Sloop John B (Bahamian folk song, covered by The Beach Boys and The Kingston Trio, among so many others)

[The Clearwater launches in Maine on May 17, 1969. From left: Maine Governor Kenneth Curtis, Clearwater Captain Allan Aunapu, and Pete Seeger... 😍 ]

Last Saturday I logged back on to Facebook for about 24 hours to watch the virtual South Florida Folk Festival.  During the running chat, my friend LisaL shared that Allan Aunapu, a long-time South Florida folk community friend/musician had been tragically killed in a bicycle accident the day before.  He would have been 80 years old next month... 💔

The first time I met Allan was over twenty years ago, when he came to one of my Broward Folk Club songswaps; I traditionally hosted June every year.  In strides this guy in tie-dyed overalls, with crazy Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd's character in Back to the Future) hair, twinkling eyes, a captivating grin, and joy that emanated from every pore.  Let's face it; every organization (church/book club/music gathering) has their share of wackadoos, and I just lovingly chalked him up to "one of us".  Off-shoot conversations revealed him to be the original captain of The Clearwater, Pete Seeger's sailing sloop.  Are you f*cking kidding me?!?

As if I weren't already charmed, when it was his turn, he sang Zombie Jamboree (one of my favorite songs that I'd heard covered by the a capella group Rockapella).  Had the good fortune to chat with him later, and was delighted to find out how intelligent he was.  He also had that rare gift of being engaging without flirty (well, maybe a little bit flirty... 😄 )

I was lucky to cross paths with Allan many times over the years, and he was of course in his glory for the various Pete Seeger birthday tributes/celebrations sponsored by/presented at the Labyrinth Cafe (the concert series I coordinated from 2005-2018)... still wearing those tie-dyed overalls, I might add!   Despite being a national celebrity, Allan shone as a local treasure, always lending his voice, spirit, and humor in cooperation and community.

Allan called me "darling young girl" and all his e-mails to me were signed "your fan".  He always said I was one of his favorite people, but I believe he told that to everyone, and I am sure he felt both were true.  He was most certainly one of *my* cherished peeps, and I will miss him very much... 💖

You can Google him, but here are some highlights:

Clearwater Mourns the Loss of First Sloop Captain, Allan Aunapu

Remembering Allan Aunapu, the first Captain of the sloop Clearwater

Sailing The Sloop With Seeger: A Local Remembers

First captain of Pete Seeger's sloop Clearwater, Allan Aunapu

Clearwater Captain Accused Of Taking Shower in Public

Pete Seeger at 100: How the Folk Legend Built a Sailboat to Help Revive the Hudson River

SONG:  Sloop John B (Bahamian folk song, covered by Pete Seeger/The Weavers, The Beach Boys, and The Kingston Trio, among so many others)

BOOK:  Hudson River Sloop CLEARWATER - The First Five Years: an experiment in social change by Joseph Haneti, Zhou Wenjing (Contributor), Mead Hill (Contributor), Photos courtesy of Hudson River Sloop Restoration (Contributor), special thanks: Hal Cohen (Contributor)

POEM(S):  My Bed Is a Boat by Robert Louis Stevenson

My bed is like a little boat;

Nurse helps me in when I embark;

She girds me in my sailor's coat

And starts me in the dark.

At night, I go on board and say

Good night to all my friends on shore;

I shut my eyes and sail away

And see and hear no more.

And sometimes things to bed I take,

As prudent sailors have to do;

Perhaps a slice of wedding cake,

Perhaps a toy or two.

All night across the dark we steer;

But when the day returns at last,

Safe in my room, beside the pier,

I find my vessel fast.

Boats by Cyril Wong

You and your photographs of boats;

that repeated metaphor for departure,

or simply the possibility of a voyage?

What you cannot tell me, you tell me

with a vessel and its single passenger,

eyes fixed on some sky-lit conclusion.

Set apart and starkly upon a canvas

of tractable waves, brought to still

by the trigger-click of your camera,

like the sound a key makes when it

releases the lock. Your heart became

that lock; these images are how you have

always articulated distance, a withdrawal.

