Woody at 100 - born in 1912, died 1967

Subject: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 12:11 PM

Woody 100, a website celebrating the centennial anniversary of Woody Guthrie's birth.


This year, this land will be Woody Guthrie's
The Grammy Museum plans 'Woody at 100' events to honor what would have been Woody Guthrie's milestone birthday. His music speaks to the Occupy protesters of today.

By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times
January 6, 2012

The colorful life and rich musical legacy of Woody Guthrie, widely considered America's greatest folk troubadour and songwriter, will be celebrated throughout 2012 in an expansive nationwide series of all-star concerts, previously unissued recordings, conferences, museum exhibitions and educational programs marking the 100th anniversary of Guthrie's birth.

Guthrie's family, including his children Arlo and Nora, is collaborating closely with officials at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in assembling "Woody at 100." It will include a broad swath of activities that will take place from California to the New York island, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters — mirroring the words of "This Land Is Your Land," Guthrie's best-known song among some 3,000 he wrote before his death in 1967 at age 55.

An overarching goal of the various activities is to introduce younger audiences to Guthrie's music and remind all listeners of his place in the long history of music as a powerful tool of social change, said Grammy Museum Executive Director Robert Santelli, who is overseeing much of the centennial planning with Nora Guthrie.

"This is without question the largest centennial celebration of any American pop or roots musician," said Santelli, who previously worked at the Experience Music Project in Seattle and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland before coming to Los Angeles to open the Grammy Museum a little more than three years ago.

Lineups for various concerts are being finalized, but Santelli said the performances will include numerous contemporary musicians whose music has been influenced by Guthrie's songs empathizing with the poor, the powerless and the downtrodden.

His music strongly influenced generations of musicians, from '50s folk revivalists including Pete Seeger and the Weavers to '60s singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Joan Baez and Phil Ochs on through politically and socially conscious performers including Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Young, Crosby Stills & Nash, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and latter-day provocateurs including Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down.

It's unclear yet whether Dylan or Springsteen will take part in any of the concerts, but Santelli said that participants also will come from well beyond the folk, Americana and rock genres most closely associated with Guthrie's music. He is reaching out to the hip-hop community to show the connection between Guthrie's songs of conscience and the music that has represented the voice of the disaffected urban communities in the last three decades.

"We're just trying to keep up with what everyone is doing," said Nora Guthrie, the youngest of his three children and the driving force behind the Woody Guthrie Archives. "We're … not going around creating press for Woody Guthrie. We just feel this is a nice time to say, 'This is what Pampa, Texas, is doing, this is what's going on in L.A., this is what's going on in France, Germany or Spain."

The fact that many of Guthrie's songs have been sung during "Occupy" protests in different cities is further proof of his ongoing relevance.

"He was lucky enough — or unlucky enough — to be the guy who all this stuff came into and came out of," Nora Guthrie said. "He was the one who was able to take in what everybody was saying and put it back out. Who was it that said, 'I thought this land was made for you and me'? Maybe it was a hobo. He was that kind of writer, picking up sayings and stories, attitudes and emotions. He was the ultimate fly on the wall, and that kind of character will always be around, and those ideas will always be around."

So the plethora of centennial activities is both "ambitious and totally apropos given the nature of songs of conscience right now," said Santelli, co-writer of the 1999 biography "Hard Travelin': The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie" and who has a second Guthrie book coming next month, "This Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie and the Journey of an American Folk Song."

It's one of at least half a dozen new books on Guthrie slated for publication this year. A three-CD boxed set, also titled "Woody at 100" and due in February, collects previously unreleased recordings discovered by the Smithsonian Folkways label where Guthrie did much of his recording.

"When I grew up [in the 1960s], a big part of what popular music did had to do with expression — political and social expression in lyrics," Santelli said. "We have gotten away from that for the last couple of decades, and Guthrie is, of course, the poster boy for songs of conscience."

"Today we have a generation, maybe a generation and a half, that's grown up without any sense of the power that music can have," Santelli said. "One of the goals for 2012 is to remind people that music is a very viable and potent agent for social and political change in this country. Regardless of your political beliefs or affiliation, music is a powerful tool, and it's always played a part in the American political process."

Of course, Guthrie's leftist leanings made him a target of political conservatives during his lifetime and since his death from Huntington's disease. Only in the last few years, for instance, has there been any official recognition of his music in his native state of Oklahoma, where he was born July 14, 1912, in Okemah.

Santelli said "Woody at 100" will strive to stay above partisan politics by emphasizing Guthrie's historical and cultural contributions rather than delving into the specifics of his political beliefs.

Programs designed to highlight Guthrie's role as a historical and cultural force will be offered for kindergarteners through high schoolers and as part of three- and four-day public conferences hosted at colleges and universities, culminating in multi-artist concerts in Tulsa, Okla.; Los Angeles and Salinas, Calif.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; University Park, Pa.; and Washington, D.C.

Each location will focus on a different facet of Guthrie's music: his early years in Oklahoma for the March 9-11 program in Tulsa, his life in Los Angeles for the April 13-15 event at USC, his relationship with author John Steinbeck for the May 4-6 session in Salinas. The Penn State conference Sept. 7 to 9 will focus on Guthrie's labor and union songs, the Brooklyn conference Sept. 21 to 23 explores the effect of his years living in New York and the Washington event Oct. 12 to 14 will look at his influence worldwide. These and other anniversary activities are listed on the Woody 100 centennial website.

Santelli said sessions are being designed not to overlap thematically, so that those interested in attending all of them will find fresh perspectives on different topics.

Guthrie's presence also will be recognized at numerous festivals all year, including the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, and folk festivals in Okemah, Okla.; Washington, D.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; Pampa, Texas; Edmonton, Canada; and Berlin.

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 07 Jan 12 - 03:42 PM

A conference in Brooklyn September 21-23?

Hmmmm.... I'll have to circle those dates on my calendar.

Jay

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 12:33 PM

On the "it's about time" front:

Bound for Local Glory at Last

By Patricia Cohen, NY Times
December 27, 2011

TULSA, Okla. — Oklahoma has always had a troubled relationship with her native son Woody Guthrie. The communist sympathies of America's balladeer infuriated local detractors. In 1999 a wealthy donor's objections forced the Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City to cancel a planned exhibition on Guthrie organized by the Smithsonian Institution. It wasn't until 2006, nearly four decades after his death, that the Oklahoma Hall of Fame got around to adding him to its ranks.

But as places from California to the New York island get ready to celebrate the centennial of Guthrie's birth, in 2012, Oklahoma is finally ready to welcome him home. The George Kaiser Family Foundation in Tulsa plans to announce this week that it is buying the Guthrie archives from his children and building an exhibition and study center to honor his legacy.

"Oklahoma was like his mother," said his daughter Nora Guthrie, throwing back her tangle of gray curls as she reached out in an embrace. "Now he's back in his mother's arms."

The archive includes the astonishing creative output of Guthrie during his 55 years. There are scores of notebooks and diaries written in his precise handwriting and illustrated with cartoons, watercolors, stickers and clippings; hundreds of letters; 581 artworks; a half-dozen scrapbooks; unpublished short stories, novels and essays; as well as the lyrics to the 3,000 or more songs he scribbled on scraps of paper, gift wrap, napkins, paper bags and place mats. Much of the material has rarely or never been seen in public, including the lyrics to most of the songs. Guthrie could not write musical notation, so the melodies have been lost.

The foundation, which paid $3 million for the archives, is planning a kickoff celebration on March 10, with a conference in conjunction with the University of Tulsa and a concert sponsored by the Grammy Museum featuring his son Arlo Guthrie and other musicians. Although the collection won't be transferred until 2013, preparations for its arrival are already in motion. Construction workers are clearing out piles of red brick and wire mesh from the loading dock in the northeast end of the old Tulsa Paper Company building, in the Brady District of the city, where the planned Guthrie Center is taking shape. The center is part of an ambitious plan to revitalize the downtown arts community.

