In 2006, Bruce Springsteen released an album called We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, which consists of 13 songs made popular by folk icon and social activist Pete Seeger (made popular, but not written by Pete, because what is the folk process if not popularizing songs people need to know?).
Perhaps not surprisingly, as an offering by Mr. Springsteen, the album did very well, winning a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in 2007, and selling well enough.
In a very positive review at All Music by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the album is characterized like this:
Not only does We Shall Overcome feel different than Bruce‘s work; it also feels different than Seeger‘s music. Most of Seeger‘s recordings were spare and simple, featuring just him and his banjo; his most elaborately produced records were with the Weavers, whose recordings of the ’50s did feature orchestration, yet that’s a far cry from the big folk band that Springsteen uses here. Bruce‘s combo for the Seeger sessions has a careening, ramshackle feel that’s equal parts early-’60s hootenanny and Bob Dylan and the Band‘s Americana; at times, its ragged human qualities also recall latter-day Tom Waits, although the music here is nowhere near as self-consciously arty as that. Springsteen has truly used Seeger‘s music as inspiration, using it as the starting point to take him someplace that is uniquely his own in sheer musical terms.
Now that Pete is gone, I hope people give this album another listen. The point of folk music is not simply to repeat what others have done but interpret and inspire. This is exactly what Springsteen has done here.