The Weavers - Folk Alliance International Lifetime Achievement Award 2013

[@TheBaylor22]

Great tribute to the greatest and most influential folk group of all time!!

[@sandramorey2529]

That was a lovely tribute! I grew up in a house that had the Weavers, Josh White, Paul Robeson, Sir Lancelot, Marion Anderson and 49th state Records of Auntie Genoa Keawe, and more. I have been performing& teaching these songs for new ears for 46 years and am proud to have marched with Ronnie Gilbert against the Vietnam War and the horrible situations in Central America in the 1990's. They did so much more than was credited here as time was short to tell everything they did. There are a bunch of wonderful films made about all of them you might want to track down. They sang the handwritten songs of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly & later, Malvina Reynolds, Phil Ochs, Merle Travis and many more. Ronnie concertized with Holly Near as well. As I write this I have to notice that a year ago I watched it and commented. Sorry to take up too much space.

[@scrapbagstudios]

great tribute to a wonderful group of musicians and singers. I was never lucky enough to see the Weavers live but I did make it to a Pete Seeger concert in the very early 60s and I will never forget that experience. Such an inspiration. He could have had that whole audience following him to anywhere he chose. All of the very missed.

[@Rick_Hoppe]

Thank you for this special on The Weavers. I’ve heard of them as early folk artists, but I’d never heard their music or knew of their importance. This was important!

[@robinengland5799]

Love the Weavers!! They are missed!

[@vicw1224]

My folks gave me tickets to the Carnegie Hall concert held on my Christmas Eve birthday. Best birthday present ever and from then on I was a "folkie" on my journey guitar in hand.

[@SHENworks]

Beautiful. I'm commenting here on what would have been Pete Seeger's 101th Birthday. Thank you Pete and sll the Weavers.

[@MICK1951]

A wonderful video tribute to the most important, influential, and courageous folk group of all time!

[@sandramorey2529]

I love this. The Weavers were among my first folk music loves. I also grew up with the music of Bash Kennet, Jean Ritchie, Peggy Seeger and the Almanac Singers, a labor based singing group. Also, Paul Robeson. I have led Sing Thing Family Singing for 45 years in the SF Bay Area teaching these wonderful songs and more to families here. Folk songs hold our history and are passed down from parent to child. Lots of people cover these songs, but we have to teach them to keep them alive.

[@serpentines6356]

@Sandra...Wow, good for you...Keep the music alive, and going! Good for you!

[@Labaron26]

As a teenager in 1949, I bought most of their records on 78 RPMs...

[@philipbuckley759]

it teaches us something, important....do what you love, and you will influence, others, to do the same.....

[@freewill1114]

Wonderful! I was a callow teenager and even younger when the Weavers started out. I started to get into folk music in the late 50's and early 60's, only recently learning that they pioneered just about everything I love about folk music, the instruments, the songs, and all the rest. Sadly, folk music faded out after the 60's, but I migrated to blue grass, mainly because I love the banjo so much. Then I found that I'd gone full circle, as much of blue grass covers the same ground as folk. Music is a wonderful universe; I just wish I had some talent....

[@phillipwindell3527]

i beg to disagree. Folk music was transformed but a fellow from Minnesota. Remember that concert when Bob switched to electric and the crowd went nuts booing? Well, Mr. Dylan led the way in transforming Folks Music -- as i believe he said at the time. "This is the music folks listen to" or something to that effect. And now we have Billy Strings, who plays it all.

[@burrokrat]

Excellent! It brought back a flood of childhood memories as well.

[@LewisBeck]

God bless you guys. You set the bar!

[@sandramorey2529]

What a lovely tribute! The music business took folk music and simplified it, gussied it up, changed the words and banished it to people like me who research and present music of the world in as close as I can get to what it stands for. It's still out there beyond the fund raisers for PBS, but you do have to look.

[@michaelheintz8853]

The Weavers were the best.

[@jo61nor]

Now they are all gone. And now is the time when we really would have needed them to keep the left together. I was born in 1963 so I did not get to experience them live. But their music, spirit and political engagement have always been with me. We still have Arlo Guthrie though.

[@teholympian]

I was born in 1964 and Traveled from Los Angeles to New York for their last concert in 2002. It was worth the trip.

[@sandramorey2529]

jo61nor: I met Pete when I was 3 and I sat on his lap. Woody was there, too, but I don't remember him. I never forgot Pete. I met Ronnie Gilbert in my 30's outside the Marine recruiters office in Berkeley. They were smart & their arrangements were fabulous. After Huac & the record companies ended their careers, they went on to reinvent themselves in the mold they wanted to be in. They and their predecessors, the Almanac Singers, shaped my entire life. I've been teaching traditional music to families since 1975. We are on Zoom these days.

[@jo61nor]

@@sandramorey2529 Thank you for the information, Sandra. I wish I had the opportunity to meet them as you did. One thing is for sure. We have their music and memory, and that is great

[@SandfordSmythe]

Someone said that these NYC folk singers were one of the few legacies of the Old Left that survived into the period of the New Left. The Old Left leadership didn't survive, and these is one of the reasons why the New Left went off the deep end.

