The most popular folk group of the 1960s, Peter, Paul & Mary in later decades have also proved themselves to be among the most durable music acts in history. Their longevity dwarfs that of the Weavers, while the fact that the trio continues to be associated with a major record label (Warner Bros.) after decades in the business sets them apart... [+] Read More

The most popular folk group of the 1960s, Peter, Paul & Mary in later decades have also proved themselves to be among the most durable music acts in history. Their longevity dwarfs that of the Weavers, while the fact that the trio continues to be associated with a major record label (Warner Bros.) after decades in the business sets them apart from rivals like the Kingston Trio and the Brothers Four. Then again, perhaps it isn't so surprising -- Peter, Paul & Mary's roots run deeper than almost any other folk act one might care to name, while their appeal crosses audience lines that other acts couldn't (and can't) even approach.

Peter, Paul & Mary were part of the 1960s folk revival, but they can trace their roots and inspiration back to music and events from the late '40s, and the founding of the Weavers. In 1948, the musical and political left had been galvanized behind the presidential campaign of former Vice President Henry Wallace and his running mate, Senator Glen Taylor. In the wake of that ticket's defeat that year, in the course of trying to pick up the pieces, singer/composers Lee Hays and Pete Seeger, whose history together went back to the early '40s, and a group called the Almanac Singers, joined with Fred Hellerman and Ronnie Gilbert in forming the Weavers. They subsequently found themselves with the top-selling record in the country, Goodnight, Irene, and for the next two years, the Weavers entertained millions and brought folk music to the public consciousness in a new and vital way through recordings such as "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine." Then, as word of the members' personal leftist political histories began circulating, their bookings came to a halt -- ironically enough, the Weavers as a performing group were virtually apolitical in their songs and presentation, but that didn't save them from being blacklisted by the entertainment industry.

They broke up in late 1952, but they left behind two seeds planted in American popular culture. One, deriving from their success, was a modest folk song revival, in some small clubs and especially on college campuses, mostly as entertainment; and the other, a byproduct of their blacklisting, was the coalescing of newly vital, very politically focused branch of folk music. The latter existed as an underground phenomenon, "apart" from a few relatively friendly locales such as New York City's Greenwich Village; it was invisible to most Americans, but it provided a modest living for older performers, and drew and nurtured new, younger talent.

The entertainment branch manifested itself in the guise of acts like the Easy Riders and their younger successors the Kingston Trio, the Limeliters, the Brothers Four, and the Highwaymen, trios and quartets of male singers who brought a smooth veneer to the music. Each of them had their moment -- and sometimes much more than a moment -- in the sun and on the charts beginning in the late '50s. Older performers such as Pete Seeger of the Weavers (as well as the reunited group itself), Ed McCurdy, and Oscar Brand were also around, selling fewer records but making more serious, purposeful records, aimed at smaller audiences. And younger, grittier performers such as Eric Von Schmidt, Dave Van Ronk, and Ramblin' Jack Elliott were also working and recording. And in 1962 and 1963 came the big-band folk outfits the New Christy Minstrels and the Serendipity Singers, who applied elaborate arrangements, utilizing up to nine singers, to folk melodies.

It was against this backdrop, from the late '40s onward, that Mary Travers (b. November 9, 1936, Louisville, KY), Peter Yarrow (b. May 31, 1938, New York, NY), and Paul Stookey (b. December 30, 1937, Baltimore, MD), all came of age. Travers, the daughter of journalists, was raised in Greenwich Village, and was both politically and musically aware; she'd made her first recordings while still in high school, during 1954, in a chorus backing Pete Seeger for Folkways Records. She became a member of the Song Swappers, doing albums of international folk songs and camp songs, and also participated in a stage production, The Next President, written by and starring topical comedian Mort Sahl. As a singer, she was heavily influenced by Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers and also by Jo Mapes, a bluesy white folksinger from Los Angeles who'd emerged in the mid-'50s.

Paul Stookey, born Noel Paul Stookey, had become a huge fan of jazz and what was later called R&B in the mid- to late '40s, took up guitar, and had formed his first band, the Birds of Paradise, in high school during the early '50s. He continued singing in college, and also discovered two additional talents, as a raconteur and as a standup comic, with a special knack for improvising sound effects. He gravitated to Greenwich Village, where he began to learn about folk music. He and Travers became friends and occasionally performed and composed music together. Mostly, however, he did his comedy at local clubs and she made her living working at Elaine Starkman's boutique on Bleecker Street. (Starkman, later a pioneering art gallery owner in New York's SoHo, was a well-known Village designer who made the gown Travers wore for her first wedding. In 1961, part of Stookey's comedy act was captured in Jack O'Connell's film Greenwich Village Story, another part of which was also shot at the Starkman boutique, though Travers was never glimpsed).

