Portland Press Herald
He inspired a coast-based steel band, helped write workers’ songs and made music fun for kids.
Maine, USA - In the fall of 1954, Pete Seeger began his long-running column “Appleseeds” in Sing Out! Magazine. He dedicated it to “the thousands of boys and girls who today are using their guitars and their songs to plant the seeds of a better tomorrow in the homes across our land.”
He was indeed a planter of seeds, seeds that germinated as individuals and small groups with backbone and heart.
....Pete sowed seeds in Maine. In 1956, he went to Trinidad and saw that street musicians had turned junked oil drums into musical instruments. Impressed (“No other instrument can make itself heard so clearly above the hubbub of a noisy crowd”), he created an instruction manual with engineer-quality drawings detailing how to make every instrument in a steel band.
Twenty years later, Carl Chase, a teacher from Brooksville, Maine, happened across the manual. Intrigued, he found an oil barrel at the dump, rolled it onto his back porch and hammered out the tenor pan. On fire, he banged out the rest of the instruments and recruited his neighbors to form a band to play for arriving tourist boats at the town landing.
That was the beginning of the renowned Atlantic Clarion Steel Band, which Carl still leads. Carl has popularized steel band music throughout New England.
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"Music From Oil Drums" - (1956)
'This film presents Pete Seeger visiting steel drum makers and players in Trinidad'