Pete Seeger “Forever Young”

Pete Seeger Forever Young
Riverfront Park
in Beacon, New York is being renamed after Pete Seeger and his wife Toshi Seeger. The park, which is near where he lived, overlooks the Hudson River, which Pete Seeger helped save. A ceremony at the annual Strawberry Festival this weekend celebrates the park’s new name, and there have been other recent tributes to Seeger. I am sure more will keep coming.

While thinking about the great singer who passed away in January of this year, I have been listening to Seeger’s last major recording. Seeger recorded “Forever Young” for the 4-CD set Chimes Of Freedom: The Songs Of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years Of Amnesty International (2012). When the recording was made near the end of Seeger’s life, he no longer had his singing voice. So, the song was arranged around his speaking voice, aided by local children. Especially in light of Seeger’s passing, the video of Seeger giving his joy to a new generation is quite moving.

In this short video documentary about the making of “Forever Young,” the album’s contributing producer Martin Lewis and othes explain how they brought together everyone for the recording of the song. The scene near the end of the kids looking at pocket-sized booklets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as Pete Seeger sings is pretty cool.

One of the musicians who helped out on the song and who appears in the video is Mark Hudson. If you watched television in the mid-1970s, you might recall him from his variety show with The Hudson Brothers.

As for Seeger, he was surrounded by song up until he passed away. And even with his singing voice weakened for this last major recording, he made “Forever Young” a powerful performance the way he always made his songs powerful — by getting others to join in his song.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Hudson Brothers?

    Some people noticed that a current episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm contained a reference to filmmaker Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, etc.). And others laughed at the episode’s references to Pinkberry frozen dessert, “chat-n-cuts,” and “pig parking.” But few caught that the Harlin conversation on the show also referenced the 1970s television and music stars, The Hudson Brothers.

    On the episode (“The Vow of Silence“), Tessler (Michael McKean) invited Larry David to stay at Renny Harlin’s apartment in New York, referring to his own involvement in filming “Pandemonium,” based on a “Hudson Brothers movie.” There is no Hudson Brothers movie “Pandemonium,” but McKean’s comment about the “Hudson Brothers” refers to the singing brothers who had their own television show in the 1970s and did a movie named Hysterical. Since I started writing this post, a comment on a another page clarified that “Pandemonium” was a film with Tommy Smothers, so McKean may have accidentally referenced the wrong movie. But who are the Hudson Brothers?

    Hudson Brothers Hysterical

    If you were not around in the 1970s, you may not have heard of the brothers Bill, Mark, and Brett. They started out playing music in the 1960s, had a few minor hits in the early 1970s (“So You Are a Star,” “Lonely School Year,” and “Rendezvous”). But most young Americans at the time knew the group from their two U.S. TV shows. During the summer of 1974, CBS gave a TV variety hour to the Hudsons on Wednesday nights. Variety shows were big back then, with The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour ending around that time, and Tony Orlando & Dawn then getting a variety show that year to take over the divorcing couple’s time slot. The Hudson Brothers, however, were only in prime time for the summer. Later that fall, the network moved the brothers to a half-hour show on Saturday mornings. That show, The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show, ran for a year from September 1974 to August 1975.

    When they were sent to Saturday mornings, the humor understandably became a little more juvenile, as you can see in the opening to the Saturday show, which is available on DVD. I still remember some of the characters from the show who made me laugh, including Chucky Margolis, about a kid who never saw his parents and lived in a basement. And I was not alone in enjoying the show. Their friend John Lennon once referred to them as “The Kings of Saturday morning.”

    Here is one of their songs “So You Are a Star.” Two of the brothers performed the song more recently in 2008. Below is the original version with all three brothers.

    The above song was supposedly written for Goldie Hawn, and many Americans may only connect with the brothers’ name through actress Kate Hudson, who has genes and a last name from one of the brothers. Bill, who was married to Goldie Hawn for awhile, is Kate’s father (although unfortunately father and daughter are estranged). But The Hudson Brothers had more than their fifteen minutes of fame. Behind the scenes, they have done various music and television projects through the years. They seem to be still around and working together. Mark Hudson, who has written a number of songs including Aerosmith’s “Livin’ on the Edge,” was recently spotted in Chicago at a Beatlefest. In 2007, Bret explained how the brothers are still close even if they do not see each other all the time. And the brothers have a MySpace page.

    After the two U.S. TV series, the Hudson Brothers had a short-run series called Bonkers in the UK in 1979, and several years later the Hudsons performed in the movie that McKean probably meant to reference on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Despite my fond memories of the television show, I have not seen the  movie Hysterical (1983).

    In 2007, Brett Hudson was diagnosed with Stage Four throat cancer. He has made a serious film about an alternative to the usual American medical system. His website explains how Cher led him to the discovery of a treatment center that Hollywood knows about, but most Americans do not. The movie has a Facebook page. The most recent news I found, which was from 2009, stated the great news that Brett was found to be cancer-free. This clip from Extra tells Brett’s story and his recollection of Farah Fawcett and her struggle with cancer.

    About a year ago the brothers made a video to promote a new television show in Canada called What The?. I cannot find what happened to the show.

    Anyway, it was nice and a funny obscure reference when Michael McKean remembered The Hudson Brothers on Larry David’s show. So it gave Chimesfreedom an opportunity to recall some Hudson Brothers memories and provide a very long explanation for the Curb Your Enthusiasm reference and why I found it funny. . . in case there is anyone in the world besides me who wondered about it. How about a guest appearance of The Hudson Brothers on Curb Your Enthusiasm?

    Do you remember the Hudson Brothers? Leave a comment.

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