Explore the Audiobook: Disk 1   Disk 2

In Covered Wagon, the story that opens this collection, Pete Seeger tells of his parents traveling through rural America to bring classical music to the people, only to find that country folk have rich musical traditions of their own. This watershed experience had a radical influence on the entire Seeger family, each of whom would dedicate the rest of their lives to preserving these traditions and bringing them to a wider public.

For Pete, it wasn’t just the music that attracted him, but the power music had to create community. He went beyond traditional and localized genres and sought out the music that could speak most directly, potently, and lastingly to a global community about our core humanity. So strong is his belief in music as a universal carrier of memory, motivation, and spirit; that he is most satisfied when songs are shared, passed along and transformed to suit present need.

Pete Seeger: The Storm King grew organically from a series of conversations between Seeger and his younger collaborator, percussionist and producer Jeff Haynes, during the recording sessions for the Grammy Award-winning Tomorrow’s Children, recorded at Haynes’ home studio in Beacon, NY. Pete would arrive early for the sessions and regale Haynes with his stories, highly burnished through years of retelling and reflection. Haynes soon realized that he was witnessing the unfolding of a cultural treasure that not only needed to be recorded and preserved, but also propagated as widely as possible.

Haynes’ imagination resonated intuitively with Seeger’s stories, creating a sound world that matches the panoramic sweep of Pete’s voice. As the project progressed, artists from all walks of musical life came forward to participate. The Storm King is full of marvelous and unexpected confluences and connections across geographical and historical time zones, as if Seeger is being answered by the vast collective unconscious from which his great repertoire was born.

Here we have distillations of Pete Seeger’s wisdom, humor, patience and insight from a lifetime of experience, nestled among the harmonies and rhythms of his musical descendants, transformed into jewels of shared memory to be treasured for years to come.

Timothy Hill
(composer, singer)