Pete Seeger to Give Song Recital Today

Banjos and folk ballads are bread, butter and life to Pete Seeger, erstwhile member of the Class of 1940 who will return to Cambridge in a free, informal recital for the Food Relief Committee this afternoon in Emerson D at 5 o'clock.

Remembered by recordings such as "Lonesome Train," and Columbia Workshop broadcasts, the tall, lanky, blue-eyed singer has played his banjo and sung his songs for millions of people from coast to coast, with such other ballad "greats" as Doody Guthrie and Alan Lomax.

Thumbed His Way to Fame

After his two years here in Leverett House, Seeger spent three years bicycling and hitch-hiking up and down the east coast doing odd jobs and singing at small parties and meetings. In 1939 he met Woody Guthrie, who led him on a western tour that covered 45 states and on which Seeger says he "learned to sing in saloons for the first time."

This afternoon Seegar will be alone with his banjo and his voice when he lets forth in Emerson. Tomorrow night, however, a bevy of his singing cohorts will join him in a "Hootenanny" in New England Mutual Hall. Jenny Hill, Tom Glazer and Brownie McGhee, popular songsters, will lend their talents to the folk concert.