Pete Seeger [1919-2014], who would have turned 100 on May 3rd, featured a wise and well-worn calligraphic inscription on his banjo head, also known as a "vellum," for the parchment out which it was made. The credo, "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender," parallels one that fellow traveller Woody Guthrie displayed prominently on his guitar, namely, "This machine kills fascists."
To mark his birthday centennial, Smithsonian Folkways has just released "Pete Seeger: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection," a career-spanning anthology that contains 137 tracks on 6 CDs (including 20 previously unreleased), as well as a book of essays and other documentation. Seeger himself once offered some curatorial advice to the archivists and production staff at Smithsonian Folkways, recommending that they "find the homemade honesty of great folk music in every country of the world."
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