LIVEWIRES PRESENTS: The Music and Politics of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan

Tue, June 16, 7:00 p.m. at the Pleasant Street Center
49 Pleasant Street, Reading

Join Instructor of History and Government, Kevin Comtois, for a multimedia presentation about protest singers and American History.

This presentation will examine three of the greatest protest singers of the twentieth century: Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. Using music, film clips and still images, we will take an American journey through history and geography. We will start by using music to examine the social and economic conditions of the Great Depression as we follow Woody Guthrie through the Dust Bowl. We will then travel across the United States as Woody works his way to New York City where we meet Peter Seeger. We’ll leave Woody to follow the travels of Pete as he sings his way through the American heartland, World War II, McCarthyism, the Civil Rights movement and the 1950s folk revival where we meet Bob Dylan. We will then leave Pete to examine Dylan’s songs touching on the social and political conditions of the ‘60s. We will examine Dylan’s evolution to rock and roll and end with his famed performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

This presentation is brought to you through the Northern Essex Community College Speakers’ Bureau and The Friends of Reading Public Library.