Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 36

AFTER DARK TheP adys inevita bay Bin i wimmmnw. 1 1 i rill in r.imii.iir'iiriii iiiiii ail ti iiii'll-li-M- tim imrmriii AluJ ffi mull been playing folk music for more than 30 years and were asked to record Dady found himself sharing songs with the folk-music legend and activist Joe Dady was 5, maybe 6 years old when he was sitting in front of the TV watching Rainbow Quest, an educational music show from the mid-1960s hosted by Pete Seeger. "I remember my older brother Bill walking in the room," Joe says, "and saying, 'Man that guy singing those anti-war songs, they're gonna yank him off the Years later, as the banjo-playing half of Rochester's finger-picking royalty, The Dady Brothers, Joe wrote a tribute to Seeger, "The Man With the Banjo." It's on the Dadys' 1991 album, Singing From the Heart. They sent a copy to Seeger, and he Seeger wrote back, expressing his appreciation. "He told me, 'Some day, somewhere, somehow, we're gonna Joe says.

Some day came two decades later, a couple of weeks ago. Somewhere was the Hudson Valley town of Beacon, where Seeger lives. Somehow was The Dadys recording songs for Seeg-er's next record. And here was Seeger, standing in a parking lot, serenading John Dady with a ballad, "When I Was Most Beautiful," translated from a Japanese poem about how World War II brought so much death and destruction upon Japan, but at the same time created a vacuum in that male-dominated society that liberated Japanese women. And here was Joe crooning "The Man With the Banjo" for Seeger, a private little concert, because Pete is a little too humble to have the Dadys play it in front of a whole bunch of his neighbors who came out for the Beacon Town Days celebration on this bucket-list weekend.

"The Man With the Banjo," John admits, is "a thumbnail sketch of his life." What else could it be? Seeger's lived 92 productive years on this planet. ONLINE EXTRA Find a club some songs on Pete Seeger's new in a parking lot. file photos Street thing," John says. No surprise, Seeger has marched with Occupy Wall Street. Then he decided he better get his banjo.

"I figured he'd have someone driving him," No, Seeger still drives his own car, and began hiking to where he'd parked a block away. John offered to walk with him. Seeger had two well-worn banjos sitting in his Land Rover. An environmentally friendly hybrid, of course. The banjos weren't even in cases.

Woody Guthrie's guitar was known for the phrase "This Machine Kills Fascists" written on the body. Seeger has toned down the rhetoric a bit; both of his banjo heads bore the inscription, "This Machine Surrounds Hate And Forces It To Surrender." "He handed me a banjo and picked one up himself, and says, 'John, can I sing you a John says. "Right there in the parking lot. What was I supposed to do, say 'No man, send me a And Seeger played, "When I Was Most Beautiful." "His voice is way quiet now," John says. "He's 92 years old now.

He said, 'My voice is shot, I can't put a song together "I told him," John says, 'I beg to differ' Joe Dady, left, and John Dady have album last month. Afterward, John JEFF SPEVAK Music critic He's the gold standard of protest singers, but prefers the gentle path. Yet he's ended up in the midst of some of the serious issues of the past few decades: The Vietnam War and the civil rights movement being two of the big ones. Barack Obama may have won the Nobel Prize for peace, Joe says, but, "Here's a guy that's working his whole life for peace, working all over the world. He made 'We Shall Overcome' the calling card for the civil rights movement." There's a bit of the activist streak running though the Dady genetics as well.

Bill, The Dadys' older brother, is 67, and lives in Ireland now. He's probably not coming back to America anytime soon, having earned a slot on the FBI watch list for his involvement with the Irish Republican Army years ago. But Bill Dady's path has crossed Seeger's, back when Bill worked as Dr. Martin Luther King mail clerk in our searchable listings. Click during the civil rights movement.

"He was the token white kid on the staff," John says. "He always carried the camera, because they figured he wouldn't be an obvious target for the cops. He met Pete back in the day." John and Joe have had their days as well. There was the dreary day in 2003 in New York City, when they took part in a massive anti-war march. "I was singing 'Give Peace a Chance' at the top of my lungs, and about 300 people were singing it with me," John says.

"I guess we've always been for the underdog. We always tried to do our part. I haven't been to Washington Square yet" that's ground zero for Occupy Rochester "but I want to get there. My daughter's been there several times." This Seeger moment nearly didn't happen. Joe almost died from a ruptured aorta a few years ago and, "After I went through that whole experience of going to the other side," he says, "I thought, Damn, I've got to reach out to this guy, because either he's gonna go or I'm gonna go." Joe wrote another letter and Seeger wrote back, sending his phone number.

About six months ago, Joe called the number. Someone answered and put Seeger on the phone. Joe said, "Hayu-mana, humana, humana. So he calls it serendipity when, this September, a producer and percussionist named Jeff Haynes heard the Dadys playing a peace festival in Ithaca. Haynes had already produced a children's album in 2009 with Seeger, and now was working on another idea: Setting Seeger's vast catalog of stories to music.

Seeger would tell his tales over African, Latin, Indian, Latin, jazz and European classical sounds. When Haynes saw the Dadys, he decided these guys would be perfect for the Irish end of it. The Dadys showed up at Haynes' Beacon studio the following week and recorded on a Friday and Saturday. They did an ancient Irish tune, an instrumental version of "Danny Boy," an old pipes tune and "The Man With the Banjo." On Sunday, they were set to open for Seeger under a tent set up on Main Street, after the Beacon Town Days parade was over. "We just thought we would meet Pete," John says.

Actually, no. Seeger showed up early, and they chatted for a while. "He got onto the Wall on "Nightlife" at rochester.metromix.com..