Walkabout Clearwater Chorus promotes Pete Seeger's Clearwater mission

Pete Seeger founded the Walkabout Clearwater Chorus in 1984 to bring inland the environmentalist mission of its namesake sailing sloop Clearwater. The group, which averages 30 members, appeared last Sunday at Times Square Station in conjunction with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s “Arts for Transit” program’s Music Under New York subway station music/street performer series.

"We play there once a year," says John Fisher, an administrator at Manhattan's Yeshiva University, and a chorus member for 24 years. "One of our goals is to get people to sing with us, so we sing songs people know like 'This Little Light Of Mine.' And we do others that people might not know but are easy to teach like Harry Belafonte's 'Turn The World Around,' which is easy to get people to sing--and has hand motions that go with it and is a lot of fun."

And of course, the chorus performs songs by Seeger such as "Well May The World Go," which the group also sang in the subway.

The Walkabout Clearwater Chorus promotes the motto "Voices together for a cleaner, healthier, more peaceful environment," extending the goal of the Beacon, N.Y.-based Hudson River Sloop Clearwater organization formed in 1966 by Seeger to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education.

It performs regularly throughout the tri-state area and beyond at festivals, special events, and coffeehouses--including its own Walkabout Clearwater Coffeehouse at the Memorial United Methodist Church in White Plains, on the second Saturday of every month from October through May.

The group appears on several tracks of Seeger's 2008 Grammy-winning Pete Seeger At 89, and is represented by its own album We Have A Song!, which features both traditional songs and original material.

"We vary between 25 and 35 members, and though some people move, more than half of the chorus is the same stable group," says Fisher. "It's rare that we sing for huge audiences but we often are in venues with 300 to 500 people, and we keep plugging away."

While "it's never been a day job," Fisher has been involved in music since he was 10--and performs solo and in other groups as well.

"I got to know Pete as a kid when he'd come visit summer camps I attended," he says, "and I'm one of thousands of kids who were taught to play guitar and got interested in music through him."

Fisher distinguishes the chorus from the less active Hudson River Sloop Singers, which somewhat overlaps but is geared more toward river songs and a "strictly environmental" focus.

"Walkabout was created to take the music inland and sing about broader issues," he says. Of Seeger's concept he adds: "One of the goals Pete always had was to work with people who weren't professionals but made good music as well as people who have enormous talents. He believes that people who love music and work at it can make music."

And Seeger is proud of what the Walkabout Clearwater Chorus has accomplished.

"We've really shown that people who aren't professional musicians and do other things with their lives but love music can come together," says Fisher. "We rehearse the first Thursday of the month at the South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, and Pete comes to many of the rehearsals and teaches us and guides us and when we all get singing and the music really clicks, there's just a great big smile on his face!"

The Walkabout Clearwater Chorus will next appear in New York on June 13 at the Hudson River Park, Pier 66, for "Power of Pride--A Concert to Benefit Green Chimneys," celebrating Gay Pride Month.

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