Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger was one of the great champions of folk song in American life. With a long-necked banjo and a habit of getting whole audiences singing, he carried old songs and new protest songs through seven decades.

Life

Seeger grew up in a musical household: his father Charles Seeger was a composer and musicologist, his mother a concert violinist, and his stepmother the composer Ruth Crawford Seeger. His half-siblings Peggy and Mike Seeger also became folk singers.

In 1941 he co-founded the Almanac Singers with Millard Lampell and Lee Hays, and around the same time performed on the CBS radio show Back Where I Come From alongside Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie. After Army service in the Second World War he formed the Weavers, whose 1950 recording of "Goodnight, Irene" topped the charts for thirteen weeks. Blacklisting derailed the group in 1953, but a sold-out Carnegie Hall reunion followed in 1955. He died in New York in 2014, aged 94.

The banjo book

In 1948 Seeger wrote the first version of How to Play the Five-String Banjo, a guide for players learning the instrument. If you want to follow in his footsteps, start with our banjo guide.

Songs

• "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
• "If I Had a Hammer"
• "Turn! Turn! Turn!"
• "We Shall Overcome", which he did much to popularize in the civil rights movement
• "Goodnight, Irene" and "Kisses Sweeter than Wine" with the Weavers

Early recordings

He sang alongside Woody Guthrie in the Almanac Singers, and mentored younger singers including Ani DiFranco.