The picture accompanying Pete Seeger's obituary shows the cheerful man I remember greeting at Brisbane airport in 1963, a stop on his world tour to celebrate his new freedom and his first Australian concert.
In the Australian Broadcasting Commission car on the way to the studio for an interview, he asked if we could find him a log and an axe for his one and only performance that night, a request of unusual proportions for city dwellers. Frantic telephone calls revealed a nearby forest area where a fallen trunk was located and a hardware store provided the axe, which would fall with a great thwack at the end of each line of If I Had a Hammer, the wooden chips travelling in a parabola into the audience.
The hall, more used to boxing bouts than visiting American folk singers with a doubtful political background – certainly in rightwing Australian terms – was two-thirds full of adoring fans who couldn't believe that their wonderful hero, whose voice was known through LPs, was there in front of them. He told us about a young man called Bob he'd heard recently who would be going far and got us all joining in What Have They Done to the Rain and Where Have All the Flowers Gone.
We removed the remains of the log and axe from the hall before the blokes who'd rented it to us (a mix of folk singers and CND supporters) asked for extra money for props. It was an unforgettable night.