Pete Seeger

He married Toshi-Aline Ota during World War II, who passed away of cancer in 2013. The couple’s first child died 6 months after he was born, whom Pete never saw. They had three more children.

He was believed to be more spiritual than religious.

He was politically and environmentally active till his last days. He died peacefully at the age of 94 in January 2014.

Peter ‘Pete’ Seeger was born to Constance and Charles Seeger, in New York City. His father taught music at the University of California and his mother, who was also a musician, taught violin at The Juilliard School.

His sister Peggy, too, would go on to become a folk musician and his brother, Mike, became a part of the ‘New Lost City Ramblers’.

Seeger was an extremely gifted child and was very well-read, even at a young age. He studied at Avon Old Farms and then attended Harvard University on a scholarship, in 1936. However, after two years, he failed an exam and dropped out of the university.

Throughout the remainder of the 1930s, he moved around like a gypsy, hitching rides and traveling on cargo trains around the country.

In 1940, he began focusing on writing music, during which time he organized his first folk group called the ‘Almanac Singers’, along with Millard Lampell and Lee Hays.

The group went on to record a number of albums but in 1942, the band stopped making music after he was conscripted into the Army during World War II. After the war ended three years later, he founded the magazine ‘Sing Out!’ and went back to performing folk songs.

In 1949, he worked as a vocal instructor for the liberal City and Country School in Greenwich Village, New York.

In 1950, the ‘Almanacs’ were re-formed as ‘The Weavers’. The same year, they began composing a string of major hits that topped major music charts for weeks including, ‘On Top of Old Smokey’ and ‘Goodnight, Irene’. They then released a string of other hits including, ‘Dusty Old Dust’, ‘Kisses Sweeter than Wine’ and ‘Wimoweh’.

‘The Weavers’ career was tersely wrecked in 1953 after they were outlawed. Two years later, they were briefly seen on stage and performed at a sold out gathering in Carnegie.

‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’ is regarded as one of his greatest singles, which he has also written. The song was written in 1955 and was then recorded five years later. It is currently listed as one of the ‘Top 20 Political Songs’ with a message.