Word: banjo
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Folk songs are too big to be tied down to one meaning. A striking example was Seeger's opening selection, a simple little banjo piece called Little Birdie, which he collected from Coon Creek, Kentucky...
...lanky banjo plucker brought the evening to its emotional climax with a version of "Wasn't That a Time" when he declared (in song) that everything in my life attests to my loyalty...
...most agreeable and freest entertainments in Manhattan is, or was, to wander down to Washington Square in Greenwich Village on a warm Sunday afternoon and listen to the folk singers. There, on a good Sunday, ten or a dozen guitarists and banjo pickers will be roosting around the edge of a big, ugly fountain playing loudly or softly according to confidence and competition. The songs are love ballads and louder lieder, seditious of maidenly morals and bankerly riches (not because the minstrels hate capitalists or, in some cases, like maidens, but merely because good ballads in praise of chastity...
...Seeger sang them today, accompanying himself on his famed five-string banjo. He refused to interpret their political meaning, saying, "It is wrong to pin specific meanings to works of art." He describes his function as a catalyst, "bringing the songs to the people and letting them work their magic...
...first realized his ideal with the Harvard Glee Club. When the group asked him to be their "coach" in 1912, it was tied to the Banjo and Mandolin Clubs, with whom they performed "Mrs. Casey's Boarding House" and "The Bulldog on the Bank," reflecting the ribald good-fellowism and narrow exclusiveness of the time...