CLOSE Pete Seeger - from a May 2009 interview with The Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal The Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal 
 
 In 2006, Springsteen helped introduce Seeger to a new generation when he recorded We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, an album of 13 songs popularized by Seeger, including John Henry and Shenandoah. At a Madison Square Garden concert celebrating Mr. Seeger’s 90th birthday, Mr. Springsteen introduced him as “a living archive of America’s music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along.” 
 
 Although he recorded dozens of albums, Mr. Seeger distrusted commercialism and was never comfortable with the idea of stardom. “My job,” he said in 2009, “is to show folks there’s a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet.” 
 
 Peter Seeger was born in Manhattan on May 3, 1919, to Charles Seeger, a musicologist, and Constance de Clyver Edson Seeger, a concert violinist. “I liked the strident vocal tone of the singers, the vigorous dancing,” he is quoted as saying in “How Can I Keep From Singing,” a biography by David Dunaway. When he returned to New York later in 1940, Mr. Seeger made his first albums. MORE : Seeger's impact on labor movement 
 
 For more than 60 years, he lived in Beacon, N.Y., with his wife, Toshi, in a cabin he mostly built himself on a cliff overlooking the Hudson River, 60 miles north of Manhattan. He later criticized himself for not having left the party sooner, though he continued to describe himself as a “communist with a small ‘c.' And in February 1952, a former member of People’s Songs testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee that three of the four Weavers were members of the Communist Party.  Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A look back at Pete Seeger's music career 
 
 US President Obama has paid tribute to the American folk singer and activist Pete Seeger, who has died following a short illness at the age of 94. He was quizzed by the Un-American Activities Committee in 1955 over whether he had sung for Communists, replying that he "greatly resented" the implication that his work made him any less American. Seeger is the only singer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who was convicted of contempt of Congress. “All those protests did was sell tickets and get me free publicity,” he later said. In 1955, he refused to testify about his past membership in the Communist Party. He toured the world, performing and collecting folk songs, in 1963 and returned to serenade civil rights advocates, who had made a rallying song of his “We Shall Overcome.” 
 
 Like many of Mr. Seeger’s songs, “We Shall Overcome” had convoluted traditional roots. As the United States grew divided over the Vietnam War, Mr. Seeger wrote “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” an antiwar song with the refrain “The big fool says to push on.” He performed the song during a taping of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in September 1967, his return to network television, but it was cut before the show was broadcast. Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Fighting for the Hudson River 
 
 During the late 1960s Mr. Seeger started an improbable project: a sailing ship that would crusade for cleaner water on the Hudson River. In 1969, he helped build a 10-foot sailing sloop called the Clearwater that continues to serve as a "floating classroom" and rallying point for cleaning up the Hudson. (Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY) 
 
 On his facebook page Tuesday, Arlo Guthrie, who performed often with Seeger and is the son of Woody Guthrie (who taught Seeger how to jump freight trains), described his last phone call to Seeger's hospital bed Monday night. Mr. Seeger won Grammy Awards for best traditional folk album in 1997, for the album “Pete” and, in 2009, for the album “At 89.” He won a Grammy in the children’s music category in 2011 for “Tomorrow’s Children.” 
 
 Mr. Seeger kept performing into the 21st century, despite a flagging voice; audiences happily sang along more loudly. He celebrated his 90th birthday, on May 3, 2009, at a Madison Square Garden concert — a benefit for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater — with Mr. Springsteen, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, Ms. Baez, Ani DiFranco, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, Emmylou Harris and dozens of other musicians paying tribute. Toshi, whom he called "the brains of the family," died at 91 in 2013, after nearly 70 years of marriage. Survivors include his son, Daniel; his daughters, Mika and Tinya; two half-sisters, Peggy, also a folk singer, and Barbara; eight grandchildren, including Mr. Jackson and the musician Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, who performed with him at the Obama inaugural; and four great-grandchildren.
– Pete Seeger, a towering presence in American folk music and activism for many decades, has died after 94 years—and more than 100 albums. The bearded, banjo-playing protest singer gained fame with the Weavers in the '40s and is best known for popularizing songs like This Land Is Your Land and We Shall Overcome, as well as writing or co-writing folk classics like If I Had a Hammer and Turn, Turn, Turn, the BBC reports. He spearheaded the American folk revival of the '50s and '60s and was an inspiration and mentor to many younger singers including Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. But activism was as important to Seeger as music. A lifelong believer in causes like civil rights, racial equality, and anti-militarism, he saw folk music and community as "inseparable, and where he saw a community, he saw the possibility of political action," a New York Times obituary notes. Blacklisted in the McCarthyite '50s, his activism continued until the very end. At a 90th birthday tribute concert—a benefit to clean up New York's Hudson River—Bruce Springsteen introduced him, saying, "He's gonna look a lot like your granddad that wears flannel shirts and funny hats. He's gonna look like your granddad if your granddad can kick your ass. At 90, he remains a stealth dagger through the heart of our country's illusions about itself," USA Today reports.