It was in High School in the Netherlands that I first “met” with the songs of Pete Seeger. I live in the Netherlands. But after one year my music teacher died. All I had was the songbook and no one to sing them with. In the meantime I started to collect his CDs.
Many many years later I met my wife and I told her about my love for the folksong, and she decided to by me a ukulele. My musical skills are very poor so learning to play the uke but I kept trying and trying. By accident I ran into a Sing Out magazine, and I learned that Pete always would reply to handwritten letters. So I wrote him a letter. And I told him how I tried to play the uke and how I succeeded, bit by bit. A few months later I received a postcard: the front was a handmade picture of a Japanese volcano and on the other side Pete wrote me a very personal message. I still have this postcard (I can make a picture and send it). Many many more years later I had the opportunity to go to a concert in New York with the Guthrie family: November 2012. That was the first and last time I ever saw my hero. Singing “Amazing Grace” and “Goodnight Irene” with this remarkable man in a full Carnegie Hall… He is always on my mind.