Pete Seeger befriended and charmed many people throughout his life, and foremost amongst those are the residents of Beacon, NY. Brendan Tween met Seeger in their hometown in 2005, and shared many experiences with him up until a week before his death. Below he recalls some of his time with the late legend.
Pete Seeger, still at it, just a couple of weeks before he died. (Photo by Hannah Tween)
I moved to Beacon, NY in February of 2005. A long commute to midtown Manhattan meant free time was scarce, but the great vibe of the town made me want to get involved; to do things to make it better, and I quickly joined up with several organizations—the Beacon Sloop Club, founded by Pete Seeger, being one of them. That participation expanded to helping out with other projects and I first really met Pete Seeger one afternoon when I was hanging out down by the river, picking a guitar while watching my kids play in the park. I had just finished helping out with something, and Pete came over and sat down with me. We played a few tunes, and he said "you lead one," so I picked Barry Maguire's "Eve of Destruction" and we played it together. Someone with a camera shot video of this jam (if you're reading this, please send me a copy!).
circa 2009: "I had to lend my guitar to Pete Seeger today so he could sing 'Turn Turn Turn'" (photo and caption by Brendan Tween)
It was 2008, during the run-up to the election, and the letter to the editor of the Poughkeepsie Journal read something like this: "I won't vote for John Hall for Congress because he's a friend of Pete Seeger, the Communist, and I won't vote for any friend of a communist!" I got a good chuckle out of that head-shaker, and not long after happened to be sitting down to lunch at a table with Pete and Toshi Seeger. We were at a convening of the Beacon Riverpool committee, planning when and how to move this monster into the water for the first time.
The Riverpool
I asked Pete if he'd seen that letter, and though he hadn't, he got a good chuckle out of it. Right then, his wife Toshi got angry: "He still is a Communist! And he always will be! He still carries the card, show him!" I said, "No need to show me, I believe you."
Pete was always present in Beacon, hugely present. One freezing cold evening around 9 p.m., I was standing in the parking lot of the Pleasant Ridge II Pizzeria on Main Street and was startled as Pete hustled past, quickly walking to wherever he was headed. He had his banjo gig bag in hand, so I assumed he was heading to the Beacon Sloop Club building down on the River. I also assumed he was late.
My daughters and I would see him around town attending to the mundanities that regular folk must attend to, but he always had a moment to say hello to the kids, whether in the Post Office or Rite Aid. It was easy to forget that he was a living legend as he was always such a regular guy.
On Second Saturday [Seeger played the 2nd Saturday of every month], he could be found down by Fishkill Creek leading a singalong comprised of the pickup band that always seemed to form wherever he went. There were no rules—if you had an instrument and wanted to join in, all you had to do was strap it on, tune to him, and start playing.
One afternoon I showed up at a sing-a-long with an acoustic bass. I must have played it loud enough to hear, and I suppose well enough, that I was invited to bring it that coming Monday to the Springfield Baptist Church for a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day performance, then later to another celebration in the basement of another church. We had a single rehearsal at the Sloop Club before heading out to play. We did a few tunes—Pete, as always, cajoling the audience to sing along. And they did, they always did.
Beacon, like most of the other Hudson River towns, has a long, storied history. The name is supposedly derived from signal fires that were set by colonial soldiers at the top of the 2,200 foot Mount Beacon during the American Revolution. An incline railway built in the early part of the 20th century took tourists up the mountain to a nightclub and casino that had been built there. Its accessibility (a little over an hour on Metro North), and the construction of the DIA:Beacon museum energized an otherwise sleepy town, and made it a popular weekend day trip for people from New York City.
Pete Seeger at the 2009 Corn Festival. (Photo by Brendan Tween)
Whenever something was going on in Beacon, Pete was there. The Hat Parade, the Spirit of Beacon day, the farmer's market—Pete was always there. The town hosts numerous festivals every year, but three stand out, as they are fundraisers for the Beacon Sloop Club (a subchapter of the Clearwater environmental organization—both of which were started by Seeger): the Strawberry Festival in spring, the Corn Festival at high summer and the Pumpkin Festival in the fall. Each festival proffers thematic food: strawberry shortcake, hot buttered corn (sold by people wearing pirate shirts that say "only a Buck an Ear") and pumpkin pie.
Toshi was always present in the food prep tent, whether shucking corn or making whipped cream. If you were looking for her, that was the place to go. Pete would be out talking to the festival's musicians, performing himself, or just standing around chatting with festival goers. From the early setup to the cleanup in the afternoon, the Seegers were always present.
It is arguably Pete Seeger who is responsible for all that Beacon has become. There are a hundred beautiful towns on both sides of the river from the Bronx all the way up to Hudson, NY, but the magnet that drew people—artists, musicians, activists—to Beacon, was Pete.