Now that the back walls are punched out, workers trucking wheelbarrows of concrete can look across the tracks to the tower built by BOK Financial, which George Kaiser, whose foundation bears his name, presides over as chairman. Forbes magazine ranks Mr. Kaiser as the richest man in Oklahoma and No. 31 on its Forbes 400 list.

Ken Levit, the foundation's executive director, said he thought of doing something for Guthrie after the Hall of Fame induction. Nowhere in Tulsa, he said, is there even a plaque paying homage to this folk legend, who composed "This Land Is Your Land"; performed with Pete Seeger and Lead Belly; wrote the fictionalized autobiography "Bound for Glory"; and sang at countless strikes and migrant labor protests in the 1930s and '40s. Mr. Levit began a more than three-year campaign to win the consent of Ms. Guthrie, who had taken custody of the boxes that her mother, Marjorie Guthrie, had stowed away in the basement of her home in Howard Beach, Queens.

Ms. Guthrie, who as one of Guthrie's youngest children, didn't really know her father until Huntington's disease began to rob him of his sanity, movement and speech many years before his death, in 1967, said she only rediscovered the kind of man he once was when she started to page through the boxes about 15 years ago.

"I fell in love through this material with my father," Ms. Guthrie, 61, a former dancer, said from her office in Mount Kisco, N.Y.

Her older brothers Arlo and Joady were happy to have her take custody of the papers. Of Arlo, she said, "He was filled up with being Woody Guthrie's son, so he was glad the responsibility moved to me."

She said the information contained in the archives can clear up misconceptions about her father that she has frequently heard at scholarly conferences and read in articles, including that he didn't write love songs or sexually provocative lyrics. She has also opened up his notebooks to contemporary musicians like Billy Bragg and Wilco, Jackson Browne, Rob Wasserman, Lou Reed and Tom Morello so that they could compose music to her father's words.

One of those artists, Jonatha Brooke, is starting off the Guthrie Foundation and Grammy Museum's yearlong centennial celebrations on Jan. 18 at Lincoln Center with a concert of new songs she wrote for the lyrics.

Woody Guthrie's music has also had added play time this year as Arlo Guthrie, Mr. Seeger, and other musicians have sung his protest songs at Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York and elsewhere.

While this poor folks' hero and the richest man in Oklahoma might not seem to have much in common, Mr. Kaiser's foundation, with its $4 billion endowment, is dedicated to helping Tulsa's most disadvantaged. "I cried for an hour after meeting George Kaiser," Ms. Guthrie said. "This puts together what I've always dreamed of."

Brian Hosmer, a history professor at the University of Tulsa who is organizing the March conference — ironically titled "Different Shades of Red" — said Guthrie's legacy is contested in some quarters.

"There is no doubt there will be some voices in opposition to the way Guthrie is being emphasized — Oklahoma is about the reddest state you can have," Mr. Hosmer explained, referring to its conservatism. "And when Woody Guthrie was a boy, Oklahoma was also the reddest state because we had more socialists elected to public office than any other."

Guthrie always said he was influenced by the songs he had heard his mother sing in his hometown, Okemah, about an hour's drive from Tulsa, with a population of 3,000. His radicalism offended local officials, who scorned Guthrie until an Okemah resident, Sharon Jones, decided to do something about it in the late 1990s. One of her cousins, an avid Guthrie fan, came to visit and was shocked there wasn't a single mention of her idol. So Ms. Jones, who died in 2009, created the Woody Guthrie Coalition, which organized an annual folk festival, called WoodyFest, around his birthday on July 14, as well as a statue, a mural and a memorial. Sensitive to the area's Baptist beliefs (including Ms. Jones's), no alcohol was permitted at the celebration until this year.

Dee Jones, Sharon's husband, explained that Guthrie "was kind of taboo because some influential people in this town thought Woody Guthrie had communist leanings." But once the community realized that the 3,000 or so attendees brought in business, everyone got behind it, Mr. Jones said.

A couple of blocks from the memorial statue, visitors can run a finger along the fading letters "W-O-O-D-Y" on a fragment of Main Street's original sidewalk, where the 16-year-old Guthrie signed his name in wet cement in 1928.

Mary Jo Guthrie Edgmon, Woody's 90-year-old sister, always hosts a pancake breakfast during the four-day music festival. A white-haired, elfin woman with a persistent smile and a sharp wit, Ms. Edgmon remembered how her brother was always making music.

"You'd sit down at the dinner table, and there'd be glasses of water, and he'd pick up a fork and play the glasses all around the table," she said. "If it made music, he played it."

Reciting snatches of Guthrie's poetry and songs, Ms. Edgmon said her brother never cared what people thought of him and did not necessarily hold a particular affection for his birthplace. "He didn't get attached to anything," she said. "Everywhere was his home."

Still, after so many years of Oklahomans' snubbing her brother's memory, she said the whole family was thrilled he was being honored: "What we were all shooting for," she said, "was acknowledgment."

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stringsinger
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 01:16 PM

"Santelli said "Woody at 100" will strive to stay above partisan politics by emphasizing Guthrie's historical and cultural contributions rather than delving into the specifics of his political beliefs."

You can't do that. Woody would have hated that statement. Woody was a product of his socialist beliefs and that informed his writing. "Above partisan politics" is a specious distortion and a disemboweling of his music and writing, an attempt to sanitize and clean up by making his work sterile. It's made to order for modern music consumers, most of whom will have no idea of what Woody was or tried to do.

He would have been with the Occupiers today in the various parks or shelters. He would have loved that movement.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Tootler
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 03:59 PM

Someone from the Ukulele Underground Forum has added channel for Woody songs accompanied on Uke. http://www.youtube.com/user/woody2012ukulele

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 05:07 PM

Yeah, Stringsinger, I thought that was pretty off-track, myself. Predictable for the Grammy Museum, perhaps, but ridiculous, nonetheless.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 16 Jan 12 - 05:03 PM

Commentary on the political front (with Woody as a premise): Is This Land Made for You and Me?, by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 16 Jan 12 - 05:07 PM

Woody Guthrie Centenary - current Mudcat thread from Will Kaufman (in the UK) about his two shows about Woody Guthrie.

~ Becky in Tucson

(I am envisioning this thread as a clearinghouse for Woody stuff in this centenary year, not meaning to exclude threads with individual announcements of events, though.)

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Mark Ross
Date: 16 Jan 12 - 05:41 PM

Frank, again you're absolutely correct. When they named a power substation for Woody back in the '60's, somebody pointed out the attempted emasculation of a radical poet. Let's not forget where he stood.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stewart
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 01:22 PM

Woody at 100
Jim Hightower

Where's Woody when we need him?

In these times of tinkle-down economics - with the money powers thinking that they're the top dogs and that the rest of us are just a bunch of fire hydrants - we need for the hard-hitting (yet uplifting) musical stories, social commentaries and inspired lyrical populism of Woody Guthrie.

This year will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of this legendary grassroots troubadour, who came out of the Oklahoma dust bowl to rally America's "just plain folks" to fight back against the elites who were knocking them down.

As we know, the elites are back, strutting around cockier than ever with their knocking-down ways - but now comes the good news out of Tulsa, Okla., that Woody, too, is being revived, spiritually speaking. In a national collaboration between the Guthrie family and the George Kaiser Family Foundation, a center is being built in Tulsa to archive, present to the world and celebrate the marvelous songs, books, letters and other materials generated from Guthrie's deeply fertile mind.

To give the center a proper kick-start, four great universities, the Grammy Museum, the Smithsonian Institution and the Kaiser Foundation are teaming up to host a combination of symposiums and concerts (think of them as Woody-Paloozas) throughout this centennial year. They begin this Saturday, March 10 at the University of Tulsa, then they move on down the road to Brooklyn College and on to the University of Southern California and Penn State University.

If Woody himself were to reappear among us, rambling from town to town, he wouldn't need to write any new material. He'd see that the Wall Street banksters who crashed our economy are getting fat bonus checks, while the victims of their greed are still getting pink slips and eviction notices, and he could just pull out this verse from his old song, "Pretty Boy Floyd":

Guthrie unabashedly celebrated America's working class, seeing in it the commitment to the common good that lifts America up.He drove The Powers That Be crazy (a pretty short ride for many of them back then, just as it is today). So they branded him a unionist, socialist, communist and all sorts of other "ists" - but he withered them with humor that got people laughing at them: "I ain't a communist necessarily, but I have been in the red all my life."