[@bennyjazzful]

WOW WOW WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From a mad keen 74yo Aussie fan.

[@terryreeves4290]

Great fan of the Weavers,

[@Puppydoug]

I really enjoyed this tribute. Weaver influences mentioned in the vid included The Kingston Trio, The Clancy Brothers and The Quarrymen (later The Beatles) and Ronnie Gilbert influences mentioned included Mary Travers, Judy Collins, Joan Baez and Odetta. But also during the 1960s there was another major outfit which was VERY influenced by The Weavers: Judith Durham and The Seekers. They recorded many Weavers songs, in their own style, but it's almost impossible to not hear the similarities...3 guys with awesome harmonies and up front, a girl with one helluva voice. Weavers songs The Seekers recorded include Kumbaya, Gotta Travel On, When The Stars Begin To Fall, Lonesome Traveller, Sinner Man, If I Had A Hammer and This Land Is Your Land. Of course, The Seekers also produced top pop hits too, such as Georgy Girl and I'll Never Find Another You. Seeker Keith Potger, in The Seekers 50th Year book published in 2015 said "Tenor Pete Seeger's use of the 12-string guitar and banjo, baritone Fred Hellerman's 6-string rhythm guitar, Lee Hayes' resonant bass vocal register and Ronnie Gilbert's soaring lead voice gave The Weavers an unmistakeable sound. It provided The Seekers with a wonderful example of what could be accomplished with strong voices and acoustic instruments".

[@donaldzahnke1951]

I was a fan of the weavers

[@vinsamson8061]

Wonderful 👌🎉

[@ianwattsOfficial]

A wonderful video 👍💯😊

[@RichardKoenigsberg]

The greatest!

[@arikreed7931]

LOVE❤❤❤🎉

[@sandramorey2529]

And now a word about Cum By Yah! Mentioned in the narration. Yes, the weavers among others made it popular. It was an American "spiritual" which traveled to Afrrica & came back again. It was part of the Civil Rights Movement. Most comforting to those in jail for sitting in or trying to vote. When I think of Cum By Yah, I feel a gentle warmth in my heart. It wasn't used to make "nice" with the opposition. It is often ridiculed for being "toothless", but it was anything but. In fact all folk music is being ridiculed right now. It is the music of a very strong people with a very strong history. I continue to teach it and the values it represents. Do not use the phrase "Cum By Yah moment" .

[@hashachar70]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbaya

[@jimdecamp7204]

Goodnight Irene was number one on the charts the week I was born. It's a song about suicide. It argues the affirmative.

[@lindakennedy7762]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@o8thman812]

I've been educated...

[@jjhpor]

It would be very difficult to measure the immense damage to individual Americans and to our culture that has been inflicted over the years by self-serving anti-communism. Still today we hear decent people shouted down, insulted and maligned simply because they wish to live in a country where equal justice and equal opportunity is practiced as well as preached.

[@JennyWren333]

❤

[@gunterkrass259]

Where are the Weavers of today - of 2020/2021???

[@222sx02sws]

6 ft under

[@leolacasse6278]

will there ever be another ronnie gilbert? too bad she sacrificed her unique femininity to fat and a twisted latter day marriage.

[@hashachar70]

What a paternalistic, hateful, male chauvanist pig statement to make. Too bad you aren't 1/10th the human she was.

[@patriciafry8634]

Silly comment

[@benfrank1572]

great singers ... even if their politics stank

[@SandfordSmythe]

You left out the reality that they were Communists. I think it's time for the left to recognized its cultural heritage. Seeger made a career out of playing the innocent persecuted liberal, I'm sure he had his reasons then,. I have no problem now enjoying that crowd, including Woody, knowing that they swung too far left during the the stresses of the Depression era. And I do recognize the faults of the Communist Party.

[@RobHutten]

They were my kind of communists - rooted in labour causes and fighting for the underprivileged. Like a lot of North American communists of their time, they became rightly disillusioned with Stalinism once its horrors were revealed.

[@michaelhayden5264]

Did it really matter that they were "communists"? IMHO they were probably more correctly left-wing social Democrats. But overall they were SINGERS and today we are so lucky to hear their songs and music. RIP.

[@SandfordSmythe]

@@michaelhayden5264 Their art/singing were strongly tied to political and social issues, so their basic political beliefs matter. The communist term for this is "agitprop", if you're into lefty rhetoric. The Weavers did purposely tone down themselves because of the anti-red spirit of the time, and they did sing some non-political songs. Several of them were official members of the Communist Party and others were closely associated with it. [ Aaron J Leonard " The Folk Singers and the Bureau"]. This is not "left-wing social Democrats" They theoretically looked for a revolution and a Soviet regime like the USSR. But like I said before, this is all part of a rich cultural heritage. You're asking to enjoy Bob Dylan for the music.

[@iVenge]

Seeger got out of the party in the 40s, once he realised that the ideal was not the reality. Others hung about until after the crimes of Stalin were revealed.