Darling, there are just as many ways

of saying goodbye as there are ways

of letting you go. The boat is narrow

like the width of my heart after

impossible loss, cruel resignation;

this heart you ride in. Love, if this is how

you choose to leave me, let me let you.

QUOTE(S):  "I try to look at this music career thing as the means to an end. And really, at the end of it, I see myself on a sailboat, sailing off the edge of the world." ~ Michelle Shocked

"E.B. White's essays are the best things I've read about Maine - especially the one in which he's not sure if he can go out sailing any more in his sloop." ~ Nicholson Baker

How Can I Keep from Singing? (Robert Wadsworth Lowry)

Happy 90th Birthday, Pete Seeger!

Pete Seeger's 90th birthday will be a selfless celebration
5/1/2009
by Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY

NEW YORK — Three months after Bruce Springsteen persuaded Pete Seeger to sing This Land Is Your Land with him at President Obama's inaugural concert, they'll be back together on stage Sunday — on Seeger's 90th birthday.

A sold-out benefit concert at Madison Square Garden will celebrate Seeger, the folk singer/songwriter who was banished from commercial TV for 17 years.

Seeger says a party for 15,000 isn't his idea of a birthday celebration, even with more than 40 musicians, including Dave Matthews, Eddie Vedder and Arlo Guthrie, whose dad, Woody, taught Seeger how to jump freight trains 60 years ago.

But he agreed to it because it will benefit his Hudson River environmental group. Or, as Seeger puts it, "wooden boats don't last forever."

The boat is a 106-foot sloop, the Clearwater, a floating symbol for the group of the same name that Seeger started in 1966 when the Hudson was an open sewer.

It's healthier now, repopulated by eagles, shad and osprey. But, Seeger says, "a lot remains to be done," including "thousands of dollars of repairs to the boat."

Seeger, who says "small is beautiful," plans to remind the crowd: "It's not always the big things that make a difference, but all the small things done by people who don't get attention."
As the subject of three new books and an updated biography, Seeger says, "I've had too much publicity," even as he talks by phone to a reporter.

He says he's encouraged by Obama's willingness to experiment and "to remind us he can't do it all. We have to help."

He recalls how another president, Herbert Hoover, told Rudy Vallee: "If you can sing a song that makes people forget the Depression, I'll give you a medal."

Says Seeger: "Too many singers have been trying to get that medal."

He's the only star in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to discuss past membership in the Communist Party. His 1955 conviction was overturned on appeal in 1961, but Seeger's blacklisting lasted from 1950 to 1967. Even then, CBS censored his anti-Vietnam War allegory, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.

The man who wrote If I Had a Hammer and Turn, Turn, Turn and helped popularize We Shall Overcome plans to sing one solo Sunday — he won't say which one — and join some choruses.

Asked about being called "a saint" by Bob Dylan, he laughs. "What a terrible thing to call someone. I've made a lot of foolish mistakes over the years."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clay Eals, Steve Goodman's biographer (Facing The Music), posted a note to the FolkDJ list, drawing attention to the fact that there are going to be MANY celebrations for Pete on May 3. Clay says, "Spurred by the Internet proliferation of an idea advanced by Marie Goonan, a Seeger enthusiast from Melbourne, Australia, a grassroots movement has taken hold to schedule concerts all over the world on May 3, Seeger's 90th, to pay tribute to the legendary musician and humanitarian. Marie's apt and catchy suggestion for a theme for these shows is "For Pete's Sake: Sing!" - he provided a partial list of events below (shows keep getting added every day):

Seattle, WA

Huntington, NY

Telkwa, BC

Ithaca, NY

Richmond, VA

Rockville, MD

Boston, MA

Sherborn, MA

Bellingham, WA

Knoxville, TN

Dayton, OH

Australia

Scotland

You can also sign the petition to encourage Pete Seeger's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize here...

BoyHowdy at Cover Lay Down just posted a wonderful essay, complete with music links, here...

SONG: How Can I Keep from Singing? by Robert Wadsworth Lowry (re-written by Pete Seeger, backstory here...)

