Seeger & Ansonia

Last week my wife Deni, a former protege of the late folksinger Phil Ochs and 60s activist turned mother-professional, begged me to try to get tickets to Pete Seeger's 90th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden.

I sent a fax to the organizers asking to pay for tickets and noting that Deni had been friends with the late Harold Leventhal, the manager of Woody Guthrie and Pete. And that Pete had encouraged me early in my political career, sending a long hand-written endorsement in 1986, complete with his handwritten image of a banjo that was his "signature."

Scored 'em. We went.

A sold-out Garden on Sunday May 3 saw immense variety in the audience. There were old and young, black and white and brown (although most seemed to look like the 2009 Arlo Guthrie, frozen as a kid in our minds while now looking like his grandfather), reflecting Pete's universal and humanistic appeal.

A bit too many acts hurried on and off the stage for my taste but the evening was so special at least because of Joan Baez's haunting "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" and Richie Havens's flawless reprise of "Freedom/Motherless Child" performed 40 years before at Woodstock (complete with a concluding and astonishing little jig and guitar twirl!).

The highlight was not music but the moments that Seeger was on stage. He told the amazing story of "Amazing Grace," written by one John Newton in the mid-1700s, after he had been a slave ship owner, a story of redemption from selling people to writing a classic religious hymn. And then Pete led everyone in singing that song, complete with a voice that sounded no words at times but reminded us that "There's no such thing as a wrong note so long as you're singing it." Which I took personally since I have an awful singing voice but belted it out as loudly as any around me.

After 3 1/2 hours and 40 or so acts on and off the stage, it was 8:30 and still no Bruce Springsteen, the promised closing performer. Yet I was due at the Ansonia Democrats annual dinner uptown at 8:30. "Stay a little longer" Deni kept imploring...and I did. But at 8:50 I recalled Tip O'Neill's axiom that "all politics is local" and left for Ansonia (Springsteen arrived at 9p), my respite from the campaign and my journey on memory lane over.