Pete Seeger is my hero. Not only has he overcome and accomplished so much (and is still going strong at nearly 90), he has somehow managed to get me to sit through five minutes of Bruce Springsteen:
Video :: This land is your land by Pete Seeger et al at Obama inauguration
(further hero alert at the 2 minute mark)
I'm pretty sure Pete and the choir weren't faking it to a backing track like Yo Yo and Itzhak. This is what us northerners grew up with. The Travellers were The Weavers of Canada:
Video :: This land is your land by The Travellers
3 comments:
Well, I now I'm feeling embarrassed for getting all teary eyed at the performances at the inauguration. I definitely noticed that Aretha Franklin had to start and stop her own musical accompaniment (reminded me of going to a wedding where the singer is accompanied by a bad tape deck), but I was so swept up in the moment, I didn't even care. I thought she sounded great, even in her silly hat. And I LOVED the performance by Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman...so I feel really dumb that I didn't realize they weren't playing live. Wait, Martin is telling me that they were actually playing live, but what was sent out over the air waves was pre-recorded. Apparently it was so cold and the chance of strings breaking, etc was so high that they wanted the back up of the prerecorded tape. Whatever, I was moved by it, and I'm still humming 'tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free..
All that said, I agree, Pete Seeger is a hero (and was that George Lucas at the 2 minute mark?).
I wouldn't want to take anything away from that performance and obviously they couldn't properly play their instruments, but why keep those types of things a secret anymore?
Hooray for folk music! I love Pete Seeger and all the artists from that genre. I started my semipublic music pseudocareer with "The Tom Fernon Singers" covering Pete, Woody, Peter/Paul/Mary, etc. (grin) And I can get a tear in my eye even when I play If I Had a Hammer.
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