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| New Pete Seeger DVD + Winter Solstice Video + Solstice Collection II Download Friends, I'm very happy to be able to announce that our new Pete Seeger DVD is finally available, in tandem with the remastered CD of the 1997 album PETE, or separately. Although the DVD will not be released nationally until next year, pre-release downloads and physical copies are available though our website. Meanwhile, rehearsals are in full swing toward opening night of our 36th Annual Winter Solstice Celebration at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine next Thursday December 17. Our extraordinary production team has already been at work in the Cathedral for a week. The riggers have dropped their cables from the roof to fly the trusses for the lighting, the sound system and the Sun gong, and the staging will load-in this weekend. Renato Braz has just arrived from São Paulo, so I'm glad to turn my full attention now to the music. PETE SEEGER AT THE LIVING MUSIC FESTIVAL In June of 1982, Pete came to Cornwall, in the Litchfield Hills of northwest Connecticut, to take part in our Living Music Festival, along with the Consort, vocalist Susan Osborn, and the Brazilian samba band Pe de Boi. I had engaged filmmaker Phil Garvin to capture the event with a three-camera crew, but the tapes then gathered dust for 33 years. After Pete's passing last year, I located Phil in Denver, and luckily he still had the original reels, which were then sent to a videotape restoration facility in Kentucky, and finally to a studio in Connecticut that made the conversion to High Definition digital. This is vintage Pete, in the kind of grass-roots context where he felt at home. And it is vintage Consort as well, with the players that made the album Common Ground. It includes the only footage we know of Susan Osborn singing "Lay Down Your Burden, " a song we have only recently brought back into the Consort's repertoire. Theresa Thomason will sing it in our upcoming Winter Solstice Celebration. In the 77-minute film of the Living Music Festival, Pete sings "John Henry, " "The Garden Song, " "Drunken Sailor, " Roll the Old Chariot Along, " "Still de Nachte, " "The Internationale, " "Old Time Religion, " "Nicaragua Carol, " and "Wimoweh." The Consort plays "Icarus, " "Lay Down Your Burden, " "Wolf Eyes, " "Minuit, " and "Common Ground, " with Pete joining us on these last three songs. The players of the Consort include cellist David Darling, guitarists Oscar Castro-Neves and Jim Scott, bassist Gordie Johnson, and percussionist Ted Moore, along with vocalist Susan Osborn and myself. DVD Bonus Features 1. The PETE-NIC (17 minutes) In the summer of 1997, we invited Pete and all the singers and instrumentalists who made the album PETE to come to my farm in Litchfield for a musical picnic to celebrate the album's Grammy win. In this slice-of-life footage, Pete leads everyone in "Well May the World Go, " "My Rainbow Race, " "All Mixed Up, " and "Common Ground." Instrumental players include Irish whistle virtuoso Joanie Madden, banjoist Paul Prestopino, percussionist Gordon Gottlieb, and myself. 2. PETE SEEGER SOLO (5 minutes) In March of 2005, Pete sang at an event in Goshen, CT, for the Harriet Beecher Stowe Society on the 40th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday, " the Pettus Bridge March in Selma, Alabama, March 6, 1965. Pete had received a telegram from Dr. Martin King inviting him to that march, and Pete and his wife Toshi had gone to Alabama and marched with the people for three days. This is rare footage of Pete singing the song "Take it from Dr. King, " He sings here, at age 85, with the same gusto he had when he was 25. PETE PAK The new DVD, Pete Seeger at the Living Music Festival is packaged, along with the CD of the Grammy-winning album PETE, in what we are calling our "Pete-Pak." However, since some folks may already have the CD, we are making the DVD and CD each available separately. PETE ALBUM REMASTERED In 1982, we invited Pete Seeger to be part of our Living Music Festival, at Mohawk Mountain Ski Area, in Cornwall, Connecticut. Driving Pete home to Beacon, New York after the event, I asked him if he'd ever thought of doing an album of his songs that celebrate the Earth, and he said: "Oh, I've done about 80 albums, and I think that's enough." In the spring of 1987, Pete called to say he was coming to Litchfield to visit his old school, which is just down the road from our farm. Then called Springhill Academy (now the Forman School), Pete had spent several years there from the time he was seven. He said he'd heard about our barn and would love to see it. Pete walked into the loft of the barn and said, "Wow, this would be a great place to get some people together to do some singing." And I said: "And maybe some recording, too?" And Pete said, "Well, ok. But my voice is shot. The only way you could record me is to mix my voice in with a chorus." Over the next seven years we did three rounds of sessions, till we got recordings that we all felt great about. When we finished the album in 1995, it was the first studio album he had done in 17 years. Entitled simply PETE, the album was honored with a Grammy Award, his first, for Best Folk Album. It has come to be regarded by many as Pete's last great album. Playing masterful banjo and 12-string guitar, Pete sings with gusto and soul on the 18 tracks of the album, which include many of his timeless classics like "Well May the World Go, " "My Rainbow Race, " "The Water is Wide, " "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, " "Old Devil Time, " "River of My People, " "How Can I Keep from Singing"; as well as Leroy Carr's great blues "In the Evening"; and three songs recorded here for the first time, "Huddie Ledbetter Was a Helluva Man, " "Natural History (The Spider Song), " and Don West's anthem on Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." Three choruses join Pete in these recordings: the 30 voices of Gaudeamus, a Connecticut chorus founded and conducted by Paul Halley; the gospel voices of the Union Baptist Church of New Jersey; and the Cathedral Singers, of New York City. Accompanying musicians include Howard Levy - harmonica; Paul Prestopino - banjo, mandolin, and 6-string guitar; Joanie Madden - tinwhistle; David Finck - bass; Gordon Gottlieb - percussion; and myself on soprano sax. I think of this album as a "Pete Seeger Primer, " for the younger generations who are not yet familiar with his music; and as a "Grand Reunion with Pete, ' for the countless number of folks who grew up on Pete Seeger and haven't heard from him in years. I had wanted for a long time to produce this album, simply because I love Pete's music; and by the term 'music' I mean to include his singing, his songs, his stories, his great banjo and 12-string guitar playing, his humor, and his kindness. Like Bach, Pete is the summing-up of an entire era. He is a treasury of American music; and more than anyone I know, Pete gives voice to the soul of this country. Garrison Keillor on Pete: "Pete Seeger came out to Minnesota to do a concert back in 1962; I was 20 years old, so was everybody else...When he got us going into 'Deep in my heart, I do believe, that we shall overcome some day, ' the music just swallowed us up like the whale swallowed Jonah; which does not happen often in the Midwest. Pete Seeger did this for thousands and thousands of people, night after night, year after year. And he made you love your country and love the spirit of the people of this country, and the goodness that was in them. "It's a great country that lets a shy man be as passionate as Pete Seeger is. He was a man who gave himself passionately, to these songs, to these people, and to that beautiful moment, when we put everything else aside, and we sing songs together." Hr BRING HOME THE SUN: 36TH ANNUAL WINTER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION The sunny and poignant music of Brazil will be integral to our upcoming Winter Solstice Celebra write your comments about the article :: © 2015 Jazz News :: home page |