When I was a young boy, about 6 years old, my mother and father took my brother and I down to Flatbush Avenue in downtown Brooklyn to the Vim store. They bought a large upright radio that was bigger than I was and even had a record player. When the radio arrived and was plugged in, I stationed myself in front of the speakers. We didn't have a television at all, and the old radio had been broken for so long that I can't ever remember listening to it.
The first song I ever heard was "Goodnight, Irene" by the Weavers and for days after that I would plead with my mother to turn the radio on and I would wait, sometimes for hours, to hear that song another time.
I was never the same again. Music, especially folk music became my life and remains so to this day. I can't imagine life without music. It would be easier for me to stop breathing than to give it up.
Pete Seeger will be 87 years old this coming May 3rd. Pete was one of "those Weavers" who spun their magic into my impressionable ears. I'm going to send Pete a note and I hope all of you who love his music do so also. Just send it to Pete Seeger, Beacon N.Y. 12508. I'm sure everyone in Beacon knows where Pete lives.
Life is like a chain, and we're all links from the past to the future. There was Woody and then Pete and then Dylan then Springsteen. And so it all comes around in a new album just released today by Bruce: "We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions"
And so the Great Mandala rolls on as it has since time began.
enigma 1: something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained; 2: One that is puzzling, ambiguous, or inexplicable. 3: A dark, obscure, or inexplicable saying; a riddle; a statement, the hidden meaning of which is to be discovered or guessed.
