At 89

I was looking around on the Late Show With David Letterman website, because there was an interesting singer called Sia on. She painted her hands bright red and signed along with her singing. I was slightly intrigued, and wanted to find out more.

Then I got sidetracked by a link to Pete Seeger...PETE FREAKIN' SEEGER...who performed ON LETTERMAN. And I missed it. Unfortunately, the CBS website won't let me post the video here, but that's what YouTube is for. Yes, I'll link it a little later on, but you'll have to endure my reminiscences until then. Unless you just skip ahead, or skip it all together. Honestly, I'll never know the difference.

Anyway, Pete Seeger is one of my heroes. I may not always be in the mood to listen to him, but his ideals, his morality, his passion, his sheer love for life and what he does, are an inspiration to us all. Some of my earliest musical memories involve my parents' record collection on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Quite often the playlist involved "The Bullfrog", "Abiyoyo", and other childrens' songs. Other times, there were more socially conscious, politically motivated songs, including some of the things Pete did with Arlo Guthrie. The "Precious Friends" album sticks out. And then there were the Weavers, who showed up now and then.

I'll leave it to you to check on Pete's troubles with the House Un-American Activities Committee (he was blacklisted from network television for a good long time) and his pedigree as a great American. The thing that stands out to me most is that about nine years ago, three of us had the pleasure of seeing Pete perform at Rockland High School. At the time he was 78 or 79 years old, and he was sickly. There were many worries that this would be among his last performances.

Flash forward nine years. Pete has just put out an album (because it would just be silly to call it a "disc" or a "CD" when you're talking about Pete) called "At 89". Dude's 89 years old, and he's still actively performing, writing, and putting out new music. He leaves much more of the singing to his guests and audiences today, but that's the amazing thing: everyone ends up singing along with Pete. I've never seen David Letterman's audience sing along, but they did on this song. His banjo is marked with the words "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender." Pete, keep on rockin'.