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Seeger honored at New York folk festival

CROTON-ON- HUDSON, N.Y.

Music luminaries honored Pete Seeger on the shore of the Hudson River at Saturday’s Clearwater Festival, the first of the annual music and environmental program he started to take place after his death.

Folk artists Tom Paxton, Tom Chapin, Holly Near, Dar Williams and others performed together to honor Seeger, who died in January at age 94. Sets were planned centered on music of the Weavers and Almanac Singers, both bands that featured Seeger, and highlighting the banjo, which Seeger frequently picked in concert.

Lucinda Williams, Rufus Wainwright, Richard Thompson, the Mavericks, Norah Jones and Josh Ritter are among the headliners at the two-day festival expected to draw around 25,000 people.

“It’s up to us to pass the music on as he intended,” Chapin sang in a verse written for the occasion in his song “One Voice.”

Associated Press