Peter Yarrow was a graduate of Cornell University who fell into music while serving as a teaching assistant. By the end of 1959, he was playing in Greenwich Village and, the following year, was booked on a CBS network television show about folk music, during which he met Albert Grossman. Grossman, who went on to manage Bob Dylan and the Band, proposed the idea to Yarrow of forming a trio that would offer serious folk songs, but utilize the same kind of mixed male/female voices as the Weavers, and also the humor of the Limeliters, and the overall spirit of fun found in acts like the Kingston Trio. Yarrow and Grossman approached Travers, and Stookey came aboard last, dropping his first name in favor of his better-sounding middle name Paul, and Peter, Paul & Mary was born. With the guidance of arranger Milt Okun, who had worked with Harry Belafonte and the Chad Mitchell Trio, they put together a three-part vocal sound that was distinctive and, after seven months of careful preparation, the group emerged to instant acclaim in Greenwich Village.

They were signed to Warner Bros., and their first, self-titled LP was released in March of 1962. It was accompanied by a single, "Lemon Tree," that rose to number 35 on the charts late that spring. This was a good beginning, but it was their second single, "If I Had a Hammer," that marked their breakthrough. The song, written by Seeger and Hays in the days of the Weavers, was a rousing number with great hooks and a memorable chorus, and also a definite (yet not threatening) philosophical and political edge. As topical songs go, its timing was perfect -- in late 1962, the civil rights movement was becoming a concern to a growing number of middle-class onlookers; "If I Had a Hammer" embodied this zeitgeist in its most idealistic form and, with its upbeat, soulful performance -- which made it seductive even to those listeners who cared little about the political controversy of the times -- the single hit number ten on the charts. It also won the trio their first two Grammy Awards, for Best Performance by a Vocal Group and Best Folk Recording.

In their first six months of existence, Peter, Paul & Mary, working in a somewhat more favorable political climate, had managed to do what the Weavers never had a chance to do, bringing political concerns to the public through song. And it was a massive public, owing to the fact that PP&M also had a foot in the entertainment side of the folk song revival -- their music had a decidedly serious edge, but it and the group were also as much fun to listen to as anything the Limeliters or the Highwaymen were doing. Their stage act, as captured on the In Concert album, poked fun at what they did and at themselves, and one couldn't help but laugh at Stookey's comedy, which drew on music, self-generated sound effects, and a self-deprecating manner second only to Woody Allen (then a standup comic himself). Additionally, although this has seldom been discussed in retrospect, they had Mary Travers, who not only had a big voice that helped make the records extraordinary, but was also drop-dead gorgeous, and a great asset in their photographs, television appearances, and concerts.

The overall effect, between the entertainment and the songs, was as though the Kingston Trio had suddenly started doing the repertory of the Almanac Singers, and people were listening. Phil Ochs would attempt a similar but less successful approach to mixing popular music and ideology with his Gold Suit Tour, trying to turn Elvis Presley into Che Guevara. But John Phillips, at that time a folky himself as a member of the Journeymen, would perfect the formula behind PP&M's visual appeal in 1966 with the Mamas the Papas, by putting his wife, Michelle, an ex-model, out front in that lineup.

With "If I Had a Hammer" wafting over the AM airwaves, the Peter, Paul & Mary LP rose to number one and subsequently spent years on the charts. Their second album, Moving, released in January of 1963, got off to a slightly slower start, but it found its way to number two and a 99-week run with help from "Puff (The Magic Dragon)," a song that Peter Yarrow had written in college. The single rose to number two that spring and became one of the most beloved children's songs of all time, as well as the trio's passport through any potential controversy.

It was on the heels of that year's success that Bob Dylan entered the group's orbit. The young folksinger and songwriter -- who came under Grossman's management in 1963 -- hadn't made much impact with his own recordings on Columbia Records; his lyrics were too piercing and his voice too bluesy, in an environment dominated by much smoother folk sounds. PP&M, however, had no problem with public acceptance, and they took Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind" to the public in a way that he never could have. Their recording, released in June of 1963, was an instant hit, shipping over 300,000 copies in less than two weeks -- many times the number of records that Dylan himself had sold up that point -- and eventually rising to number two on the charts. Once more, the trio seemed to grab the moment in history, politics, and art with a song. The era of public activism over civil rights, directed at the administration of President Kennedy, was rising to new heights, and "Blowin' in the Wind" embodied the spirit of the time. In one fell swoop, it established Bob Dylan as the new conscience of a generation, and PP&M as the voice of that conscience, culminating with their performance of the song at the same August 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have A Dream speech.

