Folk Scene
May 1977
Record Review: "Fifty Sail on Newburgh Bay" by Jim Capaldi
About 40 years ago, a father took his 16 year old son on a trip through North Carolina where a festival featuring old-time Southern mountain music was being held. There, for the first time, the young man heard ancient ballads being sung and saw a banjo with five strings being played. He liked what he discovered so much that he decided that he was going to learn this music for himself. After traveling throughout America for a couple of years, absorbing new songs and playing techniques, he met other people in New York City who shared his musical interests. With three of them he formed the Almanac Singers, the first folksinging group north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Shortly afterward, World War II broke out and the young man, with the others, joined the Armed Forces. Because of his musical ability, he was assigned to Special Forces and stationed in the Pacific.
After the war, he returned to America full of plans for a revival of popular interest in folk music. To achieve this, he helped start two folk music magazines, the People’s Songs Bulletin and later, Sing Out!. He formed a professional quartet called the Weavers. He sang at large and small places all over the U.S. and the world. He wrote a classic instruction book for the five-string banjo and composed many outstanding songs among which are "If I Had a Hammer", "Where Have All the Flowers Gone, "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy." Because of his indefatigable efforts, folk music, instead of dying out, came to life again. Today millions all over the world associate folk music with that man — Pete Seeger.
Along with all of his other numerous activities, Seeger has found time to make numerous recordings; he appears on well over a hundred, solo or with others. The influence of these recordings on musicians is of inestimable value. Seeger’s newest album, recorded with the assistance of Ed Renehan, is called Fifty Sail on Newburgh Bay (Folkways FH 5237). It features a selection of songs and instrumentals connected with the Hudson River. Pete has lately devoted much time and effort to making people aware of the tragic destruction of what was once one of America’s most beautiful rivers.
The album opens with a song from the original inhabitants of the Hudson Valley, the American Indians. Next follows a group of five songs composed by Bill Gelke and Pete Seeger. Several of them, notably "The Burning of Kingston," "The Phoenix and the Rose" and "The Moon in the Pear Tree" are so good that they sound as if they were written in 1776 instead of 1976. A song familiar to everyone, "Yankee Doodle," is included because it was composed within a hundred feet of the banks of the Hudson.
Seeger has put a musical setting to a poem written by an early Dutch settler: "This is a land with milk and honey flowing / With healing herbs like thistles freely growing! / Where buds of Aaron’s rods are blowing / Oh, this is Eden!". The tune of "Old Dan Tucker" is used as a vehicle for "Big Bill Snyder," a ballad about a deputy who ran into trouble with Hudson tenant farmers. "Judson River Steamboat" is an interesting song which is seldom heard, as is the humorous "Knickerbocker Line." The record concludes with a beautiful new Seeger original, "Of Time and Rivers Flowing." It’s one of the best he’s ever written and, like all the best Seeger tunes, nearly impossible to listen to without singing along.
Pete Seeger has been a guiding force in folk music for so many years that sometimes we take him for granted. His accomplishments are many, but perhaps the most important one has been his inspiring countless "Johnny Appleseed, Jr.’s" to make their own kind of music. One thing is for sure — you can’t go wrong learning from Pete.