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By Alan Light
Special to MSN Music
In the new biography "The Protest Singer," folk music paragon Pete Seeger tells writer Alec Wilkinson that the single word he believes in above all others is "participation." At Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, May 3, a 90th birthday celebration for Seeger (which doubled as a benefit for his Hudson River Sloop Clearwater environmental group, www.clearwater.org, dedicated to the preservation of the Hudson River) demonstrated his ongoing faith in the concept of inclusion: Dozens of musicians, in numerous configurations, performed almost 40 songs over the course of more than four hours.
Despite the show's length and ambition, though, spirits remained high and the mood seldom turned sentimental. The line-up connected such folk icons as Joan Baez, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Arlo Guthrie to more recent inheritors of the flame including Ani DiFranco, Tom Morello, and Band of Horses. The night's biggest star power, though, came from a few singers who bridge these generations -- Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, and John Mellencamp.
The evening's songs were the material that commonly defines American folk music, as well as an infinite number of grade-school music classes and summer camp singalongs: "John Henry," Where Have All the Flowers Gone," "Little Boxes," "Goodnight Irene," "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore." Miraculously, Pete Seeger -- who has taught the world to sing for a full seven decades -- is associated with them all.
Several artists said that he was central to their own early musical experiences. Mellencamp noted that "If I Had a Hammer" was the very first song he learned to play on the guitar, and Matthews said that the first concert he ever attended was a Seeger show. He then delivered the most unconventional performance of the night, a dark, stylized rendition of "Whiskey Rye Whiskey" that illustrated the folk roots of his own idiosyncratic songwriting.
Beyond a few video segments highlighting his Clearwater work, not much was directly said about Seeger's own amazing journey from being blacklisted in the 1950s for being a Communist sympathizer to appearing at Barack Obama's inaugural celebration in January. It makes for an odd gathering of protest singers when the President's name draws loud cheers -- but, as Billy Bragg observed, "These are strange days, when a labor union can own a car company."
It was left to Springsteen (who explored the folk repertoire in a 2006 album titled "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions") to deliver a powerful, no-nonsense tribute to the legendary musician and activist. "Pete is a walking, singing reminder of our history, a living archive of American music," he said, prior to a bracing version of his own "The Ghost of Tom Joad." "He's a stealth dagger through the heart of our country's illusions about itself."
But this was a night more dedicated to family and tradition than to politics. In addition to an audience full of parents and children attending together, the stage was cluttered with blood relatives. The full McGarrigle/Wainwright clan sang together, Tim Robbins's son Miles joined the fray at one point, and Ben Harper was accompanied by his mother and his aunt.
Seeger, sprightly and strong for any age, kicked things off with an unannounced benediction, playing a brief melody on a recorder. He added a funky banjo solo to Taj Mahal, Steve Earle, and Warren Haynes's collaboration on "Sailin' Up, Sailin' Down." He opened the show's second half doing what he loves most, coaching the crowd's harmony singing through a stately reading of "Amazing Grace."
At evening's end, Seeger's own family -- including his older (!) brother, 95-year-old John -- was surrounded by a Muppet (Oscar the Grouch, who grumbled a cameo on, of course, "Garbage Garbage Garbage"), a tiny baby, Native American drummers, a congressman (New York's John Hall, former singer in Orleans), and all the musicians. As usual, Pete Seeger was at the center of the joyful noise, introducing "This Land Is Your Land" with a single sentence that managed to encapsulate his remarkable life.
"I'll give you the words," he said, "and you can sing 'em!"
