Rainbow Quest

[folk music] During the second half of 1965, Pete Seeger was experimenting with new projects.

That fall, he was off to perform in the USSR again, but upon his return, he and Toshi embarked on a new project to develop a television show of their own.

Despite Pete's previous debacles with being unable to perform on network television, as the television blacklist was still ongoing, he was interested in whether television as a medium could be able to function in such a way where he could reach the masses and see if his ideas could be delivered more effectively.

What effective means, of course, is subjective.

Indeed, later in life, Pete would state that he wished there could be more consideration of how effectively he brought music into political and social movements, a thought we continue to consider on this podcast.

And it is likely true to say that, in time, Pete would come to a more cynical conclusion about the possibilities of television for these purposes.

Nevertheless, Seeger still wanted to try and use this medium, only about 15 years old, to distribute some of his ideas and see if it could be a beneficial technology.

This was the thought process by which Rainbow Quest was born.

While much of the work, of course, came from Pete and Toshi, others involved were Moe Asch and executive producer and director Sholom Rubinstein.

Sholom Rubinstein was known in the New York area for his work in Yiddish radio going back to the 1930s as a producer, director, and composer, writing scores for New York radio stations.

Exactly how the Seegers got connected with Rubinstein is unclear, although this was probably through Moe Asch, as he worked at WEVD Radio at the same time that Rubinstein did.

As musicologist and writer Henry Sapoznik emphasizes, Rubinstein was the type of person who understood how to produce low-budget media, a background which fit the mold for Rainbow Quest, even if Rubinstein himself was relatively unfamiliar with the content of what he was producing.

The program was filmed and broadcast out of the studios of WNJU Radio in northern New Jersey, which was local UHF channel 47.

For those that do not know, UHF stands for ultra high frequency, which historically was not a regular network channel.

So once a week, from the fall of 1965 into the spring of 1966, Pete and Toshi would drive down from Beacon to the channel 47 studio, and Pete would host two filmed episodes in the same afternoon.

The model for the program was that Pete would invite a variety of musicians, artists, writers, dancers, and others of different folk traditions of all sorts to be guests for an episode, often having perhaps two or three or even four guests or more in one single 50-minute segment.

In terms of the philosophy behind the production of Rainbow Quest, it was arguably not significantly different from the Newport Folk Festival, where different traditions and ways of life were represented, but in this case, through a visual medium.

In sum, 39 episodes were filmed.

Of the many people who Pete interviewed and hosted, these included but were not limited to Tom Paxton, Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, Puerto Rican musicians Rosa Valentin and Rafael Martinez, Elizabeth Cotten, Yiddish folklorist Ruth Rubin, Jean Ritchie, Bernice Reagon, Doc Watson with Fred Price and Clint Howard, Grant Rodgers, a Catskill dweller who appeared with Norman Studer, the former camp director of Camp Woodland, Malvina Reynolds, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Sonia Malkin, Theodore Bikel with Palestinian poet Rashid Hussein, British folk musician Donovan, Irish folk musician Sean Phillips, the Reverend Gary Davis, Patrick Sky, female singing group the Pennywhistlers, bluegrass group the Greenbriar Boys, Judy Collins, Kentucky banjo player and high lonesome singer Roscoe Holcomb, Scottish singer Jean Redpath, Canadian and Indigenous songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie, as well as June Carter and Johnny Cash.

If you're wondering about the title for the show, it comes from a line from Pete's song "Oh, Had I a Golden Thread," a tune about how all the variety in the world should give us strength and wisdom, which appeared on Seeger's 1960 Folkways album titled Rainbow Quest.

[folk music] During the second half of 1965, Pete Seeger was experimenting with new projects.

That fall, he was off to perform in the USSR again, but upon his return, he and Toshi embarked on a new project to develop a television show of their own.

Despite Pete's previous debacles with being unable to perform on network television, as the television blacklist was still ongoing, he was interested in whether television as a medium could be able to function in such a way where he could reach the masses and see if his ideas could be delivered more effectively.

What effective means, of course, is subjective.

Indeed, later in life, Pete would state that he wished there could be more consideration of how effectively he brought music into political and social movements, a thought we continue to consider on this podcast.

And it is likely true to say that, in time, Pete would come to a more cynical conclusion about the possibilities of television for these purposes.

Nevertheless, Seeger still wanted to try and use this medium, only about 15 years old, to distribute some of his ideas and see if it could be a beneficial technology.

This was the thought process by which Rainbow Quest was born.

While much of the work, of course, came from Pete and Toshi, others involved were Moe Asch and executive producer and director Sholom Rubinstein.

Sholom Rubinstein was known in the New York area for his work in Yiddish radio going back to the 1930s as a producer, director, and composer, writing scores for New York radio stations.

Exactly how the Seegers got connected with Rubinstein is unclear, although this was probably through Moe Asch, as he worked at WEVD Radio at the same time that Rubinstein did.

As musicologist and writer Henry Sapoznik emphasizes, Rubinstein was the type of person who understood how to produce low-budget media, a background which fit the mold for Rainbow Quest, even if Rubinstein himself was relatively unfamiliar with the content of what he was producing.

The program was filmed and broadcast out of the studios of WNJU Radio in northern New Jersey, which was local UHF channel 47.

For those that do not know, UHF stands for ultra high frequency, which historically was not a regular network channel.

So once a week, from the fall of 1965 into the spring of 1966, Pete and Toshi would drive down from Beacon to the channel 47 studio, and Pete would host two filmed episodes in the same afternoon.

The model for the program was that Pete would invite a variety of musicians, artists, writers, dancers, and others of different folk traditions of all sorts to be guests for an episode, often having perhaps two or three or even four guests or more in one single 50-minute segment.

In terms of the philosophy behind the production of Rainbow Quest, it was arguably not significantly different from the Newport Folk Festival, where different traditions and ways of life were represented, but in this case, through a visual medium.

In sum, 39 episodes were filmed.

Of the many people who Pete interviewed and hosted, these included but were not limited to Tom Paxton, Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, Puerto Rican musicians Rosa Valentin and Rafael Martinez, Elizabeth Cotten, Yiddish folklorist Ruth Rubin, Jean Ritchie, Bernice Reagon, Doc Watson with Fred Price and Clint Howard, Grant Rodgers, a Catskill dweller who appeared with Norman Studer, the former camp director of Camp Woodland, Malvina Reynolds, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Sonia Malkin, Theodore Bikel with Palestinian poet Rashid Hussein, British folk musician Donovan, Irish folk musician Sean Phillips, the Reverend Gary Davis, Patrick Sky, female singing group the Pennywhistlers, bluegrass group the Greenbriar Boys, Judy Collins, Kentucky banjo player and high lonesome singer Roscoe Holcomb, Scottish singer Jean Redpath, Canadian and Indigenous songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie, as well as June Carter and Johnny Cash.

If you're wondering about the title for the show, it comes from a line from Pete's song "Oh, Had I a Golden Thread," a tune about how all the variety in the world should give us strength and wisdom, which appeared on Seeger's 1960 Folkways album titled Rainbow Quest.