Woody Guthrie song '...old oak tree...'?

Subject: RE: Woody Guthry song '...old oak tree...'?
From: peregrina
Date: 19 May 10 - 11:45 AM

The Woody Guthrie archive is open for anyone to research in, so there's no reason for others not to search out unrecorded material on their own.

Thanks, Joe, for the various links.

Could a mod please change the thread title so Woody's last name is spelled correctly?

Subject: RE: Woody Guthry song '...old oak tree...'?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 19 May 10 - 11:33 AM

Charley

Anti British cultural bias ??. I felt the same way when Jack Elliott used to sing Harry Lauder songs but at least he didn't take himself seriously. Does that make me anti American?
As for discussions by PM I have no idea what you are talking about.

Joe
What chip is that? I have an opinion which I am expressing. I just don't feel that he was the right guy for the job.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Woody Guthry song '...old oak tree...'?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 May 10 - 08:28 PM

You know, Hoot, it's entirely possible that somebody other than Billy Bragg can take those same lyrics and do something else with them. The fact that he's done it, isn't the end of it.
Is that chip on your shoulder heavy, or are you carrying it along OK?
But I have to say I'm not all that thrilled with many of the Billy Bragg renditions of these songs. The only one I really like is "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key." I like the Klezmatics renditions of Woody's "Jewish songs" much better.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Woody Guthry song '...old oak tree...'?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 18 May 10 - 08:24 PM

Hoot-

Consider be coming a member here and maybe some of us will discuss this with you via PM.

Otherwise it seems as if you have an apparent anti-British cultural bias which doesn't need to be nurtured on this website.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Woody Guthry song '...old oak tree...'?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 18 May 10 - 06:15 PM

Thank you Les from Hull.
I was fully aware of Norah and her relationship to Woody without the help of wikipaedia and its so called experts, but still don't understand why.

Hoot.

Subject: RE: Woody Guthry song '...old oak tree...'?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 18 May 10 - 04:13 PM

'Nora Guthrie (daughter of American folk artist Woody Guthrie) asked Bragg to set some of her father's unrecorded lyrics to music.'

Quoted from Wikipedia

Subject: RE: Woody Guthry song '...old oak tree...'?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 18 May 10 - 04:08 PM

It was some years back but I once watched a part (as much as I could bear before hitting the off button) of a tv programme on the making of the album. If my memory is correct one of the songs which Bragg wrote a tune for already had a satisfactory melody from when it was written before Woody's time. "I'll be with you when the roses bloom again". My guess is that like many of us Woody wrote down the words of song which he liked and might want to learn suggesting that not all of his written notes were his own compostions.

On this subject I could never understand why this project was given to someone from the eastern fringes of London with an accent to match
when he had nothing in common with Woody's cultural background. There were many people in the States that could have done a more sympathetic job I am sure.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Woody Guthry song '...old oak tree...'?
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 18 May 10 - 01:46 PM

Actually, Guest Brian Farley, the Woody Guthrie Foundation, having some yrs back found & catalogued boxes of Woody's notebooks with lyrics in them, looked for modern musicians to put tunes to the songs. This is 1 that Billy Bragg did. Tw

Subject: RE: Woody Guthry song '...old oak tree...'?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 May 10 - 04:55 PM

You'll find videos of the "Way Over Yonder" here (click). Great song - but is it the song you were looking for?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Woody Guthrie song '...old oak tree...'?
From: peregrina
Date: 15 May 10 - 03:47 PM

The song is: 'Way Over Yonder'

track 3 on the CD Mermaid Avenue (Billy Bragg and Wilco singing Woody songs that Woody didn't record himself)

Subject: Woody Guthry '..old oak tree.?'
From: GUEST,Brian Farley, Herts
Date: 14 May 10 - 05:27 PM

I'm trying to get music and lyrics for a song sung by Billy Bragg, played by Mike Harding about a year ago. I think it was a little known biographical song by Woody Guthrie, about making love to a girlfriend in an old hollow tree - not recorded by him. From my distant memory, it sounded similar to the Michael McGoldrick version of "Waterbound" Im sure it was on a Billy Bragg album of Woody Guthry songs, but can't find it on his web-site.