RAMBLIN: It's Pete Seeger's 'Turn! Turn! Turn!' for Music Icons Forever stamp

Aug. 12—Folksinger and songwriter Pete Seeger is the newest musician honored with a brand new stamp from the U.S. Postal Service.

It's one of the better-looking stamps the U.S. Postal Service has issued in honoring U.S. music and pop culture icons, based on a photograph taken of Seeger by his son, Dan Seeger, in the early 1960s. The U.S. Postal Service unveiled it on July 21 as part of its Music Icons Forever series and it's now available in the McAlester area.

I haven't seen the original photo, but the artist's rendition used for the postage stamp is one of the best in the series. It's made to reproduce the feel of a 45 rpm single sleeve — sort of ironic since Seeger was much more well-known for his live concert performances and long-playing albums than for producing hit singles.

When I think of Pete Seeger, it's usually thoughts of him leading an audience in a sing-along at a college or other concert setting. Sometimes I think of how he supposedly looked for an ax to chop the cables when Bob Dylan famously went electric, performing live with a rock band for the first time at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

Whether Dylan was booed for going electric or whether the yells were mostly shouts to turn up the volume of his microphone depends on who's telling the story at the time.

Not to say that Seeger didn't have hit records, but the biggest hits he recorded came as a member of a musical troupe, such as The Almanac Singers, which also included Oklahoma's own Woody Guthrie, along with original members Lee Hays and Millard Lampell. Seeger and Woody were much more than band-mates. They were also friends, with Seeger performing in the early 2000s at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival up the road in Okemah.

Seeger's next group, The Weavers, proved even more successful, scoring a #1 hit in 1950 with their version of Lead Belly's song "Irene Goodnight" — which the Weavers released as "Goodnight Irene" — scoring a 13-week run at the top of the charts.

He also had involvement in several hit singles in the 1960s — but his contributions in that area have much more to do with his skills as a songwriter or as an adapter of songs written by others than his own hit-making abilities. He scored his biggest hits as a songwriter when someone else recorded his songs.

His song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" proved a hit several times in the 1960s, on recordings and in concert performances for both The Kingston Trio and Peter Paul and Mary, then later, for Johnny Rivers, who took it all the way to #26.

Peter, Paul and Mary also scored a a Top Ten hit with their version of Seeger's song, "If I Had a Hammer."

"Wimoweh," a song Seeger did not write, but which he and The Weavers adapted and introduced to the U.S., would became better known in multiple versions as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."

I told my youngest daughter the other day how a passage from Ecclesiastes in the Bible had been adapted and used as the lyrics for a hit record in 1965. While Seeger is credited as the songwriter, his co-writer could be considered the writer of the Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes. Identified as The Preacher, many Biblical scholars maintain The Preacher was King Solomon, the son of David, who himself served as king of Israel.

Seeger has told the story of how his music publisher contacted him and told him he could not find any takers for the protest songs Seeger was writing at the time. Seeger later said he sat down and wrote the song first known as "To Everything There Is a Season" in about 15 minutes. He didn't mention if he had a Bible nearby at the time — but the song's original title is the opening line of Ecclesiastes 3.

Seeger was just getting warmed up, though. While the song's title of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" is not included in Ecclesiastes, lyrics to the verses were taken from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, with few — and sometimes no — changes to the words in the King James version of the Bible.

Seeger's publisher liked what he heard in Seeger's new song and so did others. Soon after Seeger wrote the song, the folk group The Limeliters recorded it under the title "To Everything There Is a Season" — even before Seeger recorded and released it himself. The song's admirers included a guitarist and banjoist who played in the backing band for The Limeliters — a guy named Jim McGuinn.

McGuinn liked the song so much, he worked out an arrangement for singer Judy Collins, for inclusion in her album, "Judy Collins 3." McGuinn later moved to LA and got together with some other folkies in the hopes of starting a band. Although they may have originally planned on starting another folk-singing group, McGuinn and the other two musicians, David Crosby and Gene Clarke, went to see The Beatles debut movie, "A Hard Day's Night."

After watching the Fab Four, McGuinn and his pals lost their desire to form another folk-singing group. Instead, they decided to form a rock band and drafted Chris Hillman to play bass, with Michael Clark on drums.

They scored their first hit with their version of Bob Dylan's song, "Mr.Tambourine Man" — which shot all the way to #1. Their followup, a version of Dylan's "AII I Really Want to Do" did not do as well, perhaps because Cher had also recorded and released a competing version of "All I Really Want to Do" as a solo artist, without her usual recording partner (and spouse) Sonny Bono.

Although The Byrds were coming off their Dylan-written #1 single, "Mr Tambourine Man," Cher's recording of "All I Really Want to Do" outsold their version. While Cher's record moved all the up to #15 on the Billboard charts, The Byrds' barely made the Top 40, literally peaking at the #40 position.

However, The Byrds may have had some consolation when their version went all the way to #4 on the United Kingdom charts, followed by Cher at #9.

When The Byrds looked for a followup to their followup, McGuinn moved from Dylan to another renowned songwriter and folk-based performer of the era. Although The Byrds were now considered rock, or folk-rock artists, McGuinn decided to return to Seeger's folk-like song that he had liked so much when playing behind The Limeliters and Judy Collins. He pulled out "To Everything There Is a Season," renaming it "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season.)"

McGuinn — who would later change his first name from Jim to Roger — worked out a ringing introduction on his electric 12-string Rickenbacker guitar, similar in its jingle jangle sound to the intro he'd created for "Mr. Tambourine Man."

Much like he did with "Mr Tambourine Man," McGuinn gave Seeger's song a rock beat without overly rocking it up. He also opened the record with the song's chorus, like he had done with The Byrds' arrangement of Dylan's song.

The result? The Byrds scored their second #1 hit with their rendition of Seeger's "Turn! Turn! Turn!" While there were a few slight modifications in the lyrics adapted from Ecclesiastes, they were minor and appeared to be for rhyming purposes.

I sometimes wondered why "Turn! Turn! Turn!" used exclamation marks to separate the words in the song's title. Wouldn't commas have been more appropriate in such a laid-back song?

I can understand the use of exclamation marks in The Beatles song "Help!" to convey a sense of desperation. I can even understand it in "Oklahoma!" to convey a sense of enthusiasm about our great state. Oh well.

Ironically, soon after I mentioned to my daughter about how the words from Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 had been adapted and recorded as a #1 song by The Byrds, we happened to have "Ed Sullivan's Rock 'n' Roll Classics" on the TV set a few nights later.

Among the guests for that night's episode, featuring clips from the 1960s, were The Byrds. I figured they would perform their rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man" — but they surprised me. I immediately recognized McGuinn's jingle-jangle introduction as that of "Turn! Turn! Turn!"

"Hey," I said with a heightened degree of enthusiasm, "They're playing it! They're playing it!"

Now, I know why "Turn! Turn! Turn!" has exclamation marks in the title!

Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.