USPS Pete Seeger

USPS on 21 July 2022 honoured famed folk singer Pete Seeger, a man who inspired countless musicians and millions of fans around the world. Not only that,  he championed a variety of causes, including civil rights, workers’ rights, social justice, the peace movement and protecting the environment.

The stamp art features a color-tinted, black-and-white photograph taken in the early 1960s by Dan Seeger, the performer’s son. Pete Seeger is shown in left profile, singing and playing his iconic five-string banjo with the inscription “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.” It therefore is fitting the postmark cancellation should this instrument.

The square stamp pane resembles a vintage 45 rpm record sleeve. One side of the pane includes the stamps and the image of a sliver of a record seeming to peek out the top of the sleeve. A larger version of the stamp-art photograph appears on the reverse side with the words “Pete Seeger FOLK SINGER.”

Art director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp and pane. Dan Seeger’s photograph was color-tinted by Kristen Monthei.

The postmark cancellation originated from New Port, Rhode Island where Seeger  fostered the careers of a new generation of folk singers, including Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, partly through his early stewardship of the Newport Folk Festival.

Pete Seeger (1919-2014) revived and championed traditional American music. A resolute voice of conscience and defender of American liberties, he adapted and popularised the song “We Shall Overcome,” which rose to become the predominant anthem of the civil rights movement. His own compositions galvanised populist uprisings: “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” has given musical voice to peace movements since the Vietnam War, and “If I Had a Hammer” has been embraced by an array of activists.

“Goodnight, Irene,” a Lead Belly composition that was the flip side of the Weavers (a group he founded after serving in WWII) first release, became the number one song of 1950. This surprise hit was followed by other catchy releases. Some, such as “Wimoweh,” and in later years, “Guantanamera,” were imported gems that Seeger plucked from obscurity. “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” and “On Top of Old Smokey” were among the songs from Americana that he repopularised. And for 1960s antiwar generation, he set to music or wrote the songs "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy."

Source: USPS