Pete Seeger - At The ABC Theatre, Prague, 1964

Here´s the first part of Pete Seeger live recordings from Czechoslovakia. The songs were recorded by Gene Deitch on March 27, 1964, at a theatre performance at the ABC Divadlo, Prague.

The ABC Theatre is located near Wenceslas Square in Prague. Together with Rokoko Theatre and Ábíčko it belongs to the groupe of Municipal Theatres of Prague.

Gene Deitch remembers on http://genedeitchcredits.com/roll-the-credits/22-pete-seeger/:

"By 1964, Pete, with Toshi and three kids, hade embarked on a world tour, which included communist Czechoslovakia, where I’d already been working four years. As he’d been sidelined as a political pariah in mainstream America, he expected he’d get a bigtime welcome here, right? Wrong! Here’s the irony: even though Pete may have felt himself to be a “communist,” the “Marxist-Leninist” Czechoslovak government was more suspicious of free-thinking “communists” who were not strict followers of the ever-shifting Soviet line, than they were of “capitalists,” who were their more clearly defined antagonists. “Diversionist” left-wingers were considered the greatest actual danger to their rule.

A local Seeger fan, Zbyněk Macha, who worked for the Czechoslovak Ministry of Culture had managed to get permission from the authorities to allow Pete a series of concerts in the country, but cautiously limited him to low-key venues, and there was no radio or TV coverage of his visit. The officials were afraid he’d be a loose-cannon, with his songs about freedom! So I was the only person with professional stereo equipment, able to privately record him. I sneaked my gear into Pete’s Prague theater concert, and Zbyněk Macha even got me into an unused radio studio with decent acoustics! Years later, my historic recordings were issued on a British FlyRight CD, “Pete Seeger in Prague 1964”, now a collectors’ item."

Tracklist:

T-for Texas
Kai-yo-wa-ji-neh (Native American)
Amazing grace
The Devil and the farmer
Banjo breakdown: Ida Red ; Old Joe Clark
Mr. Tom Hughes' town
Irene, goodnight
Bourgeois blues
So long
Talking Columbia
Lord God, Pittsburgh!
Why, Oh why?
Oleana
Michael row the boat ashore
Bayeza
Cumberland Mountain bear chase (Holka modrou oka)
Tzena tzena
Down by the riverside
Where have all the flowers gone?
Living in the country
Pete Seeger's comments, February 2001
(the songs "Rock Island Line" and "Dark As A Dungeon" are missing, sorry!)

Pete Seeger - At The ABC Theatre, Prague, 1964
(320 kbps, front cover included)