Search - Pete Seeger :: Tomorrow's Children

On Tomorrow's Children, his first new studio album since the 2008 Grammy-winning At 89, the indomitable 91-year-old Pete Seeger continues his life's work of communication and inspiration to action. This CD is like a joyful town picnic featuring Pete as a global village elder, assembling his neighbors to appreciate their past and present, to celebrate their triumphs against environmental threats, to swap old and new stories, to appreciate the natural glories surrounding them and to make sure that the following generations "carry it on" - the unifying spirit and power of music, the "folk process" of adapting or writing songs to respond to current situations. The 19 newly recorded songs on Tomorrow's Children testify to Seeger's long-held credo, "Think globally, act locally." Once considered a controversial outsider by some of the residents of his adopted hometown of Beacon, NY, the international icon of sociopolitical activism has since involved himself in local activities and issues and became accepted as a neighbor. His concern about the heavily polluted Hudson River alongside Beacon inspired the construction of the Sloop Clearwater, which sails the Hudson spreading environmental education and awareness. When a local fourth-grade teacher invited Clearwater educator and singer Dan Einbender to teach her students about the Hudson, class sessions became songfests, and where there are songs, there's Pete. He became a regular visitor to the kids' classroom in 2007. These gatherings led to a series of recordings by Pete, Dan, musician/CD co-producer (with Dan) David Bernz, the children (known as "The Rivertown Kids"), as well as adult musicians, high schoolers and grammar school percussion students. The result of such a disparate musical cast is a delight to the ears. Pete is on every track of Tomorrow's Children, singing, storytelling, playing banjo and 12-string guitar, but he shares the studio spotlight with all of his guests. Their voices, instruments and the songs they have adopted or adapted are woven into a colorful quilt depicting our nation's history ("Take It from Dr. King," the tribute to Pete's fellow civil rights warrior performed on the "Late Night with David Letterman" show; the possibilities of an ecologically clean world (the newly co-written Seeger song "Solartopia" featuring guest vocalist Dar Williams), and the natural beauty worth preserving. Perhaps most importantly, Tomorrow's Children contains songs of empowerment and cooperation adapted or written by the kids themselves such as "We Sing Out" ("...so our voices can be heard"), an updated version of the old gospel and union song "We Shall Not Be Moved," and a set of new verses to Seeger's Biblically-inspired standard, "Turn, Turn, Turn," added for the children by Pete's wife, Toshi.