Going down those "ribbons of highway" that he extolled in "This Land Is Your Land," Guthrie found that the only real hope of fairness and justice was in the people themselves: "When you bum around for a year or two and look at all the folks that's down and out, busted, disgusted (but can still be trusted), you wish that somehow or other they could ... pitch in and build this country back up again." He concluded, "There is just one way to save yourself, and that's to get together and work and fight for everybody."

And, indeed, that's exactly what grassroots people are doing all across our country today. From Occupy Wall Street to the ongoing Wisconsin uprising, from battles against the Keystone XL Pipeline to the successful local and state campaigns to repeal the Supreme Court's atrocious Citizens United edict, people are adding their own verses to Woody's musical refrain: "I ain't a-gonna be treated this a-way."

Where's Woody when we need him? He's right there, inside each of us.

For information on Saturday's Guthrie Centennial Celebration, go to www.utulsa.edu/guthrie.

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

Cheers, S in Seattle

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 02:11 PM

The music speaks for itself for sure

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 03:15 PM

Clickifying... Woody at One Hundred: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration 1912-2012 at the University of Tulsa, March 10, 2012.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 04:56 PM

Jim, that is a fine piece of writing.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 11:07 PM

It seems fitting that at the Newport Folk Festival this summer, this will be one of the acts: http://www.newportfolkfest.net/lineup/guthrie-family

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 09:54 PM

An interview with Nora Guthrie from the PBS News Hour (online only): Conversation: Woody Guthrie at 100

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 09:26 AM

Nice interview.

Just this morning finished Joe Klein's "Woody Guthrie: A LIfe". Curious to know if anyone else has read it, and what you thought?

Dani

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 12:44 PM

Dani, I've read it, but it's been a while. I need to look back at it. I've never read Woody's "Bound for Glory" and have been meaning to for a long time. See below for some more incentive.

The Thomas Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa has an exhibit up through the end of April, but they've got quite a number of images online, too: Woody at One Hundred: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration 1912-2012.

The Tulsa conference is now done. I see that my link above was broken, here's the correct link, and the correct conference title: Different Shades of Red: Woody Guthrie and the Oklahoma Experience at 100. There's no after-the-fact report on the conference at the link, though.

I looked for more...

The Tulsa World (local newspaper/site) has created a website celebrating Woody: Woody Guthries Comes Home.

There's a lengthy article there written prior to the conference: Woody Guthrie's politics still volatile after his death.

Robin Wheeler of the Riverfront Times (St. Louis) has a report on the conference: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration Kicks Off in Tulsa, and also on the tribute concert: Arlo Guthrie, Rosanne Cash, the Flaming Lips and More at the Woody Guthrie Centennial Concert.

Wheeler and Scott Allen have started a special blog with an interesting premise: Bound for Glory 100. In addition to what may arise from the invitation below, she's blogging her own Woody-related thoughts, activities, and links there.

Here's what we're asking you to do:

1. Read Woody Guthrie's "Bound for Glory" at some point in 2012 to mark his 100th birthday.

2. Write something about the experience. Anything. Book report. How it made you feel. What you think of America. What the story and music mean to you. Whatever the words prompt you to say. Say it. You're not going to say anything wrong.

3. Email your writing to [e-mail] with a bit about yourself. We'll put it on this blog. With your name on it, of course. Your work belongs to you.

4. Spread the word.

That's it. No catch. We're not coming after you if you say you want to participate and don't. There's no deadline, other than December 31, 2012.

What's the point? The point is to get as many people as possible to take a look at Woody Guthrie. From people who've never heard of him, to the experts. Kids to adults. Music nerds, literary nerds, and people who aren't nerds at all.

Don't think you can write? We don't care. We want to know what you have to say anyway.

Submitted writings will only be edited for typos. Keeping your words as you want them said.

And that's it. For now. We'll see what happens as the year progresses.

Currently, 25 people have already volunteered to participate. We've also had volunteers host the website and design the graphics. We're thankful for their work and spirit of cooperation. This is a cooperative effort, first and foremost.

Let's see what a bunch of individuals can do with their voices. Woody would approve.

Wheeler has a great post about visiting the Gilcrease Museum exhibit on the Bound for Glory 100 blog: "All You Can Write is What You Can See".

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 10:46 PM

I never read bound for glory But i have been meaning to for a long time. Frank I completely agree

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Mark Ross
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 12:41 AM

Read BFG when I was 14, scarred my for life, I guess.


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 01:25 PM

Bound For Glory must be taken with a grain of salt. Several grains, actually, because Woody had a tendency to alter the facts when and where he saw fit. It must not be viewed as pure amd accurate autobiography. Other than that, it's good reading.

Anyone wanting to read about Woody Guthrie should start with the biographies by Joe Klein and Ed Cray, respectively. IMO, you have to read them both. The problem with Klein's book is that he wrote it when some people were still alive (Marjorie Guthrie's first husband, in particular), and names and facts were altered. Cray's book didn't have such restrictions. A few things in the books will contradict each other, but these are the books I'd start with. They dovetail quite nicely.

The book Pastures of Plenty, though out of print, is also worthwhile. There's also a book by Elizabeth Partridge that has some merit. I feel the recent Woody Guthrie - American Radical should be read only after reading the ones previously listed, as it glosses over much biographical detail, assuming the reader is already familiar with the story. But, as a book where the primary focus is on Woody's politics, it can be quite enlightening.

Just my opinions, for what they're worth.

Jay

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 03:02 PM

Good points, BrooklynJay. I recommend both Klein's and Cray's books, too. I'm curious about how the facts are played with in Bound for Glory. I have seen the movie. :-) Maybe a bit of compare-and-contrast would be a good thing to send to the Bound for Glory 100 blog.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 07:39 PM

I saw the movie and I have to say that I always thought the David Carradine was an odd choice to play Woody. But it seemed to work okay

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Mark Ross
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 09:54 PM

In his book WOODY AND ME, Ed Robbins (who helped get Woody involved in the left in LA), talks about his relationship and time with Woody. In the second half of the book he talks about being on the set watching the movie of BFG being made. He ends by saying that if Woody had anything to do with the film, he would've walked off and gone to work with Cesar Chavez.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 10:04 PM

Maybe so. I heard Harlod Leventhal had the script for quite sometime and we wanted to put it to use and to get Woody more known.

Also I heard that Jim Longi had written a book about Woody and Cisco. can anyone give me their thoughts on it?

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Mark Ross
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 11:42 PM

The book that Jimmy Longhi wrote, WOODY, CISCO, AND ME is the best book written about Woody. It describes the 3's adventures aboard ship in the Merchant Marine during World War 2. It is the best description of folk music in action, and the best up close view of how the seminal folksinger of the 20th Century approached his people, and his craft. The story of Woody integrating the ships' concert is priceless. I recommend it highly.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 06:50 AM

How did I miss this?!


http://www.amazon.com/American-Masters-Guthrie-Bruce-Springsteen/dp/B000X1ZPEM/ref=pd_luc_gc_rec_01_02_t_lh

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 12:26 PM

Here's the Mudcat thread discussing that PBS American Masters 2006 program, Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 12:38 PM

Ive seen it a couple time also check out the one that BBC made of woody guthrie. its pretty good aswell

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 01:36 PM

BBC Two - Arena: Woody Guthrie. "First transmitted in 1988, Arena presents a documentary programme exploring the life of Woody Guthrie, the travelling American singer-songwriter who paved the way for the likes of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen." Last aired January 2009. (This site has video via BBC iPlayer, which doesn't work for folks in the U.S.) Also available on YouTube. (1+ hour)

And, incidentally, a YouTube item of Woody on the BBC Children's Hour in 1994. (5 mins)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 04:15 PM

This sounds like same snippet which Hank Wangford used in a Radio 2 programmme about Woody about 30 years ago. Does anybody know if there's any more of Woody from that Childrens Hour broadcast anywhere?

