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Pete Seeger
Biography
Perhaps no single person in the 20th century has done more to preserve, broadcast, and re-distribute folk music than Pete Seeger, whose passion for politics, the environment, and humanity have earned him both ardent fans and vocal enemies since he first began performing in the late '30s. His never-ending battle against injustice led to his being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, celebrated during the turbulent '60s, and welcomed at union rallies throughout his life. His tireless efforts regarding global concerns such as environmentalism, population growth, and racial equality have earned him the respect and friendship of such political heroes as Martin Luther King, Jr., Woody Guthrie, and Cesar Chavez, and the generations of children who first learned to sing and clap to Seeger's Folkways recordings must number in the millions. Rising above all of Seeger's political ideals and his passion for authentic folk music is his clear voice and chiming banjo which both sing out with a clarity that rings true.

Pete Seeger was born May 3, 1919, in Patterson, NY. The son of Charles and Constance Seeger, Pete grew up in a household filled with both music (his mother was a violinist and teacher, his father was a musicologist and conductor, both of whom had served on the faculty at Juilliard) and political activism (his father worked as a teacher at the University of California at Berkeley, where his pacifism earned him so many enemies that he resigned in the fall of 1918).