BOOK: The Hudson: An Illustrated Guide to the Living River by Stephen P. Stanne, Roger G. Panetta, Brian E. Forist

POEM: Music by Anne Porter

When I was a child

I once sat sobbing on the floor

Beside my mother's piano

As she played and sang

For there was in her singing

A shy yet solemn glory

My smallness could not hold

And when I was asked

Why I was crying

I had no words for it

I only shook my head

And went on crying

Why is it that music

At its most beautiful

Opens a wound in us

An ache a desolation

Deep as a homesickness

For some far-off

And half-forgotten country

I've never understood

Why this is so

But there's an ancient legend

From the other side of the world

That gives away the secret

Of this mysterious sorrow

For centuries on centuries

We have been wandering

But we were made for Paradise

As deer for the forest

And when music comes to us

With its heavenly beauty

It brings us desolation

For when we hear it

We half remember

That lost native country

We dimly remember the fields

Their fragrant windswept clover

The birdsongs in the orchards

The wild white violets in the moss

By the transparent streams

And shining at the heart of it

Is the longed-for beauty

Of the One who waits for us

Who will always wait for us

In those radiant meadows

Yet also came to live with us

And wanders where we wander.

QUOTE(S): "As long as we live, there is never enough singing." ~ Martin Luther

"The total person sings not just the vocal chords." ~ Esther Broner

"It was his nature to blossom into song, as it is a tree's to leaf itself in April." ~ Alexander Smith

"Faith and joy are the ascensive forces of song." ~ Edmund Clarence Stedman

"Life is a song. Love is the music." ~ Author Unknown

My Rainbow Race (Pete Seeger)

So... our Pete Seeger 90th Birthday Celebration yesterday was a total success - below is what I posted to our local folk discussion list:

Thanks so much to Tony Thomas, David Engels and Ellen Bukstel for weighing in on today's Pete Seeger 90th Birthday Celebration - I pulled into my driveway about 10 p.m., after breaking down (the church, not mentally!)... cleaning up and driving a few people home...

Let me first thank everyone for their patience, their enthusiasm and their willingness to stay... long after our 2-hour projected concert time frame came and went - who knew we'd end up with anywhere near that many people?!? (about 300, by our count). It was a loaves-and-fishes moment - just when you didn't think we'd find any more chairs... or any more room to put them... we did (magic... on so many levels!)...

Each and every performer (Allan Aunapu, Amy Carol Webb, Arlene Boumel, Bob Singer, Ellen Bukstel, Jack Lieberman, Matthew Sabatella, Ray DelPapa, Rob Koppelman, Rod MacDonald, Rudy Delgado, South Florida Raging Grannies, South Florida Solidarity Singers, Vanessa Gilyard and Tony Thomas) was prepared and professional... not to mention inspiring - as I said from the stage, they donated their time, treasure and talent to help make this event happen. We are incredibly lucky to have such gifted artists "in our own backyard" - I do confess to weeping during We Shall Overcome, as everyone in the room stood up, linked arms, swayed and sang so beautifully together...

Additional thanks to the sponsors, who brought literature and petitions and reminded us of Pete's ongoing legacy: of ecology, of activism, of the power of hope - they donated some great raffle prizes too!

After expenses (minimal), we made $1606 (from the gate, raffle ticket sales and caterer donation), which was split 50/50 between the Clearwater Next Generation Legacy Project and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ft. Lauderdale, our gracious hosts for the afternoon - also... many people stayed afterwards to eat cake, watch Allan's film... and/or participate in the song circle... :-)

It was a pleasure working with the Birthday Committee (Bob and Patty Bender, Vicki Ryder, Virginia Anderson, Dan Isaacson, and Ray DelPapa)...and I'm proud of ALL of us for organizing, facilitating and supporting such a community-building event - the Power of Song indeed!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I meant to post this last week... but you can hear our radio interview that aired Sunday, April 19 (with Rod MacDonald, Allan Aunapu, Vicki Ryder and myself) here...