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 04:17 PM

Of course, in my earlier post, I should have mentioned the book Woody, Cisco and Me by Jim Longhi. Thanks to Mark Ross for correcting this omission.

I would certainly add it to the "must read" list.

But, speaking only for myself, I don't know if I could choose any one book as the best book about Woody Guthrie ever written, bar none. I'll admit, though, that the Longhi book was hard to put down.

The book Sing Out Warning, Sing Out Love (from the writings of Lee Hays) has a very good chapter on Woody, from Hays's personal recollections. Highly recommended.

Jay

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 06:39 PM

I have to say that the BBC arena doc showed more of woody as a person. and how he wasnt very nice to people somtimes. Ronnie Gilbert and arthur stein i believe is his name give a few accounts but they still say what an amazing artists he was

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stringsinger
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 07:03 PM

Yes, Jim Longhi's book is the best account although I would put Ed Cray's book up there.

Woody was a hero in my estimation. He knew he had Huntington's although they didn't ,know what to call it in those days. Woody fought for life every day and speaking of not being nice to people, well, there's Dylan.

A lot of times, artistic people aren't especially nice to everyone. It doesn't come with the territory.

My experience with Woody is that he was generous, kind, and a giving person, and he helped me as a musician and teacher.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 08:26 PM

Didnt mean any offense to Woody himself I always thought of Woody as being very heroric since I was a child and heard his songs from My mother.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 08:33 PM

As far as Dylan goes cant say I was ever much of a fan if I was it was not for long

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 12:08 AM

Hi, GUEST: It's great to have your contributions to the conversation. Give yourself a handle so we'll know who we're talking to (that you're not really more than one...!). It's good etiquette and a strong preference from the moderators as well.

Or, better yet, join up -- there are several advantages, and no obligations.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,mando-player91
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 12:16 AM

Sorry should have done that before ! ha

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 15 Apr 12 - 09:26 PM

LA events (in a separate thread)

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Apr 12 - 10:50 AM

What I learned from Woody: 1. Edit your songs and pare them down so that they mean exactly what you want them to mean. 2. Keep a sense of humor even when the issues get serious. 3. Show business is not interested in helping an artist but exploiting them. 4. Find the issue that you believe in and write about that. 5. Live your life as if you think it's important. 5. Write about what you believe in everyday whether an essay or a song. 6. Get involved with working people, OWS, or people who work selflessly on an important cause. 7. Don't forget to jam and share your music with many different people. 8. People have different codes of living, try to understand them. 9. Always respect your music regardless of how well you think it's developed. 10. Respect the music of others if it is honest. 11. Sometimes it's more important to play music than to jabber about ideologies.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 16 Apr 12 - 06:57 PM

Stringsinger, in all seriousness, you should be writing a book (if you're not already).


Jay

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,mando-player-91
Date: 16 Apr 12 - 10:10 PM

Woody was a very wise man many people have learned from him, even the people who didn't actually meet him

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: bobad
Date: 06 May 12 - 07:57 AM

A Life Magazine photo essay of Woody serenading New Yorkers in 1943 â€" "in bars, on the stoops of brownstones, on the subway."

Woody in New York 1943

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 Jun 12 - 03:25 PM

Ross Altman has a review of the Rounder My Dusty Road boxed set at Folkworks.org.

This, in Ross's way, is more than a review, with musings on Woody's creative output:

He lived to be 55, but for all intents and purposes his creative life lasted roughly 10 years, from the age of 27, when he was first recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress, to 38, when he was first admitted to Brooklyn State Hospital for the genetic illness that killed his mother.

In those eleven years he wrote—at first estimated as 1000 songs—now more likely to have been three thousand.

About the set he says,

My Dusty Road is a testament to an artist who never much cared about expressing his feelings; what he cared about was to tell a good story, to communicate an idea, to document a time and place and event with all the detail he could pack into 17 verses, as he did with The Ballad of Tom Joad, eliciting a mock-angry letter from John Steinbeck, who told him, "F—k you; you told the story of the Joad family in one song that took me 250 pages to write."

But what makes this collection so extraordinary, as Arlo Guthrie told a recent audience at The Grammy Museum, is its sound quality, often making available for the first time the actual keys that Woody sang in.
...
And now Rounder Records has released their buried treasures of 54 extraordinary performances by Guthrie in his prime, ten years before his hand coordination and vocal timbre was ravaged by the onset of Huntington's Disease; it's like finding the lost library of Alexandria and making it public once again. To me, it's like unearthing the Dead Sea Scrolls.
...
Rounder has truly performed a public service, bringing America's greatest folk singer the scholarship he deserves. The liner notes are by Prof. Ed Cray and Rounder's co-founder Bill Nowlin.
...
This Rounder Records tribute to Woody, My Dusty Road, was made for you and me.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 03 Jun 12 - 05:58 AM

I caught Nora Guthrie's one woman talk on Woody a few nights ago. The question came up as to whether Woody and Steinbeck ever met. She didn't know, and I can't recall anything in any of the writings on Guthrie which could act as a clue.

Would anyone have anything indubitable which would settle the question one way or the other?

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stringsinger
Date: 03 Jun 12 - 08:04 PM

There are two books that accurately depict Woody. "Woody, Cisco and Me" by Jim Longhi
and "Ramblin' Man" by Ed Cray. These guys actually knew Woody, as did I.

When you mythologize someone, a lot of the facts get bowdlerized and hoked up.

My remembrance of Woody is Topanga Canyon, 1952 or so when he ran off with Aneke Marshall. They went to Florida in Jack Elliott's "jaloopy", a treacherous vehicle if there ever was one. The clutch was operated by a rope.

Woody was a complicated man, not given to social amenities as we know them.

He would rather play music than talk politics.

He said what he had to in his songs and writings.

He taught me to play harmonica. I was honored to be called his "pickin' buddy" in his letter to Lee Hays.

He was an honest guy and said what was on his mind, often eloquently.

He never wasted words and was a great editor.

You could learn from him what the history books leave out.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Mark Ross
Date: 03 Jun 12 - 09:59 PM

Owen Woodson, I think that Woody and Steinbeck did know each other in California from what I've read. Steinbeck wrote an introduction to HARD HITTING SONGS FOR HARD HIT PEOPLE. He also reportedly said when Woody wrote TOM JOAD, "That book (Grapes of Wrath) took two years of my life. It took me 3 chapters to get the Joads from Oklahoma to California, and that SOB did it in two lines!"

Just looked up Ed Crays' bio of Woody RAMBLIN' MAN on Google books, and it appears that Woody and Steinbeck were not only acquainted with each other, but were also drinking buddies. Check out the book for yourself;


RAMBLIN' MAN by Ed Cray

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 01:51 PM

Woody Guthrie Centennial: This Land Is Still His Land, The iconic songwriter's lyrics still resonate in America today, especially when time is taken to listen to the lesser known verses.

An article illustrated with 3 YouTube videos on the origins and continuing role of "This Land is Your Land", by Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic online.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 06:14 AM

Mark, you are quite right. At any rate I've just dug Ramblin' Man off my shelf (which I should have done before starting this conversation) and thumbed through the index. There's enough in there to indicate that they did meet. In fact Steinbeck tried to have Guthrie hired as music advisor during the filming of the Grapes of Wrath.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 02:13 PM

Woody Guthrie Birthday Bash Maine (Mudcat thread)

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 24 Jun 12 - 12:50 PM

The new Smithsonian-Folkways set was mentioned in an article above, here's the opener to a thread started on it:

Subject: Woody at 100 - Smithsonian Folkways
From: Thomas Stern - PM
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 01:50 PM

This set is now available. Magnificent book accompanying the CD's.
Congratulations to Jeff Place &.
Contains 4 hitherto unknown recordings from the late 30's, other
previously unreleased material, as well as the classic recordings.

Woody at 100 - Smithsonian Folkways

http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=3367

Best wishes, Thomas.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 24 Jun 12 - 02:24 PM

This contains the complete Children's Hour set - four songs - mentioned above. The two titles I heard on the radio a while ago showed Woody at his best. The BBC held onto these for one awful long time; at least they didn't bin it.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 12:51 AM

Going Down the Road with Woody Guthrie: A Centennial Celebration, June 27th 2-hour American Routes radio program

American Routes heralds the 100th birthday of our nation's greatest roving troubadour and social commentator, Woody Guthrie, with a two-hour special dedicated to his life in music. We'll visit with friends and relatives who share tales of Guthrie's trials and triumphs, from Okemah, Oklahoma to Coney Island, New York. Guthrie's children, Nora and Arlo, reflect on their father's life, scholar Guy Logsdon discusses Guthrie's Dust Bowl days and Pete Seeger shares the backstory to Woody's anthem for the "down and outers." Plus music and memories from Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Moses Asch, Bob Dylan and so many others.

Full track list at the link. Looks like a great program; I'm looking forward to listening. (Came on this when I was looking for an earlier program I'd heard when out of town.)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 10:15 PM

Thank you for the link.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 01:29 PM

Woody at 100: Pete Seeger, Billy Bragg, Will Kaufman Honor the "Dust Bowl Troubadour", an hour-long program from the (politically) progressive radio show "Democracy Now", with Amy Goodman.

Commemorations are being held across the country this year to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the country's greatest songwriters, Woody Guthrie. Born on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma, Guthrie wrote hundreds of folk songs, including "This Land Is Your Land," "Pastures of Plenty," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Do Re Mi" and "The Ranger's Command." While Guthrie is best remembered as a musician, he also had a deeply political side. In this one-hour special, you will hear interviews and music from folk singer Pete Seeger, the British musician Billy Bragg, and the historian Will Kaufman, author of the new book, "Woody Guthrie, American Radical."

"Woody's original songs, the songs that he wrote back in the 1930s ... with these images of people losing their houses to the banks, of gamblers on the stock markets making millions, when ordinary working people can't afford to make ends meet, and of people dying for want of proper free healthcare, you know, this song could have been written anytime in the last five years, really, in the United States of America," says Bragg, who has long been inspired by Guthrie.

Guthrie's most famous song, "This Land Is Your Land," was written in 1940 in response to Kate Smith's "God Bless America." "Woody saw ['God Bless America'] as a strident, jingoistic, complacent, tub-thumping anthem to American greatness," Kaufman says. "And now, he had just come from the Dust Bowl. He'd just come from the barbed-wire gates of California's Eden there. He'd seen the Hoovervilles. He'd seen the bread lines. He'd seen labor activists getting their heads busted. And so, he's thinking, what — God bless — what America, you know, is Kate Smith singing of?" In 2009, Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen performed "This Land Is Your Land" for the inauguration of President Obama. [includes rush transcript]

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 01:41 PM

Whoops - video, as well as audio, is available at the "Democracy Now" link above, of the interviews, as well as other visuals.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 02:39 PM

Singer Don Charles, the friend who shared the link to the Democracy Now program, also shared this one: Joel Rafael on Songwriting and The Legacy of Woody Guthrie (on YouTube)

March 26th, 2009 - Interview and performances of singer/songwriter Joel Rafael re: songwriting and the legacy of Woody Guthrie by FLASHPOINT, The Academy of media Arts and Sciences, Chicago, IL.

Don says, "This is a nice piece by one of the best at covering Woody."

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 06:36 PM

[I've been GUEST this morning because I switched from Firefox to Google Chrome and didn't notice that I needed to log in again.]

Must be that July 4th week is getting broadcasters thinking about alternative views of patriotism, or something... here's another.

Woody Guthrie's Indelible Mark On American Culture, on Talk of the Nation (an interview & call-in radio show), at NPR

This summer of 2012 marks the centennial of the birth of American folk icon Woody Guthrie, on July 14, 1912. A poet of the people, Guthrie wrote some of America's most important songs, including "This Land Is Your Land." He penned ballads that captured the heart of hard economic times and war.

While Guthrie left a lasting mark on music, culture, and politics, he struggled with family poverty, tragedies, and personal demons.

Jeff Place, head archivist of the Smithsonian Folklife Collection, Bob Santelli, Executive Director at the Grammy Museum of Woody Guthrie, and Smithsonian Folkways recording artist Elizabeth Mitchell join NPR's Neal Conan on the National Mall to celebrate the 100th birthday of Woody Guthrie.

On that page there's a link to a July 3, 2000, NPR news story, The Story Of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land'. I'm adding the text of the story to the This Land Is Your Land (first recording)? thread.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stringsinger
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 05:14 PM

Two songs stand out for me as the finest that Woody wrote. "The Ludlow Massacre" and "Pretty Boy Floyd" (some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen). "Nineteen Thirteen Massacre" is another. Woody gave us American history that they have conveniently left out of school textbooks (especially those coming out of Texas by one of the Bushes).

Today's history books are Orwell's "Ministry of Truth" where history is being re-written to assume the "correct" values that the Christian Right wants you to have.

Woody told the truth. His songs reflect real history.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 02:49 PM

Next weekend, July 14 and 15, at the Green River Festival in Greenfield, Mass., Arlo Guthrie and the Guthrie Family Reunion will be celebrating Woody's 100th. Folk Alley (NPR) will stream it live (starts at 8:45 pm, EDT). Got the tip here: here, at the "Folk, Bluegrass, and Traditional Music" blog of Steve Ide.

Here's Folk Alley.

Folk Alley's featured video of the moment is Andy Irvine speaking of Woody and performing "Never Tire of the Road", his tribute to Woody. Showing in a related link on YouTube is Andy doing Tom Joad. :-)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,grumpy
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 03:44 PM

Full-page article on Woody in today's 'Observer'.

Woody

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 04:40 PM

That's a good one, grumpy. Thanks for the link. (The 'Observer' is a column in the Guardian - UK.)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 09:00 AM

Becky,
The Observer is a Sunday only newspaper. The Guardian is it's week day sibling.

For UK folks, there is on BBC4 Television a re showing of an Old "Arena" programme about Woody being shown this Friday evening at 23.30 - 00.40. It is repeated a few hours later ay 03.10 - 04.15.

Well worth catching.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:32 PM

Ah -- online it's all "Guardian". :-)

With Johnny Depp's Help, Woody Guthrie Novel to Arrive in 2013, John Williams, NY Times "Arts Beat" blog

The author Douglas Brinkley and the actor Johnny Depp are teaming up to edit "House of Earth," a previously unpublished novel by the folk singer Woody Guthrie that will be released next spring. Mr. Brinkley said in a telephone interview that the book would appear from "a major New York publisher," but declined to specify which one before the deal was completed.

The manuscript, which Guthrie finished in 1947, follows a West Texas couple who, in their effort to build adobe homes as protection against treacherous weather, fight against banks and lumber companies.

Mr. Brinkley stumbled upon mention of the work while researching a piece about Bob Dylan for Rolling Stone. "As a Woody Guthrie fan, I didn't know about this novel," he said. "There are two great biographies" of Guthrie, by Ed Cray and Joe Klein, he added. "They're fantastic, readable books, but 'House of Earth' isn't talked about in them. I went on a hunt for it."

With help from the Woody Guthrie Foundation and the singer's daughter, Nora, he found the manuscript last fall. The published book will be about 250 pages, Mr. Brinkley said.

This Land Was His Land, Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Novel - an essay by Douglas Brinkley and Johnny Depp about the book (NY Times Sunday Book Review)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Jul 12 - 12:30 PM

Woody's birthdate is this Saturday, so everyone's getting on the bandwagon.

I missed this yesterday on NPR's All Things Considered: At 100, Woody Guthrie Still Resonates (8+ mins, web page with audio, transcript and additional audio & links)

Someone in the comment section there linked to this from radio station WNYC's Fishko Files: Guthrie Archive (8 mins, audio and links, no transcript)

Posted elsewhere at the 'Cat:

Mike Harding Folk Show (UK, BBC iPlayer): Woody Guthrie's Birth Centenary

On the centenary of his birth, Mike dedicates his show to Woody Guthrie. He plays versions of his great songs by Ry Cooder, Solas, Christy Moore, Billy Bragg and Woody himself.

Can be downloaded using RadioDownloader or 'get_iplayer'. Can be played and recorded from website using Audacity (with Stereo Mix). No transcript.

Upcoming: To celebrate Woody's 100th, BBC Radio 4's Archive Hour is presenting an hour long documentary on him, this Saturday 14 July at 20-00 hrs BST. It is narrated by Joe Klein who wrote the first major biography of Guthrie and is called Woody at 100. (1 hr, no transcript)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Jul 12 - 12:39 PM

Here are links for the BBC 2 & 4 Television program that Hootenanny mentioned above:

Woody Guthrie (BBC2 link; also showing on BBC4 Fri. 13 July at 23:30, Sat 14 Jul at 03:10, and Mon 16 Jul at 01:30)

DURATION: 1 HOUR, 5 MINUTES
Documentary on the life of Woody Guthrie, the travelling songwriter and singer who paved the way for the likes of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Born in Okemah, Oklahoma, in 1912, Guthrie became a spokesman for a whole generation of downtrodden Americans during the 1930's with poignant songs like Vigilante Man, Pastures of Plenty and the anthemic This Land is Your Land.

With Jack Elliot, Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, Arlo Guthrie and Arthur Stern.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Jul 12 - 09:58 PM

More...

From Fresh Air on NPR today: Fresh Air Celebrates Woody Guthrie At 100. Terry Gross interviews Ed Cray (author of Ramblin' Man, which is now out in paperback), and Jeff Place, of Smithsonian Folkways (and the Woody at 100 set). (40 min, some additional links and a few excerpts at the web page)

Massachusetts singer songwriter Ellis Paul has put up a a new song honoring Woody and available for free download. He also has done a portrait/poster that's for sale.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,CJB
Date: 13 Jul 12 - 04:48 AM

Today's Topics:

   1. Very interesting article on Woody Guthrie - including    live
      performances by Arlo, Ry Cooder, Emmy Lou Harris etc some (John Milce)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 09:13:20 +1000
From: "John Milce"
To:
Subject: [Ausfolk] Very interesting article on Woody Guthrie -
    including    live performances by Arlo, Ry Cooder, Emmy Lou Harris etc
    some
Message-ID:
    <[e-mail]>
   
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"





http://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/woody-guthrie-a-liverpool-cele
bration/

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 12 - 04:52 AM

Sorry - previous post got garbled. It should read:

From: "John Milce"
Subject: [Ausfolk] Very interesting article on Woody Guthrie - including live performances by Arlo, Ry Cooder, Emmy Lou Harris, etc.

http://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/woody-guthrie-a-liverpool-celebration/

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 13 Jul 12 - 10:55 AM

Thanks for that one, CJB. Looks good.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 Jul 12 - 02:50 PM

Sorry Nora, but Woody was no punk rocker. I doubt very much he would cotton to the corporate image of that kind of performer. He loved the Carter Family and African-American music. How do I know? I was one of his pickin' buddies in 1952 in Topanga Canyon, California.

I think Steve Earle is closer to Woody than any of the other imitators.
Earle writes topical songs of which Woody would have approved. Woody's model for songwriting is far superior to that which any punk rocker could ever have conceived.
I think he might have thought rock and roll to be a commercialization of African-American music, all flash and no substance. He gravitated to the narrative ballad that said something about American history unlike the puerile output of punk rock. He played the guitar simply so that the words could be conveyed, not covered over with slash and burn guitar distortions. He would extend vocal phrases so that he could remember what he had written.

A lot of folks tried to ape Woody's image without coming close to his talent.
In his more lucid times, he rejected imitators of all kinds and loved Leadbelly because he was himself and copied no one.

I think he respected Pete, also, because he also was uniquely himself.

The Carter Family's "When the World's on Fire" became the tune for "This Land is Your Land".

Leadbelly has a similar attitude since one of his favorite performers was Richard Dyer- Bennet.

The idea that all folk singers should sound alike is a recent construct by exurbanite
folkies allowing them to sing poorly and ruin their voices. There's a lot of hype in this movement.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,mando-player-91
Date: 13 Jul 12 - 11:20 PM

You can listen to the Smithsonian folkways release on Deezer.com which just came available in Canada.


I'm guilty of listening to the Mermaid Ave recordings and liking some of them the rest should have been left to different artists.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 14 Jul 12 - 11:57 PM

Rare Photos: One Of Woody Guthrie's Last Shows, from "The Picture Show", a photography blog at NPR's website.

After the dust of the Dust Bowl settled down, American folksinger Woody Guthrie moved to New York City and played more for the leftist East Coast intelligentsia than for migrant workers. Among these performances, one of the better documented was an informal concert in a remarkable carriage house in Lenox, Mass.
...
July 1950. Alan Lomax, a friend of the Barbers, hosted a concert featuring Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the Rev. Gary Davis. Among those in attendance was Dan Burley, a piano player and journalist for the Amsterdam News and other African-American newspapers.

We don't know exactly what music was played that night, but it appears that Woody drew on his early years of Oklahoma fiddling, as well as the political songs for which he was better known. The photographs show him engaged in some trick fiddling and playing a guitar with his hand-scrawled signature phrase, "This machine kills fascists."

This is believed to be one of Woody's last performances before Huntington's disease began to affect his behavior and ability to play and sing.

These images survive only as a set of contact sheets.

Worth taking a look -- 14 images here.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Jul 12 - 06:26 AM

In England we don't call people after our leaders. Like Woodrow Wilson Guthrie.

We would never call someone Tony Blair Guthrie - unless we wanted to scar him for life.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 15 Jul 12 - 02:20 PM

I've just been listening to Tommy Sands' radio programme "Country Céilí" on Downtown Radio, Northern Ireland. This evening's show (5-7pm) included a feature on Woody Guthrie with interviews with Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, etc.

I can't find a way to "listen again" at http://www.downtown.co.uk/ but maybe there will be. I see archived DTR programmes re the Titanic and an interview with the Dubliners

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 15 Jul 12 - 05:53 PM

More on Woody from the political & religious perspective:

Happy Birthday, Woody Guthrie
By Jeffrey Weiss - July 12, 2012
RealClearPolitics.com & RealClearReligion.com

If Woody Guthrie had somehow survived, he would have turned 100 years old this week. Google honored his anniversary month with a Google Doodle on July 4. And from the right, the predictable protests came in. "Google celebrates Independence Day with communism."

Well, no. Guthrie was a lot more complicated than that. Here's the truth about Woody and Communism, based on several biographies: back in the 1930s and 1940s, Communism was a rather rigid ideology and its leaders brooked nothing like dissent. (Which sounds a bit like some modern political parties, yes?) While Woody was sympathetic to many avowed communist goals, he was too loose a cannon for any canon.

Yup: the Communists wouldn't let Woody be an official Communist, even if he'd really wanted to join. Turns out the Communist bosses were right: Woody would have made a terrible commie.

He was a staunch if unconventional American patriot who risked his life for the nation. He was totally willing to work for an honest dollar, even if that dollar had capitalistic ties. And he was a lifetime respecter of religion, while not much willing to get pinned down to any particular faith.

Not so Red.

About that patriotism part: during World War II, he served as a Merchant Marine, cleaning pots and pans. Two of his ships were blown up from under him. And he got back on the third. Few of his current critics can offer a comparable record of bravery for the nation.

And capitalism? While he sang plenty for free or little, he got paid when he could. In 1941, he took a one-month government job. He got paid $266.66 to write a song a day about the Bonneville Power Administration, which was selling new hydroelectric electricity to municipalities and industries in the Pacific Northwest. Woody was hired to create what amounts to pro-power propaganda. The songs from that month included several that ended up classics: "Grand Coulee Dam," "Pastures of Plenty," " Roll On Columbia" and "Jackhammer Blues." (Most writers go a lifetime without penning that many memorable songs. Woody did it in a month.)

Religion and Woody were an interesting mix, according to his own writings and the biographies. He was raised Christian in a small town in Oklahoma. But he didn't belong to any particular church as an adult. In fact, his second wife was Jewish. (Their son, Arlo, famously had a bar mitzvah that included some of the major figures in folk music.)

And since Woody wrote incessantly about everything -- the song-a-day assignment wasn't as taxing for him as it would have been for any normal human -- he wrote about Judaism. In 2006, the Klezmatics recorded an entire album of his work: "Hanuka's Flame," "Hanuka Gelt", "Spin Dreydl Spin," "(Do the) Latke Flip-Flip."

Christianity figured large in some of his songs, too. "Jesus Christ" takes what you might call a "social gospel" approach to theology:

When Jesus come to town, all the working folks around
Believed what he did say
But the bankers and the preachers, they nailed Him on the cross,
And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

He used the Old Testament, too. In "God and Joseph," he wrote about God as redeemer:

Wella, what got Joseph out o' that hole?
God did, God did!
Who sent that rich man down that road?
God did, God did!
Who took Joseph by his hand
Who took him over to Egypt's land
Who showed him the dreams of the Pharoah man?
God did, God did!

Not so commie.

But the folks who tossed sand at Google weren't all wrong. Woody was a Fellow Traveler. He joked about it: "I ain't a Communist necessarily, but I have been in the red all my life."

And he was a troublemaker who likely would have been tickled that he was still able to provoke outrage close to a half-century after his death.

His best-known song, of course, is the one that Google chose to Doodle: "This Land Is Your Land." I learned it, like lots of folks, in elementary school. The safe verses. You know, the ones about the ribbon of highway and the diamond desert and the fog lifting. Wonderful, evocative language.

But it's not supposed to be a safe song. As I finally realized when I was 17. After graduating from high school, a couple of friends and I (and a puppy) lit out on a cross-country trip. We're not talking hard traveling, though. We embarked in my friend's brand new Ford van. And we mostly slept in KOA campgrounds, which all had clean showers and welcomed dogs.

I brought my guitar. I was a mediocre strummer whose love of singing was only matched by my struggle to hit notes (then as now). Perfect for Woody's stuff, so I brought a Woody Guthrie songbook on the trip.

One night, I was playing "This Land" and got to a verse I'd probably sung by rote a hundred times. But that time, as I played, I got louder and louder as I finally realized what it was saying. The folks at the next campsite finally yelled at me to pipe down.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said 'No Trespassing.'
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

What made me laugh was figuring out there's only one way to see the far side of that sign.

That anarchic creativity is a legacy that has not been lost. When Woody's old friend Pete Seeger joined Bruce Springsteen's band during Obama's inaugural concert, they sang all the verses -- the safe ones and several less so.

I didn't grow up to be a folk singer or activist or a troublemaker. But I've picked my spots over the years, asking uncomfortable questions and intentionally pushing against the flow. When I do that, part of my inspiration is that night at that campground and that moment when I understood that freedom and truth must sometimes be found on the other side of the official signs.

Happy birthday, Woody.

Jeffrey Weiss is a RealClearReligion columnist from Dallas, Texas. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: voyager
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 12:27 PM

Arlo Guthrie Performs at Red Rocks (Cross-Posting Thread)

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,Gern
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 09:54 PM

When asked about various religions, Woody would smile and say, "I like 'em all." I love him for that. by the way, having seen the title to this thread, I;m glad to see it's not a Viagra testimony.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 19 Aug 12 - 03:30 PM

As Woody Turns 100, We Protest Too Little, an essay by Lawrence Downes in the New York Times today.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: Folklore: Woody Guthrie
From: GUEST,Allan M. Winkler
Date: 09 Oct 12 - 03:22 PM

See the article by Len Casuto "Woody Guthrie at 100" in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It starts:

Woody Guthrie has been having a blowout of a 100th birthday party, and it's lasted all year long. Forty-five years after his death in 1967, you can suddenly hear him everywhere....

It can be found at: http://chronicle.com/article/Woody-Guthrie-at-100/134838/

Subject: RE: Folklore: Woody Guthrie
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 09 Oct 12 - 03:52 PM

A nice long article. (Here's a clicky.) I'll add a link to the "Woody at 100" thread, too.

From closer to the conclusion of the article:

Viewing Guthrie's compressed epic of a life can be disorienting, like watching a movie whose soundtrack trails the picture. He produced the bulk of his creative output in a blistering decade and a half ending in the early 50s, but his public reception didn't gain momentum until he was already in decline. "Woody was born out of time," said Bragg. "Had he been born 20 years later, he would have been recognized as a classic singer-songwriter. He was an alternative artist before the idea was even invented."

Woody Guthrie wrote a soundtrack of America as seen from below. One gets the feeling that he somehow knew he had half the usual time, yet wanted to live twice as much. So he spun off words like a sparkler that seemed that it could never burn out. "Why do we continue to talk about Woody so many years on?" Bruce Springsteen asked recently. "Never had a hit, never went platinum, never played in an arena, never got his picture on the cover of Rolling Stone." Springsteen's answer: Guthrie is a "big, big ghost in the machine."

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 09 Oct 12 - 03:54 PM

Woody Guthrie at 100; The folk icon remains elusive and understudied, by Leonard Cassuto in the Chronical of Higher Education.

A nice long article.

Link provided by Guest,Allen M. Winkler and discussion at this thread.

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 12:52 AM

(threads consolidated - tx to a mudelf)

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 10:08 AM

Previewed above, House of Earth, a lost novel by Woody, is now out. NPR had a spot on it today: Woody Guthrie's 'House Of Earth' Calls 'This Land' Home.

Woody Guthrie wrote thousands of songs in his lifetime — but as far as anyone knows, he only wrote one novel. Recently discovered, House of Earth is the story of a young couple living in the Texas Panhandle in the 1930s. They dream of building a house that will withstand the bitter winds and ever-present dust that constantly threaten the flimsy wooden shack they call home.

The novel is being released by Johnny Depp's new publishing imprint at HarperCollins, Infinitum Nihil. It was Depp's publishing partner, historian and author Douglas Brinkley, who tracked down the lost novel after he stumbled across a reference to it while doing research. When he sat down to read it, Brinkley could hear the same Woody Guthrie he had grown to love through his music.

"Woody Guthrie has something that every artist would dies for: a voice," says Brinkley. "You can read House of Earth and you know it's Woody Guthrie. You know it's coming from the heart."

When Woody Guthrie's daughter, Nora Guthrie, first read the book, she had a different reaction. "The opening chapter was so sexy," she says, laughing. "I just went, whoa, Dad, where are you going with this?"

Both Brinkley and Guthrie suspect that in part, it is the sexually explicit material in the book that kept it from being published after it was written in 1947.

And there was another reason: The book would have come out just as an era of virulent anti-communism was getting under way, so it was also most likely that politics kept it from being published. Because, Brinkley says, the book is both a love story and a polemic against the bankers and businessmen Guthrie blamed for keeping the poor, poor — a theme often heard in his music.

More at the NPR link.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 10:54 AM

Woody Sez at The Lowry Centre, Salford, England
Thursday 7 February - Saturday 9 February 2013

Woody Sez celebrates the spirit of American folk legend Woody Guthrie, whose music continues to inspire today's finest storytelling songwriters including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Bragg.

Part music, part words, Woody Sez weaves together Guthrie's songs with excerpts from articles he wrote for leftist newspaper The People's World to create a portrait of a true American hero.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 05 Feb 13 - 08:05 PM

A bit more about "Woody Sez", and a video sample at The Lowry website.

A note on it at Salford Online.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 16 Mar 13 - 12:52 PM

'This Land is Your Land' Project, PBS - a Mudcat thread about "an interactive documentary to record us all singing Woody Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land'", produced by American Masters/WNET THIRTEEN in New York. If you make a recording for the project, let us know on that thread!

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Mar 13 - 07:40 PM

One thing I remember about Woody is that he didn't give a damn for the commercial music business or show business in general. He wrote songs because he had to, for working people, not because he wanted to be famous like Dylan. He thought the music and show business was a great big phony world. I think he was right. He couldn't care less about being on "the charts". Chances are, if he had a lot of money, he would have given it all away to someone he felt needed it. He was no capitalist.

Woody had lots of guitars, disposable items as Norah has said. He has been known to "borrow" some and take off. He found convenient silverware at times as well. He was no saint. Your wife, daughter or sister might not be safe around him but the same can be said for Duke Ellington, Bird, Bechet and many jazz musicians, Mozart, and all manner of wonderful artistic people.

That's not we we remember them for. What we crazy humans tend to do is romanticize those whose talents we admire. But his songs will live on because they were so damned real and well-constructed in only the way Woody could do it.

So burnt cigarette holes in your couch after a night of Woody staying there just makes him more real, maybe not nice all the time and as Pete has said "a pain in the ass", still you gotta' love the guy because he actually was lovable in spite of his shit.

And as Pete has said, when he was gone, you missed him. I miss him now because he could write a song that is simple, direct, and says something important about this nutty world we live in. He is a great model for songwriters today.

By the way, he was a socialist. That informed his artistry.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Mar 13 - 03:01 AM

It occurs to me that someone could make up a revue sketch showing Rockefeller, Carnegie, Frick and J P Morgan singing "This Land..." as a quartet.

Just a thought... Would it be funny or in terrible taste? I can't quite decide.

~M~

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stringsinger
Date: 17 Mar 13 - 12:54 PM

Santelli says that not enough is done on Woody. I think he's right.

One book he failed to mention is "Cisco, Woody and Me" by Jim Longhi, labor organizer.
Aside from Ed Cray's excellent book, "Ramblin' Man", Longhi's book is the best insight
to the real Woody.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Mark Ross
Date: 17 Mar 13 - 03:03 PM

Jimmy Longhi's memoir is the best portrait of a folksinger I have ever read! He really brings Woody to life.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Stringsinger
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 10:03 AM

Right, Mark! I thought it was incredible. Only someone who was on the left side of politics could really get Woody. His venue was where the activist action was. Musical activism was a heritage that Woody, if not started, carried on to establish the "protest song" and was the first to my knowledge to introduce songs about the "environment" and the dust bowl was part of the desertification of the world which is the product of global warming. Woody was a musical descendent of Joe Hill. He was always for the little guy and was opposed to big business, corporate types in Show Biz or anywhere else.

He didn't like Hitler, obviously, but saw fascist elements in the U.S. equally as dangerous and hence "This machine licks fascists" wasn't just about Germany, Japan or Italy.

I believe that he influenced Leadbelly in the writing of the "Bourgeois Blues" and "Red Cross Store" but I don't really know that. I'm not sure but he may have influenced Josh White, also. Alan Lomax obviously got Woody and was responsible for the songs Woody wrote for the Bonneville Dam Administration, the best use of tax payer money I can think of.

My opinion, no Left, no Woody.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: GUEST,mando-player-91
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 10:26 AM

I watched Billy Bragg's documentary on Woody not to long ago I thought it was pretty good anyone else see it?-Shep

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 03 Jun 13 - 05:21 PM

This news from Woody Guthrie Publications:

"WOODY GUTHRIE AT 100! LIVE AT THE KENNEDY CENTER"

LIVE CONCERT NOW AIRING on
PBS stations across the country throughout June!

Preview: http://m.video.pbs.org/video/2365018242/


Best wishes, THomas.

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 03 Jun 13 - 07:36 PM

better link:
PBS - Woody at 100 preview - Kennedy Center



http://video.pbs.org/video/2365018242

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 12:51 PM

It's post-anniversary, but certainly inspired by it: the New York TImes has a lovely long Travel section article about a summer road trip that ended up being shaped by Woody's songs and ideas. Check it out.

In Search of Woody Guthrie's America, by Freda Moon, November 22, 2013

Here's the opening of the article, as a sample:

The Pacific Northwest is one of my favorite spots in this world, and I'm one walker that's stood way up and looked way down acrost aplenty of pretty sights in all their veiled and nakedest seasons. The Pacific Northwest has got mineral mountains. It's got chemical deserts. It's got rough run canyons. It's got sawblade snowcaps. It's got ridges of nine kinds of brown, hills out of six colors of green, ridges five shades of shadows, and stickers the eight tones of hell.
— Columbia River Songbook

The folk singer Woody Guthrie was prone to hyperbole. Whatever caught his attention, even briefly, became in his rendering the biggest, the best, the most, the greatest. His lyrics suggested a constant state of wonder, as if he saw every public utility project, rapid-churned river, dive bar or struggling worker through the eyes of a voracious, world-hungry child. An avowed everyman and insatiable traveler, Guthrie prided himself on knowing the country — "from California, to the New York Island" — by foot, freight train and hitchhiker's thumb.

Guthrie's America is vast and varied. It is the rolling hills of Oklahoma, where he was born just over a century ago, and the plains of the Texas Panhandle, to which he fled when hard times hit his hometown, Okemah; it is the Columbia River of the Pacific Northwest and the not-so-glittering Los Angeles of the 1930s; and it is the multicultural fun house of Coney Island, where Guthrie lived his last lucid, productive years before dying of Huntington's disease in 1967.

In some 3,000 songs, many written on the road, about the places he lived or passed through in his "hard travelin' " days, Guthrie expressed the spectrum of American experience in a way few other writers have. As he "roamed and rambled," he captured something essential in places where he spent even a fleeting amount of time.

I first heard Guthrie's songs as a child in Northern California in the 1980s. Surrounded by the redwood forests of "This Land Is Your Land," my classmates and I sang his anthem in grammar school. But it wasn't until later, when I read stories about Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, that I understood the breadth of his influence on American song and on its intersection with politics and counterculture.

The opening of the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Okla., this past spring, the release of a never-before-published Guthrie novel, "House of Earth," last February, and the centennial celebration of his birth last year signal that I'm not alone in wanting to see Guthrie with fresh eyes.

So this summer, as I planned a coast-to-coast road trip from Brooklyn to my hometown, Mendocino, in California, Guthrie's lyrics kept leaping to mind, running like a ticker across every imagined scene. Before long, they started to shape the route itself. I wouldn't be able to go to every place in America that inspired his music, but I could go to a few where he experienced pivotal creative moments. Using Guthrie as my guide, I would get to know the America that may have inspired the same mix of awe and political passion in him if he could see it today.

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: Woody at 100
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Feb 19 - 05:21 PM

The National Endowment for the Arts did an interview of Pete Seeger about Woody for Woody's 100th birthday:

https://www.arts.gov/audio/pete-seeger-0

Subject: RE: Woody at 100 - born in 1912, died 1967
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Apr 22 - 01:36 AM

Toward the end of his life, Woody spent time at the Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, from 1956-1961. Woody Guthrie's Daughter, Nora Guthrie, recalls her father's days there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43YZ2VWJmvk

Arlo Guthrie: Memories of his father, Woody, at Greystone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObwQvAVDcLo

Subject: RE: Woody at 100 - born in 1912, died 1967
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 01:00 PM

Woody was a fan of Will Rogers.

Pete said although he, Pete, wasn't a member of the CPUSA, he called himself a communist with a small c. I suspect that's what Woody would have said, too.

If we dig into the term "communist" it can mean different things. There's the Bolsheviks, the Mencheviks, the Trotskyists, and all kinds of Socialists. I don't know if Woody had read Marx. I suspect that he had. Like so many of us, he was a critic of Capitalism.
Not to understand this is to miss who Woody was.

Howard Zinn, the historian (People's History of the United States) was inspired in his career by Woody's song "Ludlow Massacre" in Colorado where the striking coal miners took arms against
the militia who tried to break the strike. That's not in the high school history books.

Woody liked my banjo playing because it was like Pete's. I always tried to accompany him in his tunes and never overshadow him in any way.

He was a man of a few words. But those few words found their way into powerful songs.
I mentioned Steve Earle in earlier posts but IMHO even closer to Woody's writing style and tradition was the output of Jean Ritchie. Woody would probably have sung "The L and N Don't Stop Here Anymore" or "Black Waters"

I believe there is a direct line between Woody and Joe Hill (the father of the modern protest song).