For Pete's Sake

The documentary Pete Seeger: The Power of Song focuses on a much-misunderstood American-music figure. Many rockers once saw Seeger as an uptight purist who threatened to pull the plug on Bob Dylan's electrified set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival — an anecdote still disputed forty-plus years later. (Seeger has said he was upset by the distorted sound, not Dylan's alleged apostasy.) But Bruce Springsteen's 2006 CD We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions served as a reminder of Seeger's rousing approach to songcraft, not to mention his deep belief in protest and free speech, which led to his being hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955. Seeger didn't talk then, but he's made himself heard ever since.

Power screens at 7 and 9 p.m. tonight through March 7 at Muenzinger Auditorium, on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. General admission is $5; students with UCB identification save a buck. Learn more at 303-492-1531 or www.internationalfilmseries.com.
March 5-7, 7 & 9 p.m., 2008