The trio's third album, In the Wind, which was released in October 1963, not only hit number one on the charts but pulled their two previous albums back into the Top Ten with it. Up to this point, all of the trio's successes took place during a relatively quiet time in popular music, in which there was little distraction from rock & roll. With the exception of Elvis Presley and a handful of newer acts such as the Beach Boys and Del Shannon, the music was going through one of its periodic flat periods, which had left the field open to folk acts like Peter, Paul & Mary. All of that changed as 1964 dawned.

Suddenly, PP&M found themselves competing with the Beatles and other groups out of England, playing a new, forceful, and relatively sophisticated brand of rock & roll. Peter, Paul & Mary were the only folk-revival group to survive the British Invasion and the ensuing folk-rock boom with their audience and visibility largely intact. Their record sales slackened somewhat, especially their singles, which had a hard time competing on AM radio with the sounds of the British Invasion, and it was three years before they would enjoy another Top Ten hit. Their albums, however, continued selling well, and their bookings never dropped off.

One of the reasons for their continued success, popularity, and relevance was a series of political and historical events separate from the music. The civil rights movement was still going strong as the battleground shifted from the Lincoln Memorial to the back roads of Mississippi -- where three college students who had come to help register black voters were murdered in 1964 -- to the halls of Congress. The murder of President Kennedy in November of 1963 and Lyndon Johnson's ascent to the presidency began a series of events that finally forced meaningful civil rights legislation out of Congress. Even as that battle continued raging in the streets, from Birmingham, AL, to Cicero, IL, and other points north. Once the laws were on the books, however, Johnson's presidency also opened up a new political wound on the American landscape with his escalation of the Vietnam War. In that uneasy environment, Peter, Paul & Mary had the history of involvement, the credentials, and the credibility to address this new issue in ways that, say, the Kingston Trio never could have, even if they'd wanted to. Moreover, their records had a way of not only staying relevant -- "If I Had a Hammer" was as topical in 1965 as it had been in 1962, but it was still fun to sing around a campfire -- but evolving in their relevancy; as the Vietnam War ran on, and draft notices and departures for the military and service overseas became more commonplace, cuts like the beautiful "500 Miles," off of their debut album, took on deeply personal resonances for tens, and then hundreds of thousands of people.

For the remainder of the decade, the trio walked a fine line, appealing to liberals and anti-war activists, and raising the consciousnesses of the interested, but also entertaining middle-of-the-road listeners, and especially to parents who felt their music was safe for younger children. They were accomplishing precisely what the Weavers had set out to do a decade and a half earlier (and, not coincidentally, also exactly what the Weavers' political opponents had feared the latter group would do, spreading liberal ideas and politics on the popular landscape with pretty music).

Their commercial fortunes and mass appeal remained intact into the second half of the decade. The album In Concert, an unprecedented (for a folk group) double LP, hit number four during the summer and fall of 1964, and the group's next studio LP, A Song Will Rise got to number eight in the spring of 1965. At the same time, however, its highest-charting single, For Loving Me," only reached number 30. See What Tomorrow Brings peaked at number 11 in late 1965, their first placement outside of the Top Ten with an LP, but hardly unrespectable. By 1966, PP&M were feeling the pressure to embellish their music, however, and began adding significant numbers of backup musicians to their records, and exploring more rock-oriented sounds, on The Peter, Paul & Mary Album and, later, Album 1700. Those albums were considered solidly competitive in the musical environment of 1966 and 1967, amid the sounds of folk-rock and psychedelic rock of the era, and both have held up better than those by most of the competition, mostly owing to the quality of the music and the songs. From the beginning of their history, the trio displayed an uncanny ear for great songs and songwriters -- Stookey had steered Grossman to Bob Dylan before many people in Greenwich Village had even heard of him. And in early 1962, before their debut album had even been released, the Kingston Trio had picked up a then-new Pete Seeger song, Where Have All the Flowers Gone," from one of the group's live performances and had a hit with it. During the years 1965-1966, Peter, Paul & Mary gave the first serious airings to the music of Gordon Lightfoot ("For Lovin' Me"), Laura Nyro ("When I Die"), and John Denver ("For Baby (Goes Bobbie)"), interspersed with the occasional unrecorded Dylan tune, such as When the Ship Comes In" and "Too Much of Nothing." Their sales might not have matched the chart-soaring days of 1963, but the albums had the class, beauty, and substance to stand the test of time.

