Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, and Seeger’s grandson, Tao Rodriguez-Seege, who is in the excellent group, The Mammals, sing ‘This Land is Your Land” at the Lincoln Memorial.
Seeger was blacklisted in the McCarthy era for his political views but never stopped singing about freedom.
PS. He’s an old man now, and paid a big price for opposing the McCarthyite thugs when few others had the courage to, but he didn’t back down. Now, all these years later, he’s singing at the Lincoln Memorial, having outlived most of them, heralding the end of a repressive regime and the inauguration of the first black president in US history. That is quite a span of history.
Great to see Pete up there with Bruce singing “This Land is Your Land,”
though I wonder if Peter would have been included if it weren’t for the Bruce connection: Bruce’s release of a few years ago, the tribute to Peter Seeger’s folk songs.
btw, just talked to my friend Denise who is in D.C. She could hardly even see one of the mega-viewtrons where she was in the concert crowd! she won a ticket to the inauguration through her congressperson’s lottery and was in line with thousands of others as we spoke to pick up her ticket.
because Obama asked, they picked up trash today outside where they are staying–a day of service. as if Bush ever asked us to do anything but shop, ha!
Check out the Mammals, they’ve done several CDs and describe themselves as “acoustic subversive traditionalists.” The genes certainly got passed down from Pete Seeger to his grandson Tao.