house concerts and 21st century touring

For several years, its been a “tradition” for Pete Seeger to do a “Thanksgiving” concert at Carnegie Hall. His longtime friend and manager, Harold Leventhal had jokingly dubbed it the “Pete Seeger Benefit so that I can make sure you can pay your bills,” since so many of Pete’s public appearances were a benefit for one cause or another. One such example was the environmental workboat that Pete had commissioned in 1969, named the “Clearwater. 

Due to the efforts of Pete and his wife of 67 years, Toshi, the beautiful Hudson River is again producing edible fish for the first time in several years. The river had been decimated by the industrial pollution allowed by the various so-called “regulatory” agencies. One of the ancillary by-products of the good ship Clearwater was a group of dedicated singer-songwriter-instrumentalists of various talents, such as Don McLean, Lorre Wyatt, Rick Nestler, Rik Palieri, Fred Starner, Matt Cartsonis, Bob Killian, and others too numerous to mention. These artists would perform at a number of fund-raising events throughout the year, to keep this 106-ft. sailing workshop and its programs afloat. 

However, one of the inherent problems of this venture was the fact that Pete left the logistics of such things as promotion, advertising and the day-to-day mechanics of running the physical “corporate” matters to its elected Board, so that he would be free to be “Pete” and attract the people to hear the “message” of the Clearwater. 

Unfortunately, many of the groups that would ask Pete to appear at one of their fund-”raisers” would be so ineffective at promoting their event, that after driving somewhere, he’d find that he almost outnumbered the “audience” all by himself! This is where Toshi had a great idea! Let this group of assorted performers, that had been dubbed “the Hudson River Sloop Singers”, perform at all of these events, not advertising in advance which would feature Pete at some point, thereby increasing the attendance for ALL, since the chance of Pete’s appearance was almost like a lottery.

My personal 15-minutes of fame occurred at Thanksgiving ‘82, when nearly 100 of us “Sloopsingers” [which after sufficient quantities of "grog", was pronounced "Soupslingers"] had purchased the best seats in Carnegie Hall and sprawled out in the first couple of rows. As the hall reached capacity, Toshi once again had a great idea! She took the 100 or so of us from our birds-eye view of the stage… and put us on folding chairs behind Pete ON STAGE! For many of us, this was the equivilant of “dying and going to Heaven” - PLAYING CARNEGIE HALL WITH PETE SEEGER! 

Toshi then re-sold OUR seats to the overflow crowd that would have otherwise been turned away! She even let us keep our assorted instruments and scattered microphones and stands throughout the group! THIS WAS IT!! We formed little groups, as we’d become accustomed to doing in performance up and down the Hudson; and probably half of us had brought small tape recorders for taping Pete’s show, that were now being used to capture our individual contribution to the evening’s festivities! The event went off as planned, flawless in every detail, thanks to the behind-the-scenes choreography by Hal Leventhal and of course, Toshi!

When it was all over and done; and we huddled in groups to hear our individual tapes, remarking how different the harmonies sounded, depending upon which group you’d wound up in… patting ourselves on the back, saying how lucky THAT audience had been, to have had the benefit of the additional 100-or-so-voice “choir” adding their angelic warbling to Pete’s “signature sound”, until Toshi let the proverbial “other shoe drop - she hadn’t given us “live microphones!” So while the audience SAW us flailing away and having a good time, while “helping Pete”, none of it reached their ears! 

Brings to mind the old joke…“Mister, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?”…”Practice, kid…Practice”!!

Read more letters from Ned.

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