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19 Jun 07 - 07:39 AM (#2080900) Subject: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: Suffet Greetings: WOODY REDISCOVERED is a musical exploration of Woody Guthrie's less known songs that Anne Price and I developed with the encouragement and support of the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives. We have already presented it eight times, in venues from Takoma Park, MD, up to Amherst, MA, and points in between. We will be presenting it next in New York City this coming fall. Here are the details: Folk Music Society of New York, Inc. New York Pinewoods Folk Music Club presents an afternoon house concert style workshop WOODY REDISCOVERED an Exploration of Woody Guthrie's Less Known Songs with Anne Price and Steve Suffet Sunday • September 30, 2007 • 4:00 to 6:00 PM Upper West Side Manhattan location • New York City Near Lincoln Center Contribution: $13. FMSNY/Pinewoods members: $10. Children: $6. Seating limited to 25. Reservations required. For reservations and location, e-mail or call 718-786-1533. There are more than 3,000 songs in the Woody Guthrie Archives, and Woody recorded well over 300 of them. However, only about 30 are really well known today. In this workshop, Anne Price and I will introduce you to a few of Woody Guthrie's other 2,970+ songs. Some were recorded or published in Woody's own lifetime; others were discovered among his effects after his death. All deserve to be recognized as the gems that they are. We will have song sheets available, so come prepared to learn some new old songs! Anne and I hope to meet some Mudcatters in NYC on September 30. If you are interested in having us present WOODY REDISCOVERED in your own town, please contact me by e-mail or phone. Thanks. --- Steve |
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06 Aug 07 - 10:06 PM (#2120563) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: Suffet Note: This September 30 event is completely sold out. E-mail or call only if you want to be added to the waiting list. Anne and I will also be giving an abbreviated version of WOODY REDISCOVERED starting at 1:20 PM on Saturday, October 13, 2007, as part of the Second Annual Dissident Folk Festival at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, New York. --- Steve |
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07 Aug 07 - 12:37 AM (#2120614) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: katlaughing Steve, for folks who do not live or can't get there, will you be posting a set list or a link to any recordings available? Thanks, kat |
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07 Aug 07 - 12:57 PM (#2120896) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: Suffet Kat, Sure. Anne Price and I never do the exact same presentation twice. Our choice of songs depends mostly upon the audience – how familiar they are with Guthrie's work – and the length of time we have available. We have presented a brief version of WOODY REDISCOVERED in 40 minutes, and we have presented an extended version as a 2-hour house concert. We have also presented as 75-minute version of WOODY REDISCOVERED as a modified song swap, in which we leave 15 to 20 minutes for people in the audience to contribute little known Guthrie songs of their own choosing. The last time we did so was in Philadelphia last January, when one participant, bluegrass musician Mimi LaValley, came forward with a gem called Don't Marry. Despite those changes, Anne and I seem to have developed a core of songs that we almost always sing, time and circumstances permitting. These include: Steve Mr. Tom Mooney Lindbergh Why Do You Stand There in the Rain? VD Blues Peace Pin Boogie When the Curfew Blows What Are We Waiting On? Tin Horn Taxi Sixty-Six Highway Blues Sally Don't You Grieve (World War II version) I Don't Like the Way This World's a-Treating Me Blow, Big Wind Anne Peace Call Ticky Tock Way Down Yonder in a Minor Key Ingrid Bergman Heaven My Home one of Woody's Hanuukkah songs one of Woody's less known children's songs In addition to the songs listed above, here are ones I sand when Anne and I presented WOODY REDISCOVERED as a house concert in Brooklyn, NY: Listen to the Music Taking It Easy, Taking It Slow (World War II version) New Found Land (Living in the Light of the Morning) Dry Spell on the Plains Dear Mrs. Roosevelt Pittsburgh Town Good Old Union Feeling Sorry, but I don't have the list of the additional songs that Anne did. Listen to the Music is actually a song fragment that appears in Bound for Glory. Woody says it was his first song, and that he made it up as a small child. The sources of our Guthrie songs are many and varied. Anne likes to do songs where Billy Bragg, Hans-Eckardt Wenzel, or the Klezmatics have added their own tunes to Woody's lyrics. She finds these songs on CDs issued with the last ten years. I prefer to find little known songs that were published and/or recorded in Woody's own lifetime. Among the best sources are recordings Woody made for Moe Asch that are now available from Smithsonian Folkways. I have all of them. Another good source is an out-of-print book called The Nearly Complete Collection of Woody Guthrie Folk Songs, published by Ludlow Music in 1963. Additional Guthrie songs can be found in Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People, by Alan Lomax, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger. They compiled it in 1940, but it wasn't published until 1967. If you don't want to pay $2,000 for a mint condition first edition by Oak Publications, you can probably pick up a brand new copy of the 1999 reprint by the University of Nebraska Press for less than $100 (aginst a suggested retail price of $19.95). I paid $76 for one on eBay two years ago. Another useful source is Guthrie's thin collection called American Folksong, edited by Moe Asch and first published by him in 1947. It was reprinted by Oak Publications in 1961. There are, of course, many other sources. There are Guthrie songs in The People's Song Book, in issues of The People's Song Bulletin, in Sing Out!, and in various collections of Guthrie's prose. The thick 1976 edition of The Woody Guthrie Songbook, published by Grosset and Dunlap, contains many songs that have been omitted from later editions. That's where you can find the original lyrics to The Sinking of the Reuben James, in which Woody attempted to name each of the men who died. He managed to name 21 before writing in the eighth stanza: Eight-six men were drowned, I can't give you all their names. Fortunately, Pete Seeger convinced Woody to edit the song! I hope I have answered some of your questions. If you would like us to present WOODY REDISCOVRED in your own town, please e-mail me rather than sending a PM. I check my e-mail at least once a day, but I often don't log onto Mudcat for days at a time. --- Steve |
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07 Aug 07 - 03:03 PM (#2120986) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: GUEST,Big Mick in the Badlands of South Dakota Steve and Anne are to be commended for this work. It is very important for folks to get past the songs of Woody's that were popularized (and in many cases sanitized) to get to the meat of what he was about. His messages were those of the working folks. What always amazes me when I dig into his, and others, works from this time is their relevance to workers today. The problems encountered, and the injustices pointed out, resonate today if one listens with a discerning ear. The technology has changed, the methodology has changed, but the issues, when stripped away by a good singer willing to do so, are the same. Thanks for this show. And for listing the resources. I am after the out of print book as I write this. Mick |
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07 Aug 07 - 03:28 PM (#2121014) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: katlaughing Yes, I've noticed their relevance, too, Mick, esp. when we watched Bound for Glory, recently. Steve, thanks so much for all of the info! Great stuff there and I shall be looking for come of those CDs and books, though I know I have a coulple of them. Good for you and Anne! |
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07 Aug 07 - 05:09 PM (#2121115) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: Suffet Greetings: If you click here, you will be taken to a page on the Songs of Freedom website where you can download MP3s of Eric Levine singing Einstein Theme Song, Miimi LaValley singing Don't Marry, Jessica Feinbloom singing Peace Pin Boogie, Joel Landy singing Peace Call, Hillel Arnold singing 1913 Massacre, and me singing 66 Highway Blues. With the possible exception of 1913 Massacre, these qualify as less well known Guthrie songs. The page has lots more MP3s. Most, but not all, are of songs by Guthrie. All were recorded at the recent Seventh Annual Woody Guthrie Birthday Bash in New York City. --- Steve |
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08 Aug 07 - 06:26 AM (#2121535) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: GUEST,Anne Price I heard a CD of the Woody Birthday Bash and it was fabulous. Due to a mix-up I wasn't able to participate this year, but I can't wait to do the Rediscover Woody show again. |
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08 Aug 07 - 01:13 PM (#2121797) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: Stringsinger Two favorite songs of Woody's were "Jolie Blonde" (cajun) and "At My Window Sad and Lonely" which Billy Bragg recorded with the wrong tune. Frank Hamilton |
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08 Aug 07 - 01:56 PM (#2121840) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: Suffet Greetings: The correct tune for At My Window Sad and Lonely, or at least the tune Woody sang, is transcribed on page 50 of Woody Guthrie's American Folksong, published by Moe Asch in 1947 and reprinted by Oak Publications in 1961. --- Steve |
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04 Sep 07 - 02:10 AM (#2140276) Subject: RE: Anne & Steve Rediscover Woody 9/30/07 From: Suffet Greetings: Here are four quick notes: • All the seats for our September 30 presentation of WOODY REDISCOVERED in New York City are now booked. From now on, we can only take names for the waiting list. • Anne Price and I have added Hillel Arnold to the September 30 program. Formerly an assistant at the Woody Guthrie Archives, Hillel is now a graduate student at New York University and quite a Woody Guthrie scholar. • Anne and I will be presenting an abbreviated version of WOODY REDISCOVERED from 1:20 to 2:20 PM on Saturday, October 13, 2007, in Beacon, New York, as part of the Second Annual Dissident Art and Folk Music Festival. The festival will take place from 1:00 to 11:00 PM at the Howland Cultural Center, 477 Main Street. All day admission is just $10. • We have so far presented WOODY REDISCOVERED in venues extending from Amherst, MA, down to Takoma Park, MD. If you would like us to bring it to your town, please contact me by e-mail rather than by PM. I usually check my e-mail at least once a day, but I may let a week or more may pass without logging onto Mudcat. --- Steve |