![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It was Saint Pete who survived and inspired, who kept fighting the good fight, who kept singing ‘We Shall Overcome’. The same could be said for Pete Seeger, Saint Pete, who kept the strand of social protest in American folk music alive, long after others had passed away or given up on the struggle. For it was Saint Peter, after all, who kept the story going, who progressed the narrative, spreading Christian thought – for better or worse – long after others at the table perished. Yet if we look to the figure of Saint Peter in this Christian iconography, we find a comparative figure for arguably the defining voice in the grand narrative of twentieth-century folk music Pete Seeger. At the centre of the table is Woody Guthrie – part man, part mythological construct of hard times and the open road – with disciples seated near of varying importance, be they Huddie ‘Lead Belly’ Ledbetter, Cisco Huston, Josh White, Alan Lomax, Joan Baez, or Bob Dylan. An understanding of the grand narrative of twentieth-century American folk music and its engagement with social protest can be best illustrated by adopting a table plan akin to that of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’. ![]()
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