Talking with Tao

From the desk of Peter Crowley:

I interviewed Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, grandson of Pete Seeger, last week for my newspaper, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. He's a good dude in general, and especially good for interviewers because he can talk to fill your digital recorder straight up. I say that fondly, as a descendant of a long line of talkers.

He played in Saranac Lake Saturday night, and when I introduced myself at intermission as they guy on the phone interview, he brought up how much he had talked - called it a Seeger family hazard.

If he and his band come to your town, go see them. You'll probably be glad you did, no matter how old you are or what kind of music you like. Onstage, he's full of fire and soul and spirit, and I really like his original songs. They only played a couple of Pete's old standbys, but man, I've still been singin' "Guantanamera" in my head all friggin' day today. I never liked that song before now.

It was funny to hear him say that when he moved back to the U.S. at age 16, after nine years of growing up in Nicaragua, he told his grandpa, "Why do you bother singing in Spanish? Your Spanish sucks."

"You have to understand, I was 16 and a complete jackass," he said.

Pete's response was, "Well, if your Spanish is so good, why don't you get up onstage and help me out?" The punk did, and it did him some good, I'll say. Here's to grandpas, in general.

(The photo here is mine from Saturday's show. You can see many more here.)