And when they caught the moment again with a song, the trio proved that they could sell records with the best of them. "I Dig Rock 'n' Roll Music," written by Paul Stookey, brought PP&M back to the upper reaches of the charts and heavy AM radio play with a number nine single in the fall of 1967, right in the middle of the psychedelic boom. The song, which parodied the styles of the Beatles, the Mamas & the Papas, and Donovan, was not only catchy and memorable, but also a reminder to the public that, for all of their devotion to causes and issues, Peter, Paul & Mary was a very funny group as well. For much of the year that followed this commercial comeback, the group was involved in politics, in the form of Senator Eugene McCarthy's anti-war campaign for the White House. They appeared on behalf of McCarthy, and even released a record supporting him. McCarthy's candidacy ultimately failed, in a year that also saw the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, though one personal, positive by-product of the peace campaign was that Peter Yarrow ended up marrying the senator's daughter.

In 1969, they returned to the middle of the charts again with Yarrow's "Day Is Done," a surprisingly autumnal work. They also chalked up another Grammy Award that year for Peter, Paul & Mommy, an album of children's songs that became a mainstay of their catalog, reaching generation after generation of parents and children. During the summer of 1969, Warner Bros. got word that DJs around the country had begun playing one of the tracks off of the then two-year-old Album 1700, "Leaving on a Jet Plane," authored by John Denver. Released that September, the single "Leaving on a Jet Plane" peaked at number one, the trio's only chart-topping single, and also pulled Album 1700 back onto the list of top-selling LPs.

By 1970, PP&M had played many hundreds of concerts together and had spent nine years in harness to each other. It was inevitable that there would be a split at some point, given their different, evolving lives. Mary Travers was now the mother of two daughters, Yarrow was newly married, and Stookey, in addition to wanting to work with new and different musical sounds, had developed a serious belief in Christianity. Amid a flurry of sales behind "Leaving on a Jet Plane," and the release in the spring of Ten Years Together: The Best of Peter, Paul & Mary (which rose to number 15), the trio completed their concert obligations and announced in the fall of 1970 that they were taking a year's sabbatical from Peter, Paul & Mary.

The next eight years saw the three musicians release various solo recordings that failed to catch the public's attention in anything resembling PP&M's impact. Mary Travers continued working in a folk-pop vein for a time, while Peter Yarrow wrote topical songs dealing with the politics of the time, and Paul Stookey proved the most adventurous of the three musically, exploring harder rock sounds as well as jazz, and delving into Christian-oriented music. They moved around each other's orbits, appearing on each other's albums occasionally and even reuniting on behalf of George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, but it was clear by the late '70s that none of them had enough of an audience on his own to sustain a full-time performing career. Travers moved from Warner Bros. to Chrysalis Records, and to a very brief stay with the Arista label, all without any hits, while Yarrow enjoyed a hit as a songwriter with "Torn Between Two Lovers," and also saw one of his '70s compositions, "River of Jordan," turn up in the 1980 comedy film Airplane, sung by Lorna Patterson in an excruciatingly funny scene.

This was all a long way from their 1960s heyday, and a 1978 reunion album also proved a false start, selling more poorly than any LP in their history. The concerts surrounding that album, however, marked the beginning of a gradual re-forming of the trio. Travers, a single mother with two daughters and a menagerie of pets to look after, was nonetheless concerned with the anti-nuclear movement, with which Yarrow had long been involved. Stookey rejoined after some hesitation, and by the early '80s Peter, Paul & Mary were a functioning trio again, playing concerts occasionally and trying to record, including their annual Christmas concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York. Without skipping a beat, they picked up from their early-'60s beginnings, only the civil rights anthems had new meaning in an era when the laws protecting those rights were under attack by the Reagan administration. And they were interspersed with songs about the political strife in El Salvador and the nuclear arms race. As long as they included "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" in their repertory, however, the trio was still largely immune from attack by the right. The real difficulty was getting their work heard by a larger public in the music environment of the 1980s.

By that late date, none of the major labels were interested in the work of folk groups of their vintage so they did it themselves, initially releasing the live reunion album Such Is Love in America on their own Peter, Paul & Mary label. They were associated with Gold Castle Records, a promising independent label, for much of the late '80s, until its failure, but they did get to record a handful of LPs that they ended up owning outright. They retained good relations with Warner Bros., sufficient for Peter Yarrow to personally supervise the digital remastering and transfer of their classic 1960s catalog to compact disc at the end of the 1980s. Finally, in 1992, some 30 years after the trio signed with them, Warner Bros. Records became interested in doing a follow-up to Peter, Paul & Mommy, which had been a perennially good seller in its catalog. The resulting album, Peter, Paul & Mommy, Too and an accompanying television special heralded a return of the group to Warner Bros., which subsequently reissued their entire Gold Castle catalog on CD. Since the 1980s, the group had been moving into the role of elder statesmen of the folk community -- Mary Travers even hosted a television special that brought together the entire present and former membership of the Kingston Trio on stage -- and this status was borne out in 1995 with the Lifelines album. The latter, an all-star concept album featuring the trio performing with colleagues, older and younger -- including Ex-Weaver Ronnie Gilbert and blues legend B.B. King -- was sufficiently successful to generate a concert follow-up, Lifelines Live, the following year. In 1998, they carried the same all-star singalong concept a step further, in a slightly different direction, with Around the Campfire, and in 1999, Warner Bros. issued its second PP&M best-of compilation, Songs of Conscience and Concern. The trio, starting their fifth decade together at the outset of the 21st century, remained as committed to good music and to fighting the good fight as they were in 1962. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Along with the Kingston Trio, the Limeliters were one of the most successful folk groups of the early 1960s, a time when the folk music revival was in itself a sort of backlash against the anti-establishment rock & roll generation. The original group consisted of Glenn Yarbrough, vocal and guitar (b.1930), Lou Gottlieb, vocal and bass... [+] Read More

