'We are all Woody's children.'

Subject: RE: 'We are all Woody's children.'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 20 Nov 15 - 07:20 AM

Sat 16 Feb 2013 09:00 BBC RADIO 4 Saturday Live

Saturday Live

Billy Bragg, John McCarthy at the Arirang Games, Debbie Wiseman plays snooker, Dawn O'Porter's Inheritance Tracks

Sian Williams & Richard Coles with musician Billy Bragg who also plays live; Bernadette Russell who did a good deed every day for a year and photographer Giles Duley who lost three limbs on assignment in Afghanistan. John McCarthy looks in on the Arirang Games in North Korea, composer Debbie Wiseman plays snooker with JP Devlin; a listener tells us about her discovery of Chicken Spectacles and writer and broadcaster Dawn O'Porter shares her Inheritance Tracks. Producer: Corinna Jones.

Download MP3 Available now 1 hour, 28 minutes

Subject: RE: 'We are all Woody's children.'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Nov 15 - 05:44 AM

What was the radio programme, John?

Subject: RE: 'We are all Woody's children.'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 20 Nov 15 - 05:20 AM

In 1990, BBC Radio 2 broadcast a series of programmes titled Tom Paxton's America; Tom Paxton introduces America's so-called
'Woody's Children', who have kept up the Woody Guthrie singer-songwriter tradition in the United States.

Wednesday 29 August 1990; Tonight's programme features Rockcreek, David Massengill and John Gorka. Producer Geoffrey Hewitt

Tom Paxton admitted he was one of Woody's Children. In the introduction to his songbook, Rambling Boy, he wrote;

I have a habit - the habit of sitting in Joe's on West Fourth Street or the kitchen of the Gaslight or in my genuine Danish three-geared reclining chair, trying to carry on the work that Woody began. The reference to Guthrie is no accident, for those who write songs today (Dylan, Chandler, Marrs, Ochs, LaFarge, Reynolds, Spoelstra, et al) owe it all to Woody. He showed us how and he told us why.

Tom Paxton, New York City, Winter 1964-65

Subject: ADD: We Are All Woody's Children (Dough Mishkin)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Nov 15 - 02:30 AM

There's a song built on that phrase:

WOODY'S CHILDREN
(Doug Mishkin)

CHORUS
We are all Woody's children
We are all glory bound
When we smile, when we sing his songs
We show we know the truth he found

In your Oklahoma home
A troubadour all set to roam
You and your family felt the Dust Bowl blow
You sang your songs and let us know

You rode the rails as hobos do
Saw hard-hit people scraping through
Took scattered voices feeling small
You made a glorious chorus of us all

Every business man or woman in a suit
Every migrant farmer picking fruit
When they listen to your song
They know there's one family where we belong

You raised us well, so we became
Your children proud to share your name
Bound for glory – you showed the way
Bound together – that's how we'll stay

Now we children know what to do
It takes hard work to make a song come true
The time has come to follow thru
It's time to make this land for me & you

——w & m: Doug Mishkin
© 1987 Douglas B. Mishkin. On his Woody's Children.
Pete Seeger once said that all the folksingers who came after Woody Guthrie were "Woody's children."

http://www.woodyschildren.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Xu7uk2JnI

Subject: RE: 'We are all Woody's children.'
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Feb 13 - 02:43 PM

Nicely put Mark. Thanks.

Subject: RE: 'We are all Woody's children.'
From: Mark Ross
Date: 16 Feb 13 - 01:50 PM

In the late '60's I became acquainted with members of the Guthrie family, Arlo, his mother Marjorie, his siblings Nora, and Joady. I asked Marjorie if it was possible to visit Woody. She told me that it was too upsetting to him because at that time his disease made it impossible to communicate with strangers.;

A couple of years after he passed on, I said to Marjorie Guthrie that one of my biggest regrets was not ever having gotten to meet him. She replied that I shouldn't feel any regrets because there was a little bit of Woody in each of us.

Mark Ross

Subject: 'We are all Woody's children.'
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Feb 13 - 12:31 PM

The wonderful Billy Bragg said this on Radio 4 (UK), this morning, and I thought it a wonderful thing to say, as it is true in so many ways, but how well he encapsulated it.