[phantom4570]

Pete Seeger: A Mean-Spirited and Vengeful Recollection

... Seeger's (and Guthrie's) notion of folk music had less to do with actual American sources than with a Communist-inspired Yankee version of Proletkult. ...
...
One of Seeger's great selling points is that during the great leveling of the 1960s, any idiot who could play three chords on a guitar could plunk and howl through most of his repertoire.

 

[bearcat6]

Yeah I'm glad that rascal's gone. I thought I might be the only one who felt that way after all the moaning about the passing of a great man in our local media.

 

[WaltGraham]

You'll get no argument here.

 

[DavidE]

I liked some of the Weavers stuff, but the fact that he wrote an album very critical of FDR and the US preparing for war after Stalin signed the Non-Aggression Pact, while Britain was getting pounded, then retracted it and wrote a rah-rah Pro-US-Going-to-War album after Hitler turned on Stalin and invaded Russia, was a total tool move.

Many people don't realize that the Comintern types supported the US getting into WW2 not so much because of Pearl Harbor, but because Hitler had turned against "Uncle Joe." Either way, that's the sort of thing that stands out. He was a tremendously talented guy, but man.... that one sticks out.

 

[dfariswheel]

As one editorialist today put it, "When Seeger was singing about hammers, he meant hammers and sickles".