Meeting Pete Seeger

 

 

I admit I was never much of a Pete Seeger fan. His music seemed mostly corny to me and his politics embarrassingly naïve, sometimes dangerously so. Apparently in his early years he had difficulty recognizing Josef Stalin as an evil man, although you might have thought such a fierce anti-fascist would have grasped the significance of Stalin’s thirty million victims - five times Hitler’s six million, but of course Stalin killed every one of them in the name of socialism.

But nevermind. In his later years Seeger realized the error of his ways, and even wrote a song denouncing Stalin. I actually once met Seeger in person and liked him. It was in the mid 1990’s and I was in the WHYN radio studios in downtown Springfield, where we had just finished taping an episode of The Reporter’s Roundtable starring Kateri Walsh. Kateri had already left and I was just leaving myself when Dan Yorke, who was on a commercial break from his afternoon radio show, came out of the studio and told me that he had just been notified that Pete Seeger, who had a charity show at the Paramount that night, was on his way over to do a promotional spot with Yorke to advertise the show.

“I’ve heard the name Pete Seeger before,” Yorke told me. “But I don’t know anything about him!” A moment later we looked out through the studio window, and there was the banjo holding Seeger himself and a small entourage getting off the elevator in the radio station lobby! With only two minutes before showtime I don’t recall what I said to Yorke for background, maybe I hummed a few bars of “Puff the Magic Dragon” or something. There was simply no time.

It may seem funny that Yorke didn’t know anything about Seeger, but it really wasn’t all that odd. Seeger’s prime years were the 1950’s and ‘60’s, and by the 90’s he was no longer a prominent force in music and endless touring had reduced his voice to a rasp. I’m not sure I would have known much about Seeger myself except that I was a Bob Dylan fan and had heard the famous story about how Seeger once had to be restrained from cutting Dylan’s guitar cord with an axe because he was so enraged that Dylan was playing an electric instrument at a folk festival. Guess the pacifist Seeger could still be inspired to violence when he felt his beloved folk music was being degraded by irreverent rock n’ rollers!

Anyway, Yorke handled the situation like a pro, simply letting Seeger do all the talking about his upcoming show and the virtues of the charity it would benefit. Then he asked Seeger to sing a song for the radio audience, which he did, after which Yorke thanked him and urged everyone to come to the show, thereby sending Seeger on his way. All this occurred in a single 12 minute segment. Seeger himself seemed pleased by his short visit, and a couple of years later, when he passed through the Valley again, he appeared on Yorke’s TV show.

What song did Seeger sing for Yorke, myself and the radio audience? I’d like to say that he performed “If I had a Hammer” as a kind of private concert for us and the radio listeners, but actually he played some short folk ditty I’d never heard of before or since. That was cool. It was only natural that he would want to save the hits for the paying customers.

 

Here's a picture of Seeger, who died in 2014, with former Northamptonite Thurston Moore.

 

 

Speaking of Dan Yorke, here's a flyer from a GOP picnic in 1997 that Yorke was broadcasting from. (click to enlarge)

Everyone was so happy when the downtown Hamp Starbucks opened after being closed for months due to overly strict covid restrictions. 

 

 However, when walking past the joint this morning I was shocked to realize that it had closed last week! The door was open and workers were carrying out everything inside and loading them into a truck.

This sign was on the door. 

Later, I checked out their Facebook page and found this:

 

To our beloved community, it is with heavy hearts that we announce our store is permanently closing October 8th. Words can’t describe how much we have enjoyed serving you through the years and more importantly, getting to know you. Thankyou so much for your unwavering support.

There was no explanation for the closing given on the Facebook page, but there were two disappointed patrons arriving at the Starbucks at the same time I was, and each gave their theory on why it closed. One hipster type told me that Starbucks now favors drive thru locations such as the one that opened a year or so ago on King Street. The other person, an older guy whose breath smelled of liquor even though it wasn't yet 10am, said they got tired of all the homeless folk who were always panhandling in front and asking to use their restrooms. 

Whatever. Nothing lasts. 

I don't envy these guys washing the windows on the UMass Library. Especially on a windy day.

Most days are windy around the library, because the building itself creates a swirling whirl of air surrounding it. Whose bright idea was it to build a skyscraper on top of a hill with nothing else around it similarly sized to break up the resulting circular air currents? Just one of the many mysteries and unsolved scandals around the construction of the UMass campus, but that's a subject for another day.