording group. Seeger went out on his own again.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POOR WAYFARING STRANGER")
: (Singing) I'm just a poor, wayfaring stranger a-traveling through this world of woe. But there's no sickness, toil nor danger, in that bright land to which I go...
BROWN: Shut out of the big gigs, he played coffeehouses, union halls and college campuses to support his family. His wife, Toshi ,managed his affairs and raised their children in the cabin they had built in Beacon, N.Y. He cofounded and wrote for Sing Out, one of the first and most important magazines to grow out of the folk revival. He produced children's songs and books. But his commitment to causes never waned.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
: I say it's in the interest of every human being in the United States of America to get some good senators out of Mississippi, for a change. And you can do it, and you will do it soon. I know.
(AUDIENCE CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
: Now, here's a song that we've recorded; I've already told you about. (Singing) If I had a hammer...
BROWN: Seeger sang and marched nationwide for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. In 1968, he went local but of course, in a big way. Upset at the filth clogging the Hudson River near his home, he spearheaded the building of the Sloop Clearwater, which volunteers sailed up and down the Hudson. Politicians and polluters had to take notice. Seeger, not surprisingly, saw a larger purpose.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
: Bringing these people together, all these people, is the essential thing. And this is what the Clearwater - almost miraculously - has started to do on the Hudson.
BROWN: For all of his social activism, Seeger said more than once that if he'd done nothing more than write his slim book "How to Play the Five String Banjo," his life's work would have been complete.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANJO MUSIC)
BROWN: Seeger's grandson, Tao Rodriguez Seeger, plays banjo and performed with his grandfather. He says the paperback, which is chock full of chords and techniques, is a challenge.
TAO RODRIGUEZ SEEGER: It's not a thick book, but it's thick stuff. He doesn't really explain it too well. It's sort of quick, and it's got a little diagram: Here's how you do it. But it's great. It's an awesome resource. I have a copy.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANJO MUSIC)
BROWN: Not just through his books but through his sheer force of presence, Seeger became a model for younger folk musicians. Singer and songwriter Tom Paxton said he learned invaluable lessons from Seeger about how to reach an audience.
TOM PAXTON: Look them in the eye, make a gesture of inclusion - which he did all the time - and above all, have a chorus. So I learned from Pete, you know, to have something for them to sing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TURN TURN TURN")
BROWN: Bringing people together, and getting them to sing out, may be one of Pete Seeger's greatest legacies. But when it came to saving the world, Tao Rodriguez Seeger says his grandfather ultimately seemed to question whether the guitar was mightier than the sword.
T.R. SEEGER: Troubled him, troubled him deeply that technology was so advanced, that our emotional state was so inadequate to cope that with a push of a button, in a fit of rage, we could wipe ourselves off the face of the Earth. And he really wanted to fix that, and always felt like he failed.
BROWN: But if Pete Seeger didn't save the world, he certainly did change the lives of millions of people by leading them to sing, to take action, and to at least consider his dream of what society could be.
For NPR News, I'm Paul Brown.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TURN TURN TURN")
: (Singing) To everything turn, turn, turn. There is a season, turn...