Others were passionate about Seeger's legacy. Jeffrey Freiser, executive director of the Connecticut Housing Coalition, said the folk singer's advocacy of progressive causes -- and his trademark humility -- won him over at an early age. The 62-year-old boomer got emotional when asked how he wound up at Sunday's sold-out concert.
"For years I took my son to Pete Seeger concerts," Freiser said. "And then he surprised me, by buying us tickets to this concert. He knew this would be meaningful for us, with a real sense of community."
Seeger, wearing a plain red shirt, blue jeans and a blue hat, happily joined in with his guests on several numbers. At one point, he plunked out a lead on his five-string banjo during a driving, 12-bar blues. But he was truly in his element when he led the audience in an a cappella version of "Amazing Grace." The gray-bearded singer raised his arms in exultation as a rich three-part harmony filled the arena.
"There's no such thing as a wrong note as long as you're singing it," Seeger said. Then he gave a history lesson about John Newton, the author of the song and a former slave ship captain who became an outspoken opponent of slavery. "John Newton gave us all the greatest hope of all, that we can turn this world around," Seeger said.
That belief took root early in his life. Born in New York in 1919, Seeger was the child of two musical parents. He was fascinated by his father's work as a musicologist and developed a love for the banjo during field trips to the South. After dropping out of Harvard in 1938, he began what became his life's work -- traveling around the country, singing and writing songs about working people, and speaking out on political issues.
Soon he met Woody Guthrie, the legendary songwriter who penned "This Land Is Your Land," and the two of them helped change the face of American folk music. They formed the Almanac Singers, a left-wing singing group, and Seeger later co-founded the Weavers, who achieved mass success with 1950's chart-topping "Goodnight, Irene."
But the Weavers also drew heat during the anti-communist fervor of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Seeger, who had joined the Communist Party before drifting away from it in 1949, was blacklisted for his political sympathies.