Along with the Kingston Trio, the Limeliters were one of the most successful folk groups of the early 1960s, a time when the folk music revival was in itself a sort of backlash against the anti-establishment rock & roll generation. The original group consisted of Glenn Yarbrough, vocal and guitar (b.1930), Lou Gottlieb, vocal and bass (1923-1996), and Alex Hassilev, vocal, guitar, and banjo (b.1932).

In 1959, Gottlieb, a former jazz pianist and member of the folk group the Gateway Singers had just completed his doctoral thesis on 15th century cyclic masses when he heard Hassilev and Yarbrough sing together at Hollywood's Cosmo Alley nightclub. Enchanted with the vocal blend, Gottlieb suggested that the three of them team up to make demos for the Kingston Trio, with Gottlieb himself providing arrangements of traditional folk songs and some original material. The trio jelled so well that they struck out on their own, naming themselves after the Limelite club in Aspen, Colorado, where they had honed their sound and perfected their stage act. That summer, a successful stint at San Francisco's hungry i led them to their recording debut for Elektra and then a series of best sellers for RCA Victor.

As individuals, the Limeliters were each extraordinarily talented, but emotionally incompatible (Hassilev often referred to the group members as "the Bicker Brothers").

Hassilev had a rich, robust voice and was adept at a variety of languages. Gottlieb was an arranger and composer in addition to having a brief career as a stand-up comic. And Yarbrough possessed one of the purest, most exquisite voices on the planet. Unlike many other groups, the Limeliters' individual voices were never lost when singing together. Yarbrough's soaring tenor, Gottlieb's baritone in the middle, and Hassilev's bass-baritone on the bottom blended beautifully, but without losing the uniqueness of each voice. On stage, Gottlieb played stand-up bass and acted as the group's emcee, peppering the act with scholarly witticisms, wry asides, and zany non sequiturs.

Between 1961 and 1963, the Limeliters were one of the hottest acts in show business. They made appearances on television, sang on commercials, and embarked on an exhaustive touring schedule which saw them perform as many as 310 days out of each year. In 1963, the group survived a near-catastrophic plane crash in Provo, Utah, prompting the three to reassess their priorities as performers. Yarbrough was the first to quit, leaving to start his own successful solo career. He had a number 12 charting hit in 1965, "Baby the Rain Must Fall," before losing favor with audiences. For a short while, Ernie Sheldon filled in for Yarbrough before the group finally disbanded in 1965. Hassilev became a producer and actor and Gottlieb moved to Sonoma County in Northern California, where he founded one of the '60s' most notorious hippie communes, the Morningstar Ranch.

In 1973, the original Limeliters reunited and began touring again, albeit to smaller audiences. Yarbrough quit again in 1981 and was replaced by Red Grammer, a talented tenor who easily assumed Yarbrough's role with the group. When Grammer left to pursue a solo career as a children's entertainer, Rick Dougherty joined. The group continued to perform at small venues throughout the '80s and '90s, building up a loyal following consisting mostly of fans from their glory years. Gottlieb's death in 1996 at the age of 72 threatened to put an end to the group's existence, but Hassilev has since kept the flame alive. ~ Cary Ginell, All Music Guide [-] Hide

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... [+] Read More

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). The youthful Pete initially rebelled against his parents passion for music, but upon hearing a five-string banjo for the first time at the Folk Song and Dance Festival in Asheville, NC, his dream of becoming a painter was pushed aside. He studied sociology at Harvard University beginning in 1936, but left just before his final exams two years later, choosing instead to roam the American South making field recordings with music scholar Alan Lomax. These experiences were the foundation of Seeger's repertoire of work songs, lullabies, folk songs, and ballads that he would revisit throughout his musical career.

Seeger was drafted into the army in 1942, spending much of his time performing to troops in the South Pacific, and in 1943 he got married to Toshi Ohta (who has remained his wife for more than 50 years). After his discharge he continued his travels throughout the U.S., but as a performer instead of a scholar, performing wherever people were gathered, from taverns to churches. On March 3, 1940, he met Woody Guthrie at a migrant worker benefit concert, and soon after the two helped form the Almanac Singers, a loosely organized musical collective that included Lee Hays, Millard Lampell, Sis Cunningham, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Leadbelly, Josh White, Burl Ives, and Richard Dyer-Bennett at different times. The Almanac Singers' career was brief (lasting just over a year), but their pacifist attitudes and their ability to draw large crowds brought them under the scrutiny of the political powers of the time. Upon the dissolution of the Almanacs, Seeger, and Hays formed the Weavers with Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman who found universal success with their bright renditions of folk songs and spirituals like "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," "Wimoweh," "Goodnight Irene," and "On Top of Old Smoky." Unfortunately, Seeger and Hays' leftist leanings had long been under the scrutiny of the FBI, and ironically, their straightforward and innocuous performances were drawing disdain from the diehard leftist press. In 1955 Seeger was brought before the House of Un-American Activities Committee and his testimony resulted in his being blacklisted for 17 years (and not officially cleared on charges of contempt until 1962).

Seeger left the Weavers in 1958, for a solo career just as the seeds of the music they planted were beginning to take root on college campuses and in coffeehouses across the U.S. He spent much of the '60s in the South, marching in civil rights protests and arranging an old spiritual into what he named "We Shall Overcome," which has become the anthem of the pursuit for equality worldwide. In 1962, he put the words to a portion of the book of Ecclesiastes to music, capturing the feel of the changing climate of the youth movement in his song "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)." In addition to the countless social rallies he organized and participated in at this time, Seeger also had a hand in many of the Newport Folk Festivals in the early and mid-'60s. His adherence to the sanctity of folk music came to a boiling point with the advent of folk-rock, and this was visibly demonstrated when he tried to pull the plug on Bob Dylan's very electrified set with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1965. His objection to the Vietnam War was made evident during an appearance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 where he attacked Lyndon Johnson's war policies during his performance of the song "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy."

Seeger focused his attention on environmental issues in the '70s and '80s, notably with the launch of the sloop Clearwater (a floating classroom, laboratory, stage, and speaker's forum) into the Hudson River in 1969. He also remained active on the festival circuit, appearing at outdoor folk concerts and organizing rallies for any number of causes, from labor unions to anti-pollution legislation. The '90s saw Seeger on-stage receiving awards as often as performing music; with honors including receiving the nation's highest artistic honors at the Kennedy Center, gaining entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and earning the Harvard Arts Medal (despite the fact that he opted not to graduate from the university). He also won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album of 1996, and in 1999 he traveled to Cuba to accept the Felix Varela Medal (Cuba's highest honor for "his humanistic and artistic work in defense of the environment and against racism"). His ceaseless passion for reaching the hearts and minds of those who will listen is summed up by the inscription on his banjo which reads "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender." Pete Seeger's music does not force hate to surrender with muscle or intimidation, but with Seeger's simple honesty and pure-hearted clarity which has truly changed the course of history during the 60-plus years that he has been performing. ~ Zac Johnson, All Music Guide [-] Hide

During the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s, the NLCR introduced the authentic string-band sound of the 1920s and '30s, in the process educating a generation that had never heard this uniquely American sound of old-time music. While maintaining music with a social conscience, they added guts and reality to the folk movement, performing... [+] Read More

During the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s, the NLCR introduced the authentic string-band sound of the 1920s and '30s, in the process educating a generation that had never heard this uniquely American sound of old-time music. While maintaining music with a social conscience, they added guts and reality to the folk movement, performing with humor and obvious reverence for the music.

Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley in 1958 modeled their band after groups like the Skillet Lickers, the Fruit Jar Drinkers, and the Aristocratic Pigs, choosing a name in keeping with the past. When Tracy Schwarz replaced Paley in 1962, The Ramblers added solo songs from the Appalachian folk repertoire, religious and secular, educating a large segment of the American population about traditional music. Folkways recorded the NLCR on five albums in the early 60s, making the Ramblers famous and leading to TV appearances, successful tours, and appearances at the Newport Folk Festival. A songbook with 125 of their songs came out in 1964 and sold well.

