Folk singer Pete Seeger died this past January at the age of ninety-four. To commemorate his passing, we’re reprinting this interview that Howard Jay Rubin did with Seeger for The Sun back in 1981, when Seeger was sixty-two.
In a career that spanned more than seven decades, Seeger lent his voice, his banjo, and his songs to many social causes, including the labor, civil-rights, antiwar, and environmental movements. As a young man he traveled and performed with songwriter Woody Guthrie, whose “This Land Is Your Land” became a national folk anthem. As a member of the singing quartet the Weavers, Seeger helped bring folk music to the pop charts. In the 1950s he became a target of the anticommunist House Un-American Activities Committee. (See “I Sang for Everybody” in this issue.) During the civil-rights era he popularized the spiritual “We Shall Overcome,” and his songs became hits for the Kingston Trio, the Byrds, and Peter, Paul and Mary.
