Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest on Youtube

September 22, 2009 10:40 AM

Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest on Youtube.Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest had a short run (38 episodes) in the mid '60s, but it included many great folk artists. If you love folk, just click here and start sampling. Where else will you find Kim Loy Wong & the Hi-Landers Steel Band performing "When the Saints Go Marching In", or the Mamou Cajun Band, or Paul Draper's surreal dance improvisation to "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around", or Theodore Bikel and Rashid Hussain singing "Peace"?
posted by shetterly (9 comments total)

you can never get too much Pete!

I saw him perform in Ann Arbor last year, it is the most cherished concert memory I have!
posted by HuronBob at 10:43 AM on September 22

Oh, I remember..... yes, I survived the Great Folk Scare of the 60's. Still bear the scars. Still play a 1949 Martin 000-18 that I bought in a pawn shop in Little Rock, Arkansas for $65... learned to play it listening to these folks

it ain't fer sale.
posted by drhydro at 11:31 AM on September 22

And it was one of the great pleasures of my life to see him performing this last January in front of the Capitol. 90 years old- and still mesmerizing a crowd- and WHAT a crowd!! Finally, just exactly where he should have been welcomed many years ago.
posted by drhydro at 11:39 AM on September 22

My favorite Rainbow Quest performance: the Pennywhistlers doing Portland Town
posted by neroli at 11:44 AM on September 22

And Malvina Reynolds is such a hoot! If you've never seen her, check out her prescient, decades-before-Michael Pollan song The New Restaurant.
posted by neroli at 11:56 AM on September 22

Sorry, wrong link.
posted by neroli at 11:57 AM on September 22

I was JUST telling a friend today about the pilled-up Johnny Cash trying to not twitch his way RIGHT OFF THE SCREEN on Pete's show, with June, prior to their being publicly a couple. It's fantastic.
posted by Richat at 12:37 PM on September 22

I just saw Pete Seeger perform at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco two nights ago. I was bracing myself for a geriatric experience since the guy is 90. But Pete Seeger is still 19 at heart. What a show.

Thanks for this post!
posted by telstar at 4:03 PM on September 22

Richat: You mean like this (Cash was pretty much the first thing that sprung to mind when I saw "Rainbow Quest" on the Blue.)
posted by entropicamericana at 10:28 PM on September 22