Along with being a member of one of the longest running '60s rock hippie bands, The Grateful Dead (recently renamed simply, "The Dead"), Drummer Mickey Hart has had a 30-year passion for in-the-field recording using the latest in portable high-tech audio equipment. From his early work as a part-time music ethnologist, Hart has evolved into a leader in the effort to preserve endangered world music. The Northern California-based Hart is on the leadership committee of Save Our Sounds and is integrally involved with America's Recorded Sound Project at the Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress, which is in the process of digitizing the Folklife Center's publicly owned, deteriorating music collection. Hart took a break from rehearsing with the other members of the Dead for their Summer 2003 tour to speak with me.
David Kupfer
Rhythms of the Planet: An Interview with Mickey Hart
2004 Winter | David Kupfer
(interview conducted June, 2003, in Occidental, CA)
You Never Can Tell:
2004 Winter | David Kupfer (interview conducted June, 2003, in Beacon, NY)
Pete Seeger is an individual who is easy to describe with superlatives, though I believe he hates to be called things like a folk icon, legend, pioneer, or hero. He has had an epic life, full of amazing contributions to our culture and politics. In person, he conveys a comfortable, homespun way about himself that puts you at ease. He truly is a humble, modest soul, and in conversation is slow to credit himself on his lifework's impact. Seeger has 65 years of performing behind him. It can be safely said that in the 20th Century no other individual so successfully combined folk music and progressive politics. Pete has sung for the labor movement and the civil rights movement, the anti-war movements, anti-nuclear power and the environmental movement.
