Wilkes-Barre-based folk musician and songwriter Don Shappelle can recall an early, formative moment in his musical journey.
“The first song that I actually remember hearing in my life was — I was probably four years old – ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,’ and I remember it specifically,” said Shappelle.
Lyrically based on the traditional European folk song “Koloda-Duda,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” in its popularly-known form was first written and performed by the folk legend Pete Seeger in the mid-1950s.
Seeger, who passed away in 2014, was inducted into the Songwriters and Rock and Roll halls of fame, and was honored by the Kennedy Center in 1994. Among his most popular recordings were “Turn! Turn! Turn!” — later covered by the Byrds in 1965 — “Little Boxes,” and “We Shall Overcome.” Seeger had a knack for adapting traditional folk music to his times, and was intimately involved with progressive movements in civil rights and labor. His music often reflected his activism.
From his cabin on the Hudson River in Beacon, New York, Seeger inspired a younger generation of folk musicians.
“I wrote my first song when I was eight years old, and I always wanted to be like that, to have a world that started with traditional folk music and work it right up to contemporary, topical songs, and [Seeger] had all of that,” Shappelle said, before adding that Seeger was an extraordinarily talented musician. Seeger’s signature instrument was the banjo, though his 12-string guitar was put to good use as well.
In 1975, Shappelle saw Seeger and Arlo Guthrie perform live at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.
“It was one of those concerts that really … reinforced my beliefs of how powerful music was,” Shappelle said of seeing Seeger perform. “And that was before I met him.”
‘A Complete Unknown’
“A Complete Unknown,” the latest film from director James Mangold, tells the story of Bob Dylan’s arrival in New York in 1961, and his controversial, amplified set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. At the time, the folk genre was in the midst of a reinvention of sorts. In the generation leading up to Dylan’s time, folk music was played almost exclusively with acoustic instruments.
In the film, Pete Seeger — played by Edward Norton — serves as a representative for the older generation. Born in 1919, Seeger was more than 20 years older than Dylan, who is played in “A Complete Unknown” by Timothée Chalamet. Shappelle, who grew up idolizing both musicians, thought the film was excellent. More specifically, he thought Norton’s portrayal of his friend Seeger was spot-on.
“[Norton] must’ve studied Pete for a long time,” Shappelle said, adding: “He really had his mannerisms, his speech, the way he talked, the way he held himself, the way he held a banjo and he did a pretty good job of singing like him, too. It was quite amazing.”
Norton’s performance has garnered significant praise since the film’s Christmas Day release. He’s been nominated for best supporting actor awards at the BAFTA Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Critics’ Choice Awards. From 2010 to 2023, 36 of the 38 supporting actors nominated at each of those precursors have been nominated for an Academy Award, also known as the Oscar. This year’s crop of Oscar nominees will be announced on Thursday, Jan. 23, while “A Complete Unknown” is still showing in local theaters.
Aside from the film’s acting ensemble, aesthetic and soundtrack, Shappelle was happy to see the relationship between Seeger and his wife, Toshi, portrayed so faithfully.
“When I saw [Pete and Toshi] in the movie, it made me feel good, because it made me think of them,” Shappelle said of the couple. Toshi died just months before Pete in 2013.
Still, Shappelle was quick to recognize the film’s proper focus on Dylan and the branching off of folk-rock from its root genre. Seeger’s secondary role in “A Complete Unknown” is properly stated, according to Shappelle, as his priorities during the film’s timespan were spread out in a number of non-Dylan directions. Among those touched on in the film were Seeger’s friendship with fellow folk legend Woody Guthrie (father of Arlo), and his clashes with the United States government.
“This movie is about Bob Dylan, and I think they did a great job of portraying Pete and others,” Shappelle stated.
The battle between traditional folk and folk-rock was long over by the time Shappelle came onto the music scene. The electric controversy depicted in “A Complete Unknown” had smoothed out, allowing musicians like Shappelle to play freely.
“By the time I was making my bands and starting to make my own music, I was firmly in both those worlds: folk and rock,” Shappelle said. “I still love both. I love the traditional folk music, and I love loud, electric, jamming rock and roll, too. But my favorite is when they come together and create one.”
Through the film, Shappelle can see younger people coming into contact with folk music for the first time, and, more broadly, becoming interested in the characters and culture that it depicts.
“[‘A Complete Unknown’ is] also turning younger generations on to a world that they never knew,” Shappelle said. “They might not know about early Bob Dylan. They might not know who Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger were. Through this movie, I know that young people are going to go back and read the books, listen to the albums, look at the films [of the era].”
Getting to know Pete
The joy of watching “A Complete Unknown” inspired a rush of memories to flow back to Shappelle.
“Seeing [‘A Complete Unknown’] brings me back to my relationship and my years knowing Pete Seeger,” said Shappelle.
Their relationship began years after the events of the film. Shappelle decided to take a train to Beacon to see if Seeger might be hanging around the Beacon Sloop Club. As it turned out, Seeger was at the club, though not in the most talkative of positions.
“When I met him, he was sleeping on the couch at the Sloop Club, and I woke him up,” Shappelle said of his first personal interaction with Seeger.
As they talked and got to know each other over time, Shappelle and Seeger found common bonds in music and sailing. The former subject would often take a back seat to the latter.
“A lot of my memories of Pete Seeger are just him telling me how to work a 19th century gaff-rigged sloop,” Shappelle said. “It wasn’t all about music.”
At other times, their interests would tie into one another.
“A big part of my relationship with Pete Seeger was sailing on the Hudson River, on this boat right here,” Shappelle said, pointing to the cover art of “Broad Old River,” a record from the Hudson River Sloop Singers, of which Seeger was a prominent member. The album’s seventh track is “The Tugboat Song,” written by Shappelle.
Seeger’s personal river vessel, for what it’s worth, was called the “Woody Guthrie.”
Because there was so much else to talk about, from conservation to the intricacies of boat paint, Seeger and Shappelle would rarely have the occasion to discuss Dylan and the events depicted in “A Complete Unknown.” Rather, they would bond over another topic they had in common: rivers. Seeger’s passion for the Hudson River is reflected in Shappelle’s reverence for the Susquehanna.
“I saw [Pete] and so many other people writing songs about the Hudson River,” Shappelle said. “The whole time, I also wanted to go back and do this here on the Susquehanna River, where I was from.”
Musically and socially, Seeger showed Shappelle the extent of his kind-hearted spirit through big and small instances alike.
“We would sail from town to town — port towns on the Hudson — give little concerts on a waterfront wharf, and go to the next town,” Shappelle said. He spoke of one performance in Athens, New York, which led to a modest yet thoughtful meal at an Athens resident’s home. Such instances, embraced graciously and wholeheartedly by Seeger, played into Shappelle’s perception of his friend being a mix of “Don Quixote and Johnny Appleseed.”
On a larger scale, Shappelle recalled a pair of shows in New York City: one at the legendary Carnegie Hall — which also featured Arlo Guthrie — and the other at the South Street Seaport Museum. Shappelle played on-stage with Seeger in both instances. At the South Street show, Shappelle got the opportunity to play “The Tugboat Song” for thousands of people. Even at that level, and after so many years of performing, Seeger’s humility kept revealing itself.
“That’s one side of Pete, bringing us unknown people who were just really into being songwriters and musicians and sailors and environmentalists…,” said Shappelle. “He’d bring us up to give us a little bit of recognition on the big stage.”