Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie in 1943 with guitar labeled "This machine kills fascists"
Background information
Birth name	Woodrow Wilson Guthrie
Born	July 14, 1912 Okemah, Oklahoma, USA
Origin	Los Angeles, California, United States
Died	October 3 1967 (aged 55) New York City, New York, USA
Genre(s)	Folk
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter
Years active	1930s – 1956

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie [July 14, 1912–October 3, 1967) was a prolific American song writer and folk musician who influenced the entire postwar development of American folk music. He was a first-hand observer and survivor of the economic and environmental hardships of the Dust Bowl, which shook the Great Plains states during the Great Depression. Guthrie's body of music consists of hundreds of songs, ballads and improvised works. After his discovery by the American folklorist Alan Lomax in Spain during the Franco years, Guthrie gained increasing stature as a voice of protest to industrialization, as well as a lyricist of traditional American life. The breadth of his song topics ranged from political and traditional songs to children's songs. He is perhaps best known for his song "This Land Is Your Land," an anthem of American life sung in churches, schools, and community events across the nation.

Woody Guthrie traveled across America many times and spent much of his time on early trips learning traditional folk and blues songs and creating new American folk songs of working people. His travels frequently followed the movement of migrant workers across the Great Plains and in California. He was associated with and regularly performed for, but was never a member of, several communist groups in the U.S. throughout his life. He had a great many odd jobs including sign painter, radio host, fruit picker, sailor, dish-washer, and soldier in the U.S. Army.

Married three times, Guthrie fathered eight children, including folk musician Arlo Guthrie, and is the grandfather of musician Sarah Lee Guthrie. Later in life, he developed symptoms of the degenerative neurologic affliction, Huntington's disease and eventually died from complications of this fatal congenital disease. In spite of his illness, during his later years, he served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, most importantly as a mentor to young Bob Dylan.

Biography

Early life

Woody Guthrie's birthplace
Okfuskee County, OK

Woodrow "Woody" Guthrie was the second son born to Nora Belle Tanner Sherman and Charles Edward Guthrie. He was born in Okemah, Oklahoma on July 14, 1912. His parents named him after Woodrow Wilson, who was elected President of the United States the same year Guthrie was born.

His father was a land speculator, a cowboy, and a politician who made a living following the oil booms. Woody's father taught his son Western songs, Indian songs and even some Scottish tunes. His mother, Kansas born, was also known to be musically inclined, giving Woody an early exposure to music.

Guthrie had a tumultuous early life. His older sister died in a fire when he was only seven years old, and his father was burned in a separate fire. His mother was committed to the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane, around 1923 when Woody was only about 11 years old. There, she lived and later died of Huntington's disease a genetic disease that was passed down to her son Woody.

After Guthrie's mother was hospitalized, his father followed an oil boom to west Texas, leaving his two sons in Oklahoma. So it was at the young age of about 12, Woody set off on his own. He lived for a couple of years with a large family of ten in a two-room house. Then at 15 years old, according to his autobiography, Bound for Glory, Woody found odd jobs such as shining shoes, or washing spittoons.

When Woody was 16 he left for the Gulf of Mexico where he worked in the fields, hoeing and picking fruits. He did yard work, moved garbage cans and took jobs helping carpenters and well drillers.

Woody joined his father in Pampa, Texas in 1926. It was here, while painting signs, that one of his uncles bought him a guitar and taught him to play.

Dust Bowl traveling era

While in Texas, at age 21, he met and married his first wife, Mary Jennings, with whom he had three children. He used his musical talents to earn money as a street musician and by doing small gigs. Woody's constant traveling and moving of the family wore down Mary's resolve. Their relationship was always strained and they were eventually divorced.

About this life in the Dust Bowl Woody later wrote,

"And there on the Texas plains right in the dead center of the dust bowl, with the oil boom over and the wheat blowed out and the hard-working people just stumbling about, bothered with mortgages, debts, bills, sickness, worries of every blowing kind, I seen there was plenty to make up songs about…I never did make up any songs about the cow trails or the moon skipping through the sky, but at first it was funny songs or songs about what all's wrong, and how it turned out good or bad. Then I got a little braver and made up songs telling what I thought was wrong and how to make it right, songs that said what everybody in the country was thinking. And this has held me ever since."

He and his family left Texas during the Dust Bowl era, following the Okies to California. The poverty Woody saw on these early trips affected him greatly, and many of his songs are concerned with the conditions faced by the working class.

Careers

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do." —Written by Guthrie in the late 1930s on a songbook distributed to listeners of his L.A. radio show "Woody and Lefty Lou" who wanted the words to his recordings.

In the late 1930s, Guthrie achieved fame in Los Angeles, California, with radio partner Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman as a broadcast performer of "hillbilly" music and traditional folk music. While appearing on KFVD, a commercial radio station owned by a populist-minded New Deal Democrat, Guthrie also began to write and perform some of the protest songs that would eventually end up on Dust Bowl Ballads. In 1939, Guthrie moved to New York City and was embraced by its leftist folk music community. He also made perhaps his first real recordings: several hours of conversation and songs, recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress, as well as an album, Dust Bowl Ballads, for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey. He began writing his autobiography, Bound for Glory, which was completed and published in 1943. The Bound for Glory adapted (film) was released in 1967. He frequently donated money made from his music gigs and busking to help various peoples and causes.

A lifelong socialist and trade unionist, he contributed a regular column to the Daily Worker and People's World newspapers. He was a member of the (Industrial Workers of the World IWW or Wobblies]]) Union for some years.Although Guthrie is frequently associated with leftist or Socialist politics, Steve Earle said of Woody, "I don't think of Woody Guthrie as a political writer. He was a writer who lived in very political times".

In February 1940, Guthrie penned his most famous song, "This Land Is Your Land." Originally titled "God Blessed America"; It was inspired in part by his experiences during a cross-country trip and in part by his distaste for the Irving Berlin song "God Bless America," which he considered unrealistic and complacent (and he was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio). The melody is based on the gospel song "When the World's on Fire," best known as sung by the country group The Carter Family around 1930. Guthrie protested class inequality in the final verses:

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I'd seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

As I went walking, I saw a sign there,

And on the sign there, It said "no trespassing." [In another version, the sign reads "Private Property"]

But on the other side, it didn't say nothing!

That side was made for you and me.

These verses were often omitted in subsequent recordings, sometimes by Guthrie himself. Though the song was written in 1940, it would be four years before it was recorded by Moses Asch in April 1944 and even longer until sheet music was produced and given to schools by Howie Richmond.

Under the impression that a documentary of an influential American songwriter was to be created, Guthrie moved to the Pacific northwest. The film was never made, but some good did come of the move. In May 1941, Guthrie was commissioned by the United States Department of the Interior and its Bonneville Power Administration to write songs about the Columbia River and the building of the federal dams. The best known of these are "Roll On Columbia" and "Grand Coulee Dam."

Woody Guthrie, 1943

Following the conclusion of the project, in 1941, Guthrie moved to New York, leaving his family behind. He began corresponding with Pete Seeger about his newly formed folk-protest group, the Almanac Singers. The singers originally worked out of a loft in New York City hosting regular concerts. They eventually outgrew this space and everyone moved into the cooperative Almanac House in Greenwich Village. Guthrie at first helped write and sing what the Almanacs termed "peace" songs (mostly pro-communist, pro-isolationist), but after America's entry into World War II the focus quickly became anti-fascist.

World War II years

Woody unsuccessfully lobbied the U.S. Army to avoid the draft, believing his anti-fascist songs and poems were the best use of his talents in the war. When this failed, pressured by his friend Cisco Houston, Guthrie along with Jim Longhi joined the United States Merchant Marine. Woody served as a mess man and dish washer, but would frequently entertain and keep up the spirits of the crew and troops on the trans-Atlantic voyages. Jim Longhi would later write about these experiences in his book Woody, Cisco and Me. It offers a rare first hand account of Guthrie during this period.

Conservatives frequently criticized the ostensibly Communist leanings of Guthrie's work; although he was never actually a member of the party, he did express sympathy towards the party many times, which was not unusual among 1930s folk singers.

Guthrie's association with communism eventually rendered him ineligible for further service in the Merchant Marine in 1945, causing him to be drafted into the U.S. Army near the end of the war.

It was at this time Woody met his future second wife Marjorie Mazia. Woody and Marjorie were married while he was on furlough from the Army. After his discharge, they moved into a house on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, and together had four children—including Cathy, his daughter who died at age four in a fire, sending him into a serious depression. Woody and Marjorie's other children were named Joady, Nora and Arlo. Later, Arlo became a famous singer-songwriter in his own right. During this period, Guthrie wrote and recorded Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child, a collection of children's music, which includes the song "Goodnight Little Arlo (Goodnight Little Darlin')," written when his son was about nine years old.

Folk revival

In the mid-1940s Guthrie, a prolific folk musician, met up with Moses "Moe" Asch of Folkways Records who was the first to record "This Land Is Your Land." Folkways also recorded "Worried Man Blues" and hundreds of others of Guthrie's songs over the next few years. These songs were later released in several pressings by Folkways and Stinson Records. (They had joint distribution rights to the recordings).

The 1948 plane crash carrying 28 Mexican farm workers from Oakland, California, on their way to be deported back to Mexico inspired the song "Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)."This song helped inspire sentiment for minority rights through musical expression, i.e., folk music.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s a new generation of young people inspired by Woody, Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston and other folk singers had become more politically aware, following the tense 1950s climate. The American Folk Revival was beginning to take place, focused on the civil rights movement and Free Speech Movement whose concerns were current issues of personal freedoms.

Soon after learning of Woody's whereabouts, these new-folk singers would regularly visit him in Brooklyn during the final years of his life, playing his own songs for him as well as their new ballads. One of the first people to visit Woody was Bob Dylan. Dylan idolized Guthrie, calling him his hero.

By this point Woody's Huntington's disease heavily slurred his speech and altered his movements. Ramblin' Jack Elliott, a Jewish New-Yorker who had adopted a cowboy lifestyle and had studied extensively with Woody, taught Dylan and Guthrie's son Arlo much of Guthrie's performance. When asked about this teaching, Elliott said, "I was flattered, Dylan learned from me the same way I learned from Woody. Woody didn't teach me, he just said, 'If you want to learn something, just steal it—that's the way I learned from Lead Belly.'". Woody was a strong influence