Topic: The Blues at Pete Seeger's 90th Bithday Bash

[Mr.OMuck]

Well Guy Davis and his mom the formidable Ruby Dee were there. Guy played a fairly straight ahead Chicago in the late 40's sounding blues with terrific Little Walter-esque Harmonica in a rack. I didn't know he could do that! Quite impressive . He referred to the guest of honor as Uncle Pete. I guess his folks, Ozzie Davis & Ruby were close to the Seegers. Taj Mahal was at hand as a "conspicuous" part of larger ensembles, including Arlo Guthrie and others, and he was playing a GUITAR-BANJO.... IN MADISON SQUARE GARDEN.... THE WHOLE TIME! OUR TIME HAS COME! WE HAVE ARRIVED! In his solo spots within the ensemble he was absolutely great in all his hambone, over the top, funky growl, comedic exuberance. Too bad whoever put the show together thought it more important to give Dave Matthews a solo spot than either Ramblin' Jack Eliot or Taj Mahal. Billy Brag led the hall in singing the "International" which given my red diaper origins I found profoundly moving and after the Bush regime, improbably and refreshingly liberating. Bernice and Daughter Toshi Regan give Big gospel voiced renditions of "Oh Freedom" and other movement songs. The preservation hall Jazz band provided great brass support in "Down by the Riverside" led by Arlo, who was pretty damn good. Joan Baez was on the bill. So was Bruce Springstein, who read a very insightful, lengthy, and moving tribute to Pete. I don't dig his music at all but I thought what he wrote was excellent.
I was the guest of my dear  old friends Kate & Anna McGarrigle who were sharing a dressing room with their friend Emmylou Harris. Emmylou had a solo spot in the show, and appearances in some ensembles including ones with Kate & Anna and their kids Rufus and Martha. Emmylou was playing a stunningly gorgeous Rosewood j-200 of recent Bozeman vintage. Guitar freak that I am I soon found myself in a intense three way conversation with Emmylou and her stage manager-assistant (forget his name), an avid guitar collector and maven about the history and relative virtues of J-200's. He knew their lineage cold, Big fun for this O'Muck.
For banjo fans there was the estimable Tony Trishka playing in many of the ensembles and giving an homage to Pete as a Banjo player before launching into a medley of his tunes in a duet with Bela Fleck. Eric Weissberg also participated with some truly blistering playing.
Not surprisingly the most impressive performer of the evening was a tall frail ninety year old gent who got the Garden singing as only he can. It struck me that this particular talent of Seeger's, that is turning any audience into a communal singing organism, will depart with him probably never to be seen or heard again. More's the pity its a great talent, and service.

[Slack]

Great review O'Muck - thanks for posting and glad you got to go!  Very cool!

[uncle bud]

Yes, thanks for that O'Muck. Sounds like an excellent birthday bash. Didn't Emmylou have Gibson make her a smaller guitar based on the J-200 or am I confusing her with someone else.

What can be next for the guitar-banjo? La Scala?

[eagle rockin daddy]

Thanks for the review.  I was at a party in Barre VT, at the Old Labor Hall, which was built in 1900 by socialist Italian stonecutters.  Emma Goldman, Eugene V. Debs, Mother Jones, etc all spoke there.  We had a great time, Jeremy Seeger, Pete's nephew was there.  We sang most of the same songs.  It was great.  Eddie Epstein made a beautiful card we all signed, the organizer, Mark Greenburg, displayed a note from Pete where he promised to play at the Labor Hall in a few years.

It was great singing all those old songs.......

Mike

[Johnm]

I'll pile on and say great review, too, O'Muck!  The balance between reportage and your personal response to the evening's events makes it a great read.  I'm glad you could make it and it must have been fun to hang out backstage from the sound of it.
All best,
Johnm

[TX_Songster]

I am jealous beyond belief...  What a great event to attend, let alone be backstage.  Perhaps most of all I am jealous that you had a conversation with Emmylou Harris.