The NLCR served at least three important purposes: They brought real folk music to a huge audience, they entertained us well with their highly entertaining acts, and they led us to rediscover the original music on which they had based their band. Tracy Schwarz went on the road with his wife and then his son, gradually leaning toward Cajun squeezebox music; Mike Seeger toured with his wife, Alice, and did many solo spots; and John Cohen continued playing in another string band, while making award-winning documentaries about the old music. ~ David Vinopal, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The half-sister of Pete Seeger and the widow of Ewan MacColl, singer/songwriter Peggy Seeger continued her family's long history of championing and preserving traditional music, most notably emerging as a seminal figure in the British folksong revival of the 1960s. Born June 17, 1935 in New York City, her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, was... [+] Read More

The half-sister of Pete Seeger and the widow of Ewan MacColl, singer/songwriter Peggy Seeger continued her family's long history of championing and preserving traditional music, most notably emerging as a seminal figure in the British folksong revival of the 1960s. Born June 17, 1935 in New York City, her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, was herself an influential composer and folklorist, as well as the first woman ever awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship Award for Music, while her father, Charles Louis Seeger, was a pioneering ethnomusicologist and the inventor of the melograph, an electronic musical notation instrument. Raised in the company of brothers Pete (widely hailed as the father of the American folk revival of the postwar era) and Mike (also a noted recording artist and the leader of the New Lost City Ramblers), Peggy began playing the piano at the age of seven, and within a few years began transcribing pieces of music. In the years to follow she also learned to play guitar, five-string banjo, autoharp, Appalachian dulcimer and English concertina, later majoring in music at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts; there she first began performing professionally.

In 1955, Seeger continued her studies in the Netherlands, later traveling throughout much of Europe and even into Africa; that same year, she issued the Folkways ten-inch Folksongs of Courting and Complaint. In 1959 she settled in London, where she became involved with MacColl, the famed British musician and playwright. In the decades which followed prior to MacColl's 1989 death, the couple toured the world singing, lecturing and preaching the importance of the British folk song tradition, typically emphasizing the connections between roots music and sociopolitical activism. Over time, Seeger's own original songs adopted an ardently feminist slant; she and MacColl also headed the controversial London Critics Group, producing an annual political theatre production titled The Festival of Fools. They also operated and regularly performed at the folk venue the Singers Club, and formed their own record label, Blackthorne; most important, however, was their work with BBC producer Charles Parker in developing the radio-ballad, a groundbreaking musical documentary form combining field recordings of speech and sound effects with new songs in the folk idiom and complementary instrumental accompaniment.

From the mid-1950s onward, Seeger recorded regularly, cutting both original material and traditional compositions as a solo artist and in collaboration with MacColl as well as artists including Guy Carawan, Ralph Rinzler and siblings Mike and Penny; among her key LPs are 1961's Two-Way Trip, 1973's At the Present Moment, 1977's Penelope Isn't Waiting Anymore and the oft-released American Folk Songs for Children, an assembly of material originally collected by her mother. Seeger's best-known original compositions include "Gonna Be an Engineer," which emerged as an anthem of the women's movement, and "The Ballad of Springhill," penned about the Nova Scotia mining disaster. Seeger also wrote music for a number of films, television programs and radio plays. After MacColl's death, she began working with the traditional Irish singer Irene Scott under the name No Spring Chickens, and together the duo formed a record label, Golden Egg. In late 1994, Seeger moved back to the United States, some four decades after first relocating to the U.K.; a year later, she completed work on the collections The Peggy Seeger Songbook, Warts and All and The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook. Almost Commercially Viable followed in fall 2000. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide [-] Hide

This contains previously unreleased material from the early '60s as well as three tracks recorded in 1973. It has a scattershot feeling about it that comes from the material being recorded at different times, but it digs up some good stuff along the way. Particularly nice are Watson's performances of Blind Boy Fuller's "My Little Woman, You're... [+] Read More

This contains previously unreleased material from the early '60s as well as three tracks recorded in 1973. It has a scattershot feeling about it that comes from the material being recorded at different times, but it digs up some good stuff along the way. Particularly nice are Watson's performances of Blind Boy Fuller's "My Little Woman, You're So Sweet" and "Just a Friend," in which he duets with mother Rosa Lee. The liner notes by Watson's daughter Nancy are a treat, recalling memories of grandpa Gaither Carlton, the first Watson Family recording session, and the April night that Merle Watson began playing guitar. ~ Jim Smith, All Music Guide [-] Hide

"Greatest Hits," as Seeger himself wryly wrote in his liner notes, is a misnomer considering that he never had hit singles or huge-selling albums as a solo artist, though actually "Little Boxes" (included here) made the lower reaches of the charts. In reality this 1967 compilation (since reissued on CD) collects the most popular tracks of his... [+] Read More

