Stereo Review
September 1978
PETE SEEGER: The Essential Pete Seeger.
Pete Seeger (vocals, banjo, guitar).
VANGUARD VSD 97/8 two discs
Performance: Beautiful
Recording: Very good
Pete Seeger says he is getting old, but he still sounds as young as ever. His lack of affectation and the seeming artlessness of his art still radiate appeal, even when one grows weary of his attachment to simplistic solutions for our political problems and his almost too dogged devotion to the purity of our water supply. In this two-record set, compiled by Vanguard from old recordings, Seeger does not sing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, and includes only one song about a union man, but he does do more than justice to songs made famous by Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and other colleagues, as well as his own deservedly famous antiwar song Where Have All the Flowers Gone? He also performs songs from Indonesia and the Spanish Civil War. The first record is drawn from a live performance of indeterminate age, with Pete chatting away genially between numbers; the second has been assembled from tapes made in recording studios. It’s all vintage Seeger and well worth hearing. A text would have been helpful, but the space is given over to "A Conversation with Pete Seeger" in which he talks of his imminent retirement. Perish the thought. P.K.