![]() ![]() Clearly, it was an expensive gamble, but Leventhal secured the space for the evening. Making a few calls, he learned Town Hall was unavailable, but Carnegie Hall had Christmas Eve open. He also knew how contentious each of them could be. Harold Leventhal, then serving as Seeger's manager and mentor, felt the time was ripe to get the Weavers together again – if anything, to redirect its members away from the creative lethargy that marked the past three years. Still, Gilbert often thought about singing again to appreciative audiences. Married to a dentist, she now lived in California, devoting much of her time to raising her young daughter. Besides teaching guitar, he produced and arranged recordings for folk labels that were emerging around New York Cityīy comparison, 29-year-old Ronnie Gilbert was doing considerably better than her former partners, but from a continent away. Twenty-eight-year-old baritone singer/guitarist Fred Hellerman still earned a living through music, but not as an on-stage performer. And like Seeger, he was an "unfriendly" witness, but dodged potentially incriminating questions by invoking Fifth Amendment privileges. Like Seeger, Hays also was subpoenaed before that HUAC panel that August. Looking all of 60 years old but actually only 41, he scraped by as a free-lance writer, penning finely crafted stories for 'Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,' pseudonymous pulp for men's magazines and commercial jingles for radio. College bookings Seeger counted on were cancelled after the press reported his testimony the few jobs he was offered barely covered expenses. Costly legal challenges and the likelihood of prison loomed ahead. When he refused to answer questions that he felt were highly improper, the panel held the 36-year-old musician in contempt. Unlike other "unfriendly" witnesses who testified before HUAC, Seeger refused to invoke the Fifth Amendment when the committee prodded him about his political philosophies and connections to the American Communist Party. ![]() In August he faced a hostile panel from the House Committee on Un-American Activities. But as Christmas bleakly approached, Seeger faced an uncertain future. By 1955 banjo player and tenor lead Pete Seeger had built a small, loyal following through college appearances and steady-selling Folkways albums. "Then it turned into a Mondical and a Tuesdical."īut those years were creatively fallow, and some band members were virtually destitute. "We took a sabbatical," bass singer Lee Hays later explained. But the Weavers quietly disbanded after its 1952 concert, partially because of internal pressures but primarily as victims of an unrelenting blacklist. Starting in 1950, the folk group started a Gotham holiday tradition with its popular December concerts at Town Hall. Frankly, no one really expected to see them again. The occasion was the Weavers' first holiday concert in three years. Carnegie Hall, New York's premier concert venue, was filled to capacity on Christmas Eve, 1955.
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