"Greatest Hits," as Seeger himself wryly wrote in his liner notes, is a misnomer considering that he never had hit singles or huge-selling albums as a solo artist, though actually "Little Boxes" (included here) made the lower reaches of the charts. In reality this 1967 compilation (since reissued on CD) collects the most popular tracks of his 1962-1966 output for Columbia, which was a pretty small slice of his prolific career. Nonetheless, these were among his most popular recordings ever, whether as done by him or covered by others. To begin with, it has the original 1962 version of "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)," made into a number one folk-rock hit in 1965 by the Byrds (and covered to good effect by Judy Collins in 1963). There's also "The Bells of Rhymney," also covered by the Byrds in 1965, and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," a hit for the Kingston Trio, although the 1962 version here is a disappointingly thin a cappella one. Other tracks were among the most popular staples of his repertoire: "We Shall Overcome," "Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)," and "Guantanamera." Though it might not qualify as an ideal career survey given its narrow chronology, certainly it's among the one or two best anthologies for those who just want one or two Seeger comps, as it has many of the most renowned songs he wrote or popularized in their most popular recorded versions. [Columbia/Legacy reissued a remastered edition of this 1967 album in 2002, including four bonus tracks.] ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

More than 20 years after the New Lost City Ramblers' last studio recordings, Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tracy Schwarz got back together for There Ain't No Way Out, a 26-track celebration of old-timey music, including bluegrass, yodel blues, spirituals, Cajun, and what is usually referred to generically as "folk" music. They haven't lost much... [+] Read More

More than 20 years after the New Lost City Ramblers' last studio recordings, Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tracy Schwarz got back together for There Ain't No Way Out, a 26-track celebration of old-timey music, including bluegrass, yodel blues, spirituals, Cajun, and what is usually referred to generically as "folk" music. They haven't lost much of their edge, even if -- by their own admission -- there are younger, sharper players out there in the wake of the path they opened. Highlights include a sweetly sung "God's Gonna Ease My Troublin' Mind," A.P. Carter's "Anchored in Love Divine," the Dixon Brothers' "Weave Room Blues" (which has a Jimmie Rodgers sound to it), "Cumberland Gap," "Shady Grove," "Skip to My Lou," and "Crapshooters Hop." They still harmonize beautifully, their instruments sing even sweeter, and the advantages of modern recording aren't lost on this sharp body of music. The notes, featuring contributions by all three players, are exceptionally detailed and informative about their history, as well as that of the songs. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide [-] Hide

A precious collection from one of folk music's legendary figures, Ballads, Banjo Tunes and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina collects a few of his songs from his 1928 Brunswick sessions (the immortal "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground," "Dry Bones") and adds over a dozen songs -- from a total of over 350 -- recorded in March 1949 for the... [+] Read More

A precious collection from one of folk music's legendary figures, Ballads, Banjo Tunes and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina collects a few of his songs from his 1928 Brunswick sessions (the immortal "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground," "Dry Bones") and adds over a dozen songs -- from a total of over 350 -- recorded in March 1949 for the Library of Congress as his "Memory Collection." The Minstrel of the Appalachians really comes alive on this collection, introducing most of his 1949 recordings with song histories and where he collected them. Also included is a priceless track named "Dedication," in which Lunsford spends five minutes recalling both his early life and his later career as a country lawyer and song collector. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide [-] Hide

You'd think the last word in Woody Guthrie reissues would have appeared before this. After all, the legendary folksinger recorded most of his best work nearly 60 years before this was released, and the bulk of it has been regularly reissued in fine collections on Folkways, Rounder, and other labels. So this CD is as surprising as it is welcome.... [+] Read More

You'd think the last word in Woody Guthrie reissues would have appeared before this. After all, the legendary folksinger recorded most of his best work nearly 60 years before this was released, and the bulk of it has been regularly reissued in fine collections on Folkways, Rounder, and other labels. So this CD is as surprising as it is welcome. What makes it probably the single best Guthrie disc you can own? For one thing, the compilers had total access to the archives of Folkways Records founder Moses Asch, for whom the singer made the lion's share of his most important recordings. And they picked for this package 27 songs that showcase the incredible range of his writing and performing talent -- everything from children's ditties ("Car Song") to social commentary ("Do-Re-Mi") to historical tales ("End of the Line"). Then there's the title track -- Guthrie's most famous tune -- which was only sporadically available until this CD. It's here in two versions, including one that features the famous yet previously unreleased "private property" verses.

The sound quality is as notable as the program. The compilers went back to the master recordings and did a magnificent job of cleaning things up without altering what Guthrie waxed. The result sounds pure and intimate -- as if the singer were right there in the room with you. Finally, there's a superb 36-page book with all sorts of fascinating detail on Asch, Guthrie, and every track. The best news: This is only the first volume in a four-CD series. ~ Jeff Burger, All Music Guide [-] Hide