SONG: My Rainbow Race by Pete Seeger

BOOK(S): The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger by Alec Wilkinson

"To Everything There is a Season": Pete Seeger and the Power of Song by Allan M. Winkler

How Can I Keep from Singing?: The Ballad of Pete Seeger by David King Dunaway

POEM: The Spring by Delmore Schwartz

(After Rilke)

Spring has returned! Everything has returned!

The earth, just like a schoolgirl, memorizes

Poems, so many poems. ... Look, she has learned

So many famous poems, she has earned so many prizes!

Teacher was strict. We delighted in the white

Of the old man's beard, bright like the snows:

Now we may ask which names are wrong, or right

For "blue," for "apple," for "ripe." She knows, she knows!

Lucky earth, let out of school, now you must play

Hide-and-seek with all the children every day:

You must hide that we may seek you: we will! We will!

The happiest child will hold you. She knows all the things

You taught her: the word for "hope," and for "believe,"

Are still upon her tongue. She sings and sings and sings.

QUOTE: "There is hope for the world." ~ Pete Seeger

Turn! Turn! Turn! (Pete Seeger)

Happy Birthday, Dar Williams!

My salvation/salvage/salve (see poem below) is the music... and Dar is a big part of that - blessings on the day she was born, 42 years ago... :-)

We used to coordinate projects/activities through the Dar-list for her birthday, which can be seen here and here - this year nothing official was organized... but here is my contribution:

In April 1998, when I was a fairly new fan, Dar appeared on the Conan O'Brien show with Pete Seeger, who I didn't know much about at all - who knew that, eleven years later, I'd be helping to coordinate a Pete Seeger 90th Birthday Celebration in South Florida, with local musicians and local nationally-touring performers... including a friend who was Pete's first captain of The Clearwater?!?

This has turned into a very big deal and today, along with three other participants, I appeared on our Folk and Acoustic Show to promote the event (and even asked the DJ to play Dar's cover, with Toshi Reagon, of Pete's Oh, Had I a Golden Thread) - our venue seats about 250, and we are now sweating the proverbial bullets that we will have enough space for everyone!

And... coming full circle, Dar is performing at the Pete Seeger celebration in Madison Square Garden - birthday wishes abound... :-)

The poem below also makes me think of Dar's song Arrival: "that's when you knew this world can't be saved, only discovered" - what an amazing lyric...

SONG: Turn! Turn! Turn! by Pete Seeger

BOOK: Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution by Richie Unterberger

POEM: Salvation by Lynn Ungar

By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part -- the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?

Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven't you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything,
makes everything
beautiful, without exception?

QUOTE: "Because time itself is like a spiral, something special happens on your birthday each year: The same energy that God invested in you at birth is present once again." ~ Menachem Mendel Schneerson

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy (Pete Seeger)

From the Writer's Almanac: Today is Memorial Day, first observed on this day in 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery, where members of both the Union and Confederate Armies were buried. It was the idea of Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, who said he was creating Memorial Day, "For the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land."

SONG: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy by Pete Seeger

BOOK: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

POEM: To the Congress of the United States, Entering Its Third Century by Howard Nemerov

because reverence has never been america's thing,
this verse in your honor will not begin "o thou."
but the great respect our country has to give
may you all continue to deserve, and have.

* * *

here at the fulcrum of us all,
the feather of truth against the soul
is weighed, and had better be found to balance
lest our enterprise collapse in silence.

for here the million varying wills
get melted down, get hammered out
until the movie's reduced to stills
that tell us what the law's about.

conflict's endemic in the mind:
your job's to hear it in the wind
and compass it in opposites,
and bring the antagonists by your wits

to being one, and that the law
thenceforth, until you change your minds
against and with the shifting winds
that this and that way blow the straw.

so it's a republic, as Franklin said,
if you can keep it; and we did
thus far, and hope to keep our quarrel
funny and just. though with this moral:—

praise without end for the go-ahead zeal
of whoever it was invented the wheel;
but never a word for the poor soul's sake
that thought ahead, and invented the brake.

QUOTE: "War does not determine who is right but who is left."