A report on The Weavers and Ronnie Gilbert

Gilbert in August 2006

She was one of the original members of the music quartet the Weavers, as a contralto with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman.

- Ronnie Gilbert

The Weavers were formed in November 1948 by Hays, Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman.

- The Weavers
Gilbert in August 2006

4 related topics with Alpha

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Seeger playing the banjo in 1955

Pete Seeger

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American folk singer and social activist.

American folk singer and social activist.

Seeger playing the banjo in 1955
Peter Seeger (on father's lap) with his father and mother, Charles and Constance Seeger and brothers on a camping trip (May 23, 1921)
Seeger in 1979
Pete Seeger entertaining Eleanor Roosevelt (center), honored guest at a racially integrated Valentine's Day party marking the opening of the United Federal Labor Canteen, CIO, in then-segregated Washington, D.C., 1944.
Four long-neck banjos inspired by Seeger's. The instrument on far left was closely constructed to match Seeger's. American Banjo Museum.
Seeger at 86 on the cover of Sing Out! (Summer 2005), a magazine he helped found in 1950
Pete Seeger, Stern Grove, San Francisco, August 6, 1978
photo
Sloop Clearwater sailing up the Hudson River
Seeger in 1999
Seeger (left), performing with Kabir Suman at Kolkata in 1996
Seeger at the Clearwater Festival in June 2007
Pete Seeger (right), 88 years old, photographed in March 2008 with his friend, the writer and musician Ed Renehan

A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950.

Besides Pete Seeger (performing under his own name), members of the Weavers included charter Almanac member Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman; later Frank Hamilton, Erik Darling, and Bernie Krause serially took Seeger's place.

Fred Hellerman

2 links

American folk singer, guitarist, producer, and songwriter.

American folk singer, guitarist, producer, and songwriter.

Hellerman was an original member of the seminal American folk group The Weavers, together with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Ronnie Gilbert.

Lee Hays

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Lee Hays (March 14, 1914 – August 26, 1981) was an American folksinger and songwriter, best known for singing bass with the Weavers.

A group of People's Artists, comprising Seeger, Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Ronnie Gilbert, worked up a musical accompaniment to the dances, which they called (in the "One World" spirit of the Progressive movement) "Around the World".

Near in 2006

Holly Near

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American singer-songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist.

American singer-songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist.

Near in 2006
Near Performs at March For Women's Lives 2004 – Photograph by Patty Mooney

When Near joined, they began to sound more like The Weavers, with three male voices and one female.

She would also meet and work with the female singer in The Weavers, Ronnie Gilbert.