The US folk singer and activist Pete Seeger has died aged of 94.
His death was confirmed at a New York hospital after feeling unwell reports the BBC.
Pete Seager’s songs included Turn! Turn! Turn! and If I Had A Hammer.
Bruce Springsteen said of Pete Seeger he was “the father of American folk music.”
Having garnered fame as part of The Weavers, formed in 1948, he continued to perform in his own right in a career spanning six decades.
Renowned for his protest songs, Seeger was blacklisted by the US Government in the 1950s for his leftist stance.
Having been denied exposure, Seeger toured US college campuses spreading his music and ethos, later calling this the “most important job of my career”.
He was quizzed by the Un-American Activities Committee in 1955 over whether he had sung for Communists, replying that he “greatly resented” the implication that his work made him any less American.
Seeger was charged with contempt of Congress, but the sentence was overturned on appeal.
He returned to TV in the late 1960s but had a protest song about the Vietnam War cut from broadcast.
The lofty, bearded banjo-playing musician became a standard bearer for political causes from nuclear disarmament to the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011.
In 2009, he was at a gala concert in the US capital ahead of Barack Obama’s inauguration as president.
His predecessor Bill Clinton hailed him as “an inconvenient artist who dared to sing things as he saw them.”
A reunion concert with The Weavers in 1980 was made into a documentary, while an early appearance was in To hear My Banjo Play in 1946.
The band, who had a number one hit with Good Night, Irene in the early 1950s, went their separate ways soon afterwards.
Last year, Seeger performed at Farm Aid 2013, the annual benefit for America’s family farmers, alongside Willie Nelson and Neil Young.
Seeger’s wife Toshi, a film-maker and activist, died aged 91 in July 2013. They leave three children.
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