Pete Seeger
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Lead Belly
There’s a new documentary about the blues and folk genius Huddie Ledbetter (1888-1949) on the Smithsonian Channel. Legend of Lead Belly follows the career of the 12-string guitar wonder who absorbed the music of rural and small-town America in his travels through his native Louisiana and Texas. The writer and arranger who gave us Goodnight Irene,…
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July Feature: A Response
Taken to Task. “What’s Going on Here?” by B. O. Goodbody rebuts what your editor wrote about “the great American folk scare.” It’s at the top left, the Pages list, in the Guest Essay Archive.
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Last Word on “Llewyn”
O Brother! Why Bother? The latest issue of the Claremont Review of Books has a masterful essay by the critic Martha Bayles. It’s framed by discussion of the Coen Brothers movie so often mentioned on this site. But this is more than a movie review. Bayles covers allied subjects—1930s folk music, 1960s folk music, figures like…
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Feature on Politics and Folk Music
New Left, Old Left, Left-Over Left. Our guest essayist this month is Bob Cohen, a veteran of the 1960s folk group the New World Singers. He discusses the Hollywood movie about folkies—and how things really were. Read “Strumming Along with Dylan and Seeger” by returning to top left, the Pages list.
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First Things has reprinted what your editor wrote a while back on Pete Seeger, who died Monday at the age of 94.