54 years after his one and only visit to Czechoslovakia, Irena Pribylova decided to trace this part of Pete Seeger's tour around the world. One officially released album, which Seeger recorded during his short stay in the country and which was published only in 1966, provided a starting point and basic data for further research. The paper opens with some details about the world tour which Seeger undertook with his wife and three children. The author comments on publicity prior to the visit in Czechoslovak media, which was scarce, and on immediate media response, of which there was even less. It is mostly thanks to witnesses of Seeger's eight concerts in the country that there are details available. Combined with information from several letters which Seeger sent home to his friends, an overall picture of Seeger's musical activities in the country starts to be clearer. On four concerts, Seeger was backed by Spiritual Kvintet, a pioneering folk music group from Prague. Some songs from Seeger's repertoire have remained on the Kvintet setlist up to the present, as well as the practice of asking the audience to sing along. Seeger has been credited most as the first performer with a 5-string banjo in the country, which he brought at a time when young local bluegrass music players were desperately searching for information about the instrument. Long into the 1970s, Seeger's trademark long-neck folk banjo prevailed in Czech country & western and bluegrass music bands. Seeger's 12-string guitar was also unique on Czech stages in 1964. While surviving witnesses of Seeger's concerts speak about revelation and life-long positive impressions, Seeger in his letters is worried about his sore throat, and about negative response to his inquiries about local traditional music (which people felt was either dead or misused through connection with Communist party ideology). Seeger's position as an American and a left oriented person at the same time perhaps caused authorities of 1964 to hide or destroy any official documents of his visit.
