I’m sitting backstage at Folk Festival 50— a celebration of 50 years of music history in Newport, RI— listening to 90-year-old Pete Seeger headlining a sing-a-long with a phalanx of younger artists armed only with aged vocal chords, an out-of-tune banjo and more heart, soul and sincerity than perhaps any performer of the last century. He is quite simply music history personified.
In a 70 plus year career he has never once put financial gain or fame over artistic integrity. He has fought against blacklists, social injustice, racial inequality and habitat destruction his entire life, and here he is leading the charge alongside members of The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, Ben Kweller, The Low Anthem, Elvis Perkins In Dearland, Tift Merritt, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and Gillian Welch to name just a few. Obviously it’s inspirational to watch all these performers join in song however the almost palpable lack of cynicism during Seeger stalwarts such as “This Little Light of Mine,” “If I Had A Hammer” and “This Land Is Your Land” hits me the hardest. Everyone is genuinely moved by the power of the performers and audience singing together in perfect and gloriously out-of-tune harmony.
All the artists I’ve mentioned above made their careers on the backs of their own labor. With or without label support, these artists have all made it to this career milestone: playing the granddaddy of all music festivals via playing by their own rules. This badge on non-conformity is really their only commonality. The futility of genre labeling when trying to categorize all the collective talent on this stage is glaring. Each one believing that he or she can change the world for the better with a few simple chords, a pound of flesh and mountain of sincerity. It seems the secret they are willingly sharing to all who take the time to listen is to make it as a true artist you have to go to any lengths to stand by your convictions— or as Mr. Seeger told me before he walked on stage, “You never know when which added grain of sand will finally tilt the see-saw of change in the right direction. We all need to do that little extra to make it happen.”
-Jay Sweet, Editor-at-Large