[CF]

Sounds like a wonderful night O'Muck, what a great report. Maybe it's the bottle of wine talking but I'm feeling deeply touched by this milestone. I spend so much time celebrating the past, the richness of a popular & not-so-popular culture that we are all the heirs of & I almost can't compute that a Pete Seeger is still with us!? Our nostalgia should be tempered at these times: things were not perfect when Pete was a young man. Where else did all that wonderful reactionary & heart-on-sleeve art come from? But the real heartache is in the FACT that we have not followed up on the lengths great souls like Pete's have made. It's a more sinisterly evil time we live in & it requires an almost more calculated response. I don't know if the voice of a Pete Seeger would even turn heads anymore. Too gentle, too meek & too awkwardly honest . . . which of course are elements of his integrity & lasting fame. What the hell am I tryna say? Oh right . . . . Happy Birthday Pete!!

[Mr.OMuck]

Thanks for the review.  I was at a party in Barre VT, at the Old Labor Hall, which was built in 1900 by socialist Italian stonecutters.  Emma Goldman, Eugene V. Debs, Mother Jones, etc all spoke there.  We had a great time, Jeremy Seeger, Pete's nephew was there.  We sang most of the same songs.  It was great.  Eddie Epstein made a beautiful card we all signed, the organizer, Mark Greenburg, displayed a note from Pete where he promised to play at the Labor Hall in a few years.

It was great singing all those old songs.......

Mike

God bless the Peoples Republic of Vermont! Glad you could celebrate Mike!

[Mr.OMuck]

Here's a good story I left out of the review, After riding up in the enormous MSG freight elevator with Tim Robbins, who by the way is about 6'7", and looks every bit the movie star (his father was one of "the Highwaymen" it turns out) I did what I usually do in a new place, get hopelessly lost. So there I am already feeling like a fish out of water trying to find the McGarrigle's dressing room when I come around a bend and WHAM! Walking right at me is a column of press, and cameramen of the video and film variety and about twenty or thirty other people with the birthday boy himself front and center leading the parade, the only person in the hall walking in the opposite direction is, you guessed it, O'Muck.!... I stepped to the side realizing with absolute horror that I was probably being filmed and tried to look inconspicuous which was difficult because i was wearing a bright yellow rain slicker.
As Pete walked by I gave a kind of lame combination tip of the hat, salute thing the likes of which I'd never done before. Here's hoping I didn't intrude on any crucial shots. Well..they can do wonders with editing these days

[Slack]

We want the film clip on YouTube!   

[Mr.OMuck]

Sounds like a wonderful night O'Muck, what a great report. Maybe it's the bottle of wine talking but I'm feeling deeply touched by this milestone. I spend so much time celebrating the past, the richness of a popular & not-so-popular culture that we are all the heirs of & I almost can't compute that a Pete Seeger is still with us!? Our nostalgia should be tempered at these times: things were not perfect when Pete was a young man. Where else did all that wonderful reactionary & heart-on-sleeve art come from? But the real heartache is in the FACT that we have not followed up on the lengths great souls like Pete's have made. It's a more sinisterly evil time we live in & it requires an almost more calculated response. I don't know if the voice of a Pete Seeger would even turn heads anymore. Too gentle, too meek & too awkwardly honest . . . which of course are elements of his integrity & lasting fame. What the hell am I tryna say? Oh right . . . . Happy Birthday Pete!!

I've been musing on this subject a good deal of late Mike. Here' the url for a blog I wrote on the subject. WARNING its pretty depressing.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=182516085&blogId=481860575

[Mr.OMuck]

Thanks for the good words Mr. Slack, Uncle Bud & JohnM. And Tx, you really, really don't want to be jealous of me about anything, but Emmylou seems like an unpretentious, nice soul. In going over the upcoming song list she mentioned that Amazing Grace was on the roster. I opined that it was probably time to have an Amazing Grace moratorium for a decade or so because it seemed to me that it had started to lose its meaning and was becoming a cliche. She said that after singing it every night for four years (weeks?) with Willy Nelson she was feeling similar things An anti Amazing Grace movement was fomenting right there. Little did I know that it would be Mr.Seeger himself singing the song, and re-instructing the cynical with the great historic significance the song had in helping the British Empire abolish slavery thirty years before we did. That man can also TELL a story! Suffice it to say that with him singing it, with the combined vocal forces of a packed Madison Square Garden behind him, there was nothing cliche about it...nothing at all.

[blueshome]

All well said O'Muck.

[Parlor Picker]

A fascinating read throughout!

[Mr.OMuck]

What can be next for the guitar-banjo? La Scala?

Sounds like a project....I know some folks in Milano... I'll make a few calls.