BOOKS
PeteSeegerat theGarrison Picnic on June 17, 1968inGarrison, New York
RONGALELLA,LTD./WIREIMAGE
DAVIDBernz’s preface to Chopping Wood: Thoughts & Stories Of A Legendary American Folksinger contains a health warning. The book, he notes, is not a biography of Pete Seeger. Neither is it designed to be read at a single sitting. It is “a collection of thoughts and stories that escaped from the different corners of Pete’s mind” which, taken together, give a picture of how the man spoke and thought. As Seeger saw himself as a storyteller there is another cautious note: “The book is not intended to be one hundred per cent historically accurate.”
The Seeger who emerges from this haphazard process is a man of forthright opinions and deep curiosity, though it might have helped if Bernz – a family friend who first heard Seeger’s tales while driving him to engagements – had imposed himself more forcefully on the material.