I think folk music helps reinforce your sense of history. An old song makes you think of times gone by.

But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.

The danger with the internet is that you don't need to think about music, you just search for it and you find the answer. Singing used to be part of everyday life. Women sang while pounding corn. Men sang while paddling canoes.

Alan Lomax is the person who I think should be given major credit for what has been called the "Folk Song Revival." My father participated with him because my father was a musicologist and urged trained musicians to learn about "the vernacular."

It's been my belief that learning how to do something in your hometown is the most important thing.

Well, normally I’m against big things. I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things. Too many things can go wrong when they get big.” — Pete Seeger (on how he felt about attending his big 90th birthday bash last year)

Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties.