Tønder Festival celebrates its 50th anniversary with a gift to all who take an interest in folk and roots music, and in music history generally.
The podcast Weekend with Pete is a sound portrait of the American folksinger and environmental and human rights activist Pete Seeger.
The hitherto unpublished recordings will be available in five parts.
In 1999, the Swiss radio journalist Jean-Claude Kuner was in Beacon in USA to interview Pete Seeger. It took a whole weekend. At almost 80 years of age, Pete Seeger sang, played guitar, banjo and flute and talked for hours. It was all taped, including Jean-Claude's visit with Pete to an environment project and one of Pete Seeger's then rare concerts.
Pete Seeger sings his own versions of Turn,Turn,Turn, We Shall Overcome and many more.
These tapes were shelved for 25 years until Tønder Festival presenter, radio journalist Claus Vittus met Jean-Claude. Claus Vittus, who has previously made podcasts for Tønder Festival, was on the look-out for a suitable gift to all those involved in Tønder Festival's 50th anniversary.
The two prize-winning radio journalists decided, in the light of Pete Seeger's actual appearance at Tønder Festival in 1990, that the Seeger recordings should be podcast in five instalments. The Weekend with Pete podcast is in English and will be freely available to all on the usual podcast platforms.
Pete Seeger plays banjo, sings False from True and relates. Thus begins the fifth part of the podcast with the musical legend. Pete Seeger talks about being blacklisted in USA, about activism, about the dangers of popularity and winning prizes.
Suggested introduction for Radio Mars: (speaker)
You are listening to Weekend with Pete, a portrait of the American folksinger, musician, environmental and human rights activist Pete Seeger. In 1999, the Swiss journalist Jean-Claude Kuner travelled to Beacon in USA to interview Pete Seeger. It took a whole weekend. The almost 80 year-old Pete Seeger played, sang and talked for hours, took Jean-Claude to an environmental project and to one of his then rare concerts.
These tapes lay almost untouched for 25 years until I met Jean-Claude. I was hunting for something to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our own local folk og roots festival in Tønder in 2024. Pete Seeger played at Tønder Festival in 1990.
Since I have made podcasts for Tønder Festival and present concerts at the festival, I suggested to Jean-Claude that we collaborate on Weekend with Pete, five chapters giving a close-up of the legend Pete Seeger.
Pete Seeger died at the age of 94 in 2014, but here he is, alive and kicking in 1999, shortly before his 80th birthday.
Produced by Jean-Claude Kuner & Claus Vittus for Tønder Festival on the occasion of the festival's 50th anniversary.
3 Aug 2024
EPISODE 4
Music legend Pete Seeger would rather be called 'river singer' than 'folk singer.' Hear his views on dividing music into genres, on Woody Guthrie, Beethoven, Alan Lomax, Newport Festival, Bob Dylan and hear Pete's flute, banjo and guitar music back his voice.
2 Aug 2024
EPISODE 3
Pete Seeger, his five-string banjo in his hand, tells of American folk music. His musical tale takes us back to the days of slavery, to union struggles in the 1930s and on to his successes, marked by songs like Turn,Turn, Turn. He tells too of his musical family.
1 Aug 2024
EPISODE 2
The 79 year-old folk music legend and activist Pete Seeger fills in the background for his famous song We Shall Overcome for his listeners, then we hear him performing it with a large gospel choir at a concert on Martin Luther King Day in January 1999.
31 Jul 2024
EPISODE 1
The Swiss-born radio journalist meets the 79 year-old Pete Seeger at his home in Beacon for weekend, where the music legend, his guitar or banjo on his lap, tells and sings of USA's history, human rights, activism, developments in folk music and his friendships with Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Alan Lomax and others.
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