America! Ya gotta love it!

David Letterman, to his credit, had Pete Seeger on “Late Night” last night. Pete was there to promote his CD “At 89,” which hit store shelves today, and performed the song “Take It From Dr. King” with a four-member band that included Pete’s incredibly talented grandson Tao Rodriguez.

Pete Seeger's still singing and strumming at age 89

Pete Seeger

Pete was in fine voice — and even got the audience clapping and singing along, no easy task when you’re performing in a place that’s not exactly Carnegie Hall or a union rally — on a TV talk show set at the Ed Sullivan Theatre. Then again, if Pete Seeger can’t get a crowd of people singin’ and clappin’, then no one can — and the world would be in bigger trouble than it is already.

So why the “America! Ya gotta love it!” exclamation? Because someone decided that Pete should be the last “guest” on the 90-minute show and should just perform one song and didn’t need to be interviewed. And who was came out to sit on Dave’s couch BEFORE Pete got to perform his one song? Julia Louis-Dreyfus (formerly of Seinfeld and now of The New Adventures of Old Christine) and Michael Cera (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist)

Anyway, here’s a link to the video of Pete singing “Taking It From Dr. King” on the recent PBS documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFdOIZE5xg4

And here’s a link — www.appleseedmusic.com — with information on how to order Pete’s new CD.

If you move your cursor over to my list of categories and click on music, you’ll find an essay I wrote previously about my encounters with Pete Seeger.

Finally, here’s a link to a good, thorough biography of the remarkable Mr. Seeger: http://www.peteseeger.net/biograph.htm