oregonlive/.../pete_seeger_11_memorable... Pete Seeger: 11 memorable concerts in Oregon, including a union hall visit with Woody Guthrie Jeff Baker | jbaker@oregonian By Jeff Baker | jbaker@oregonian Email the author | Follow on Twitter on February 05, 2014 at 6:30 AM, updated February 05, 2014 at 7:07 AM Portland historian Michael Munk did some amazing research on Pete Seegers visits to Oregon for an upcoming entry in the Oregon Encyclopedia. Munk, the author of The Portland Red Guide, shared his work: 1. September 1941: Pete and Woody Guthrie sang at two or three union halls in Portland. While here they also visited Woodys original employer Steve Kahn at the BPAs Portland offices (where Woody had worked while writing songs in May and June of that year). The pair had come from California on tour with the Almanac Singers and went on to perform in Seattle, where Woody wrote that Pete and me aim to put the word hootenanny on the market. Source: Hobe Kytr (phone interview, August 1995) and the Seattle New Dealer (September 30, 1941). 2. April 12, 1954: A concert at the Reed College Student Union, presumably before or after (3) a concert at the Erb Memorial Union at the University of Oregon in Eugene. There, Pete accompanied himself by taking an axe to an Alder log on stage. Source: R. Moore and The Oregonian (April 11, 1954). 4. Feb. 15, 1955 at Reed College: At the height of the blacklist when Pete was limited to appearances at colleges and other noncommercial venues, his concert was sponsored by the leftist student club FOCUS. Reed president Loxley Griffin was reluctant to give his permission for the concert but finally agreed provided it not receive any outside publicity. The stealth concert, however, was recorded by a student group calling itself Modern Doghouse Records, whose principal was Caffe Expresso proprietor Karl Metzenberg. The album contained two 10-inch LPs called We Sing Songs of the People: Peter Seeger His Banjo His Foot. Pete was not pleased by this bootleg record. Source: David Hedges and my own recollection. 5. A two-night stand at the Portland State College auditorium (now Lincoln Hall) on Oct. 23-4, 1959 as the featured event at PSCs second student–sponsored Arts Festival that filled the 400-seat auditorium. Sources: Patty Bonney, John Terry, The Oregonian (Oct. 18, 1959.) 6. A sold-out concert with 1,500 in the wholly inadequate PSC ballroom on March 3,1971, and (7) an after-party benefit for the Fred Hampton clinic at Jim and Belle Canons house at 2456 N.W. Johnson St. Kent and Sandra Ford attended the by-invitation reception. Not knowingly invited, a Portland police Red Squad undercover member was there. The spy described Pete contemptuously as a so-called folksingerin his written report. Pete stayed with his friends Helen and Bill Gordon for about a week during this visit, went to the Oregon coast with them and visited the Metropolitan Learning Center. He sent Helen a song tape when she was sick. Sources: Ken Dragoon, Maureen Gray Hudson, Lee Gordon, Sandy Polishuk, Ruth Frankel, Jon Moscow, Sandra Ford, Martha Gies, and The Oregonian, (March 4, 1971). 8. A sold-out concert, his first in Portland in more than 10 years, on March 13, 1982 at Benson High School, sponsored by the Oregon Citizens Party, Oregon Environmental Council and the McKenzie River Gathering. Pete asked Wild Oats, a Portland bluegrass folk quartet to perform and paid tribute to the late songwriter Jim I Dont Want Your Millions, Mister Garlan. Garlan was a Kentucky activist for coal miners who came to Portland during WW2 to work in the shipyards. Pete invited his children to join in on his songs. A poster signed by Portland artist Jack McLarty and Pete exists. He was interviewed the next day for a radio program by Mary Orr and Michael ORouke at his motel near Northeast Broadway and Grand Avenue. Sources: Ruth Frankel, Mary Orr, Lee Gordon and John Blank and The Oregonian (March 14, 1982). 9) A sold-out concert at the Schnitz with Arlo Guthrie on March 21, 1986 to benefit the World Music Foundation. The review noted that the audience of more than 2,000 (Petes largest in Oregon) was a mixure of grayhairs who may have heard Pete when he started out and Arlos army of baby boomers. Sources: Patty Bonney, Louise Beaudreau, The Oregonian (March 19, 1986) 10. Pete gave a another sold-out concert at Benson High School on April 27, 1993 to benefit the Northwest Tree Planters and Farm Workers United (PCUN). An audience of 1,800 heard union leaders open with a request they join the unions boycott against Steinfelds and Norpac products and then invoked a moment of silence for the tens of thousands of people who died as a result of Richard Nixons policies. Pete admitted his voice was about 75 percent gone but that his grandson Tao Rodriquez Seeger would pick the slack. He was interviewed before the concert at his friend Bill Gordons house where he was staying. The next day he helped PCUN dedicate their new union hall in Woodburn. Sources: Sandy Polishuk, Lee Gordon, The Oregonian (April 28-9, 1993) and my own recollection. 11. Pete received the first Lifetime Achievement award (with Alan Lomax) at the February 1995 conference of the Folk Alliance International at the Red Lion hotel at Lloyd Center. The next year the award went (posthumously) to Woody Guthrie. At many stops of the 1948 Progressive party Henry Wallace campaign, Pete sang with Portlander Michael Loring (who performed The Ballad for Americans with the Jefferson High School Choir at the Civic Auditorium for Wallaces May, 1947 visit), but it seems he didnt accompany Wallace when he spoke in Portland and other Oregon cities in May, 1948.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 19:44:41 +0000
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