Pete Seeger in a COMMERCIAL?????

You want me to delete my comment? Fine. You are obviously someone who doesn't take disagreement kindly.

Comment deleted.

Have fun. I'm done with this thread.

 

If not mentioned already, Pete quit the Weavers when the rest of the group voted to do a commercial. I love hearing Pete sing, even if it is in a commercial so I do not mind if Folkways or the family rakes in a few bucks.

 

I am so gratified to find others as outraged as i am over this devastating turn of events.. pete must be screaming and hollering from his grave.. he left the weavers, a hard decision to make, because they felt they had to capitulate to commerce... pete refused to til the day he died. i am determined to get to the bottom of how his legacy has been so terribly ripped off. if it's true that Walmart is responsible.. im not at all surprised, but HOW did they do it? i am so disturbed by this, i just can't believe it.

 

Cathy the story I have got is that the family licensed the song to Jackson Hewitt to raise some money for Smithsonian/Folkways. Jackson Hewitt has more than half of its offices in Wal Mart stores. They were happy to cross promote perhaps not realizing that the late Mr. Seeger was an opponent of Wal Mart in general. The family heard the ruckus, as did JH, and they changed the ad to make the offer a VISA card instead of a Wal Mart card. I consider that a small victory.

 

When I saw, and there IS another one...I don't remember for 'what,' Pete in the ad I LOLly and said, "I bet there's a grave with MUCH rotational friction right now!"
The Lennon TV ad made me wee eyebrow rise...now....I'm simply amused.
I've turned down money...do as I SAY.....not as I've done, take the cash, indeed!

 

What a thread. JamieC may not need to be reminded that one of his favorite artists, Phil Ochs, had some strong feelings about the best way to reach people at the time his career came to an end, for all practical purposes. I spent a long day and night with Phil the week after the infamous Carnegie Hall concert. He insisted most strenuously, over and over, that if you want to reach the masses with any message, you must do it in a way that they appreciate. Thus his turn to country and the gold suit. If Phil's health had not declined so suddenly and so rapidly, we probably would have seen many more country and rockabilly records from him, and maybe many songs licensed to advertisers in the mass market.

 

Phil would have loved to be in a commercial. Phil would have loved to be a movie star. I think it was in Marc Eliot's book that Jerry Moss said that in his many years no other artist was as meticulous about checking his sales and royalty statements as Phil. Phil was not like Pete Seeger in this regard.