And the mystery player is …

{child_byline}By PATRICK WEBB

For Coast Weekend{/child_byline}

The most unlikely guest banjo player in the history of Astoria music will perform at the “Pete Seeger 100th Birthday Tribute Concert and Singalong” May 4.

Keith Clark.

When the world-traveled conductor and classical music teacher, learned of the second event to commemorate Seeger’s contribution to music, he contacted organizers and offered to join them.

And he will play a long neck, 5-string that Seeger had made for him.

“I haven’t practiced for nearly 40 years!” Clark confessed. “I was so involved in all this kind of music until midway through college when I went the opposite direction.”

He will bring with him stories of his childhood, playing with his father, also named Keith, who was good friends with Pete Seeger and his wife, Toshi.

The Clarks lived on farm acreage in Ottawa, Illinois, southwest of Chicago. His father built a theater for public performances in a barn, giving artists blacklisted during the McCarthy era and African-American musicians a venue.

“He was often a guest in our house, performed a lot in my Dad’s theater where they often performed and wrote songs together,” Clark recalled. He recalled Seeger with admiration. “There was no artifice. What you saw was what he was. There was no phoniness or commercialism.

“He was a powerful presence in my childhood, as you can imagine, and although my musical path took a different direction, I count him as a great influence — he showed me what commitment and sincerity are in life as well as music.”

Home movies of Seeger appear on his performance DVDs. Some, featuring blues-folk performer Sonny Terry and his nephew, blues harmonica player J.C. Burris, were shot at the Clark family farmhouse.

“I didn’t know they were famous people,” Clark said, “They were just friends of my father.”

Banjo

Clark said Seeger made him a banjo around the time he was in eighth grade.

“Long neck 5-strings weren’t readily available back then, so Pete had Philadelphia luthier Sidney Locker make it for me,” he said. “That has hung on my wall for 30 to 40 years. It has been a wall ornament. It is one of my fondest possessions.

“Now I am trying to play it and turn it back into a musical instrument. Anyone who says that playing an instrument is like riding a bicycle is wrong!”

Clark will perform Lee Hays’ song “Wasn’t That A Time,” a song closely associated with the anti-communist controversy about Seeger which led to a court conviction and accusations of contempt of the U.S. Congress.

“It is the song that helped get Pete in trouble at trial,” said Clark. “It maybe is needed even more today.”

‘Stoked’

Clark said Seeger’s father, Charles, a pioneer in ethno-musicology, was one of his teachers at UCLA. He laughed, recalling stories of Seeger’s mother Constance, a concert violinist who taught at Juilliard. “She had high hopes of him becoming a concert violinist, too, but he said he just wanted to have fun.”

Joseph Stevenson, who is organizing the May 4 Seeger birthday event with Kit Ketcham, is delighted at Clark’s involvement. “It gets me excited to have somebody like that in the show,” Stevenson said. “This has really stoked a fire in him.”

Editor’s note: for a longer version of this interview, log on to www.coastweekend.com

{child_related_content}{child_related_content_item}{child_related_content_style}Pull Quote{/child_related_content_style}{child_related_content_title}Pull Quote{/child_related_content_title}{child_related_content_content}

‘The wars are long, the peace is frail, the madmen come again.

There is no freedom in a land where fear and hate prevail.’

— “Wasn’t That A Time”

Lee Hays song often performed by Pete Seeger

{/child_related_content_content}{/child_related_content_item}{/child_related_content}

‘The wars are long, the peace is frail, the madmen come again.

There is no freedom in a land where fear and hate prevail.’

— “Wasn’t That A Time”

Lee Hays song often performed by Pete Seeger