7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7Seeger was born to a musically gifted family. His father
was the influential musicologist Charles Seeger, and his
mother, Constance, was a violin instructor at Juilliard. But
it was perhaps the introspective poems of his uncle, Alan
Seeger, that most inspired Pete’s songwriting. Leaving
Harvard after two years in 1938, Seeger hitchhiked and
rode freight trains around the country, gathering country
ballads, work songs, and hymns and developing a remarkable
virtuosity on the five-string banjo. In 1940 he organized
the Almanac Singers, a quartet that also featured the folk-
singer and composer Woody Guthrie, and appeared at
union halls, farm meetings, and wherever his populist
political sentiments were welcome. The group disbanded
soon after World War II.
In 1948 he formed another group, the Weavers—with
Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman—which
achieved considerable success on college campuses, in
concert, and on several records. Shortly after the group
achieved national fame, however, a great deal of controversy
was stirred up concerning Seeger’s previous activities in
left-wing and labour politics, and the Weavers suddenly
found themselves blacklisted by much of the entertainment
industry. Finding it increasingly difficult to make concert
bookings or to sell records, the group broke up in 1952 but
reunited three years later when a Christmas concert at
Carnegie Hall sparked new interest in their music and
message. Seeger left the group in 1958, and it disbanded in
- (The Weavers gave two reunion concerts in 1980,
and a motion picture documentary about the group, Wasn’t
That a Time!, was released in 1982.)
After the 1950s Seeger usually worked alone or with
his family (brother Mike was a member of New Lost City
Ramblers; sister Peggy, a singer and multi-instrumentalist,
became one of the driving forces behind the British folk
music revival with Ewan McColl, her partner in life and in