Countdown to Pete Seeger 90th

Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie were contemporaries on the American folk music scene, but it was 1940 before the two of them met. Woody introduced Pete to "riding the rods"--something he had done with others throughout the Great Depression.

He also sang for a time in Pete's group "The Almanac Singers" and the two often appeared together in camps and informal settings.

Guthrie died in 1967 at age 55. Pete turns 90 next Sunday, May 3. In the lead up to Pete's birthday, "OVER THE FENCE..." is looking at cross border songs, and national and patriotic songs sung on the two sides of the border.

Of the hundreds of songs Guthrie composed, his best known is This Land is Your Land, which spawned a new genre of national songs on both sides of the border: less pompous and hymn-like, more informal and capable of improvisation.

At President Barack Obama's inauguration January 20, Seeger sang some new verses of This Land is Your Land he had composed specially for the occasion. The tradition goes on ...