Riverfront Park in Beacon, New York is being renamed after Pete Seeger and his wife Toshi Seeger. The park, which is near where he lived, overlooks the Hudson River, which Pete Seeger helped save. A ceremony at the annual Strawberry Festival this weekend celebrates the park’s new name, and there have been other recent tributes to Seeger. I am sure more will keep coming.
While thinking about the great singer who passed away in January of this year, I have been listening to Seeger’s last major recording. Seeger recorded “Forever Young” for the 4-CD set Chimes Of Freedom: The Songs Of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years Of Amnesty International
In this short video documentary about the making of “Forever Young,” the album’s contributing producer Martin Lewis and othes explain how they brought together everyone for the recording of the song. The scene near the end of the kids looking at pocket-sized booklets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as Pete Seeger sings is pretty cool.
One of the musicians who helped out on the song and who appears in the video is Mark Hudson. If you watched television in the mid-1970s, you might recall him from his variety show with The Hudson Brothers.
As for Seeger, he was surrounded by song up until he passed away. And even with his singing voice weakened for this last major recording, he made “Forever Young” a powerful performance the way he always made his songs powerful — by getting others to join in his song.
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(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
