Let Your Voice Be Heard: The Life and Times of Pete Seeger by Anita Silvey (review)

In this slim, tightly focused biography, Silvey traces the life of folksinger Peter Seeger, starting with his stumbling efforts to find work worth turning into a career (Harvard wasn’t the right path, and neither painting nor journalism was the right job) and his Depression years efforts to keep himself fed while finding his musical voice. It then moves to his glory days with the singing group the Weavers and his bitter confrontation with the House Un-American Activities Committee and goes on to his role as musician/activist in the civil rights and ecology movements. It’s a lot to pack into a scant ninety pages, but Silvey keeps the narrative lean and smooth, drawing all dialogue directly from Seeger’s own accounts and adding enough context for readers to understand how a performer so beloved by audiences could fall afoul of Congress. With an active career of public performance and civic engagement that bridged two centuries, Seeger is an ideal subject through which to focalize many social and political themes of the twentieth century, and the brevity of this title, along with its notes and resources, make it an excellent choice for reading aloud and discussing in American history classes. Just add the music.