OUR HISTORY
Our involvement with Pete Seeger and some of the things we did as a result, music was only part of it.
Pete Seeger tribute photo collage by Richard Iceland
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This postcard from Pete Seeger is three months before he passed. He had just heard a song we wrote for an event called Run For Your Life about the re-licensing of the local nuclear power plant. I covered the phone number when I posted it on Facebook because that is still an active number in the house which his daughter lives in.
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Vinnie met Pete Seeger at the winter maintenance shed of the sloop Woody Guthrie in the early 80s. Mel met Pete through the Sojourner Truth cement boat project in the late 70s. She coordinated finishing the boat and caught Pete’s enthusiasm for sloop clubs. Mel and Vinnie each crewed for weeks with Pete as captain on the sloop Woody Guthrie playing music up and down the river. Mel went on to become second mate on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater in the mid 80s.
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For fifteen years they entertained on the Beacon shore for the Great Newburgh to Beacon Hudson River Swim for River Pool at Beacon, another Seeger inspired project. The first year of the Swim they plugged in and played in the bed of Pete’s electric truck. In gratitude for these experiences, they raise money for sloop maintenance through the Broad Old River 2 CD. In 2015 they produced a tribute to Pete in Lake Worth, FL featuring speakers and musicians from the Hudson River and Florida.
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Photo by Marlene Woodason
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Photo by Mary Poppiins
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Both are trained anthropologists, share Seeger’s love of history and over 40 years collected an archive. When they sold their house in NY to become full time Floridians the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Kingston was chosen to be the repository for their Hudson River Environmental Sloops Collection where it will be available to the public digitally and by appointment.
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Broad Old River Trailer – An Oral History of the Sloop Clearwater
Rik Palieri for the Songwriter’s Notebook episode 069
Co-produced with Mel and Vinnie
Rik Palieri for the Songwriter’s Notebook episode 069
Co-produced with Mel and Vinnie
Mel & Vinnie Music Folk Trailer
Black Door Films for Songs of Phil Ochs show
Black Door Films for Songs of Phil Ochs show