There Is A Season: The Pete Seeger Podcast

In this episode, we investigate the history and the making of Pete and Toshi Seeger’s television program, Rainbow Quest. We discuss Pete’s reasons and visions for creating this television program, which was produced from late 1965 through spring 1966. As this is an often under-researched topic in the story of Pete Seeger, we sample music from several different episodes, and conclude with some analysis of what Pete was attempting to accomplish here, both culturally and politically, by experimenting with the television medium.

In this month’s episode we chat with folk musician, singer-songwriter and actor Andrea Von Kampen. Based in Lincoln, Nebraska, Andrea Von Kampen writes a variety of songs, and as a follower of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and especially Bob Dylan, Andrea has forayed into the writings of political music, which she says will be featured more prominently on her next record. In our conversation, Andrea discusses her folk music influences, her songwriting process and objectives, her experience acting in the film A Chance Encounter, and what the challenges in presenting political folk music is today in our current era.

In this episode, we dive into the history and the making of the Newport Folk Festival. We’ll discuss how the folk festival grew out of the jazz festival in the 1950s, and Pete Seeger’s integral role in helping to give birth to the event, and the successes Pete and the board of directors had in establishing an incredibly eclectic festival between 1959 and 1965. We also briefly touch on Dylan’s presence at Newport and how this impact led to the festival changing after 1965. We conclude by discussing how and why it disappeared for many years after its original run ceased after 1969.

Join us as we speak to long-time folk musician and songwriter, Tom Paxton. In this conversation Tom speaks about his early musical influences and the role Pete played in impacting his musical philosophy, as well as Tom’s relationship with political music and what the purpose of folk music is. We also speak about the 1968 Woody Guthrie tribute concert, Phil Ochs, Broadside Magazine, and what Seeger’s legacy is in contemporary times.

In this first episode of season 3 we go into depth in discussing the Seeger family’s trip around the world, lasting from August, 1963 to early June 1964. We’ll examine several of the performances Pete makes as he and the Seeger family make their geographical traverse through a dozen and a half countries, and will also discuss the wide variety of music and dance that the Seegers documented along the way. Get ready to hear about an often unspoken piece of Pete Seeger’s musical and cultural work in the family’s travels from Western Samoa, Australia and India to East Africa and West Africa, the Levant, western and central Europe, and eventually the USSR. We’ll discuss the greater meaning of the work Pete and the Seeger family were doing, and in doing so, hopefully have a most holistic understanding of this under-researched period of Pete’s Seeger work.

Join us as we speak with author Elijah Wald, and learn more about his book, Dylan Goes Electric, and its role in being optioned for the film A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. In our conversation Elijah discusses how Seeger and Dylan were represented in the movie, and shares a variety of insights on how both Seeger and Dylan have been interpreted, respectively, over the course of history. We conclude by talking about the lasting legacy of both of these artists, and how both will be remembered going forward.

In this month’s episode, we learn about Camp Woodland, a summer camp that existed in Phoenicia, NY from 1939-1962. Among many of the summer camp settings Pete visited during the 1940s and ‘50s, Woodland was a space Pete visited with regular frequency, and spent much time making music with campers over the course of several decades. As we go in depth with today, Pete’s time spent at Woodland would be uniquely impactful for many people, ranging from the Folk Festivals of the Catskills and song collecting to Pete learning Guantanamera from a Cuban counselor in 1962. To learn more about all this, we spoke with two former attendees of the camp, Bill Horne and Pat Lamanna.

In this episode I discuss my reactions to and thoughts about the recent film, A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. I focus on several elements, ranging from how effectively the characters were written, to the extent to which we get to see how Dylan is influenced by other people and other musicians, such as Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez. I also deconstruct what Dylan and Seeger really thought of each other, and what Pete’s reactions really might have been to Dylan’s electric set at Newport ‘65.

In our first episode of Season 2, we discuss Pete Seeger's participation in the civil rights movement between 1962 and 1965. We discuss his early involvements singing in Georgia, his affiliation with the Student NonViolent Coordinating Committee, and his We Shall Overcome concert at Carnegie Hall. We also evaluate Seeger's participation in Mississippi's Freedom Summer in 1964, and his attendance in the Selma march in 1965 along with his encountering of the folk process of the singing of Freedom Songs. We conclude with the internal racial shift that happens within the movement, and how that influences Seeger’s gradual separation from singing from SNCC and singing for civil rights.

Join us for this episode where I speak with Pete Seeger’s biographer, David Dunaway. We discuss David’s early connection to Pete Seeger and his music, and how he came to publish three editions of Seeger's biography. We also talk about the archive of Pete Seeger material David has produced for the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, as well Pete’s involvement with Folkways Records, the legacy of the Clearwater, and David’s perceptions of how Pete might be represented in the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown”. We conclude by discussing David’s favorite Seeger records, in addition to what general message people should know about Pete Seeger now that we are a quarter of the way into the 21st century.