Pete Seeger: In His Own Words

Long an icon of American musical and political life, Pete Seeger haswritten eloquently in books and for magazines, activist movements, andunion newsletters. Although he has never written an autobiography, hislife story is nowhere more personally chronicled than in the privatewritings, documents, and letters stored for decades in his familybarn. In Pete Seeger: His Life In His Own Words, we hear directlyfrom Seeger through the widest array of sources-letters, notes tohimself, published articles, rough drafts, stories, andpoetry-creating the most intimate picture yet available of Seegeras a musician, an activist, and a family man-in his own words andfrom his own perspective. From letters to his mother written when hewas a 13-year-old desiring his first banjo to speculations on thefuture, this book covers the passions, personalities, and experiencesof a lifetime of struggle-the pre-WWII labor movement, theCommunist Party, Woody Guthrie, the blacklist, the Civil Rightsmovement, Martin Luther King, the struggle against the war in Vietnam,Bob Dylan, travels around the world, cleaning up the Hudson River,Granny D, Fidel Castro, Bill Clinton, and countless uncelebratedactivists with whom Seeger has worked and sung. The portrait thatemerges is not a saint, not a martyr, but a flesh-and-blood man,struggling to understand his gift, his time, and his place.