Re: [xmca] Silvio Rodriguez and Pete Seeger

[ulvi icil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com>]

Steve !
It is me who should thank to you for this wonderful knowledge contained at
the very first paragraph. Now I will go through the other parts of your
message after having sent this email to you!
But what a history !
Thanks a lot!
Ulvi



2010/6/13, Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>:
>
> I have a little story about Pete Seeger once giving me a ride from a train
> station.  It was 1984.  I was the music counselor for an upstate New York
> YMCA camp that brought inner NYC kids out to a woodsy and rustic camp for a
> few weeks.   The camp was built on the fields and woods around a farmhouse
> where Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).  This farm had
> also been a stopover on the Underground Railroad for African Americans who
> were escaping slavery on their way to Canada.  This was all in Beacon, about
> 75 miles straight up the Hudson River from NYC.
>
> It was my day off, and I was getting off a train returning from NYC, where
> on impulse I had bought myself a bargain-priced old used baritone saxophone
> from some ancient music shop in the Theater District.  I hadn't brought my
> alto with me from Seattle for this summer job, and missed having a horn to
> practice - I was in music school at the University of Washington at the
> time, playing both jazz and classical sax.  I had also purchased some camp
> song books and other supplies for what I was doing at the camp, so I was
> carrying quite a bundle of stuff when I got off that train -  and wondering
> how I was going to make the two-mile walk.
>
> I'd heard from the camp director (who was also the source of the above
> history) that Pete Seeger and his family lived on a property adjoining the
> camp.  Well, there Pete was, picking up some people at the train station in
> some old station wagon.  He saw me lugging that big black vinyl case with an
> odd musical instrument of some kind in it, and hefting some other bags, and
> asked me where I was going.  He was quite curious about the musical
> instrument, and remarked that it was an unusual sight at the train station.
>  I told him the Y camp, and about the sax.  He said hop in, he'd be glad to
> give me a ride, and of course I accepted.
>
> They asked me some questions about the camp, and we talked about the local
> area, and about some of its history.  I told him it was an honor to have met
> him, that I'd heard him sing at anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, etc.  He
> was already a legend by the late 1960's, of course.  Pete and the others in
> the car wished me luck, dropped me at the front office of the camp, and off
> they went.  It is nice to see he is still going strong at 91.
>
> What a great honor and tribute he received from Silvio Rodriguez.  Thanks
> for this thoughtful link, Ulvi.
>
> Rodriguez said about Seeger:
> "For 91 years, he has been learning songs anywhere to teach them
> everywhere. He has left a little piece of Cuba in the United States, a bit
> of Africa in Italy, an air of Spain in Japan. Borders don’t exist for Pete.
> If there’s a man who can mend dreams, that’s him. His life has been an
> example of fraternity, of love towards human beings and Nature. He is a song
> we should all learn."
>
> - Steve
>
>
> On Jun 12, 2010, at 4:02 PM, ulvi icil wrote:
>
> http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art0017.html
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