Woody at 100 - born in 1912, died 1967

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).