I've just been looking through *Woody Guthrie: Art Works*, edited by Steven Brower and Nora Guthrie (with contributions from Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy) (NY: Rizzoli, 2005)...

Fascinating. I had remembered Woody's time as a sign painter from Bound for Glory, and had heard how many unrecorded songs were in the archive, but I had no idea how much Woody had drawn, sketched and painted; he filled notebooks and notebooks and more notebooks with writings and drawings; some of these notebooks were letters, even letters to his children before they were born. He had so much to say...

The book gives a vivid sense of the range and abundance of this material, but doesn't describe it systematically. It also doesn't reproduce whole notebooks in their entirety. The result is wonderful glimpses of this other side of Woody's creativity, glimpses of his insights and convictions, but not the chance to follow in detail the development of Woody's views or the relationships documented in the notebooks. Overrall impression: he had so much to express and such a passion for expression.
Browsing through this makes me admire the economy of his songs even more. (And judging by the sheer quantity of material here, he must have had notebooks and brushes and pens at hand just as much as his guitar?)

Anyone else had a look at this book? (Or even seen the materials in the archive?) Are there other recent examples of singers who are so prolific in other media?