In 2002 WNYC's Steve Post celebrated Pete Seeger's 84th birthday with a double show featuring the legendary singer in conversation and song. We present selections from those conversations and the original liner notes (below) from the limited-release CD that ensued the following year, entitled Little by Little.

PERHAPS NO OTHER SINGLE PERSON HAS DONE MORE TO preserve the heritage of folk music and to pass it down to generations of young people than has Pete Seeger. / I have had the good fortune to meet Pete Seeger several times through the years, but it was not until last spring, on the occasion of his 84th birthday, that I had the opportunity to get him into a studio and interview him. I was surprised when he showed up carrying his banjo, and I was delighted that he played and sang for much of the hour I spent with him. / That hour was a highlight of my generally low-lit life. And these two CDs preserve the experience and provide a sketch—in music and conversation—of the man, his life, and his work. / The first CD deals with Pete's early years on the folk scene from the time he dropped out of Harvard to accompany Alan Lomax on a field recording trip through the American south, to his travels with Woody Guthrie, and his association with first the Almanac Singers and later The Weavers. Pete discusses his lifelong commitment to social activism and how he developed "cultural guerilla tactics" to counter McCarthyism's attack on his career and his art. This CD also contains a rare recording of my producer and me singing along with Seeger on his new composition, "Take It From Dr. King." (The reason for the rarity of the occasion will be self-evident.) / This CD concludes with Pete reciting—from memory—a poem that sums up much of Pete's philosophy: "The Republic of Conscience," by Seamus Heaney. / The second CD continues to examine the marriage of art and politics that forms Seeger's social activism. He relates his experience at a Paul Robeson concert in 1949 in Peekskill, New York, when he and his wife, Toshi, barely escaped a stone-throwing mob, as his most formative political experience. Pete used some of the stones that smashed into his car to build the fireplace in his home, and the song, "Hold the Line," which he wrote with Lee Hays, commemorated the attack. Although Pete was always there, his music and activism first had an impact on people of my generation during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and the Vietnam War. He discusses the role of music in the struggles of the 60's and segues into a discussion of his later work on behalf of the environment. But it was in response to my question as to what has sustained him in the face of many political setbacks that Pete demonstrated a deep faith in the unprovability of human society. His parting words to us express both his personal determination and summarize his moral philosophy: "Well, you keep on keepin' on."

I should be so lucky.

Steve Post September 2003

PRODUCER FRANK MILLSPAUGH / ENGINEER GEORGE EDWARDS / RECORDING ENGINEER IRENE TRUDEL / CONSULTANTS EDWARD HABER & LAURA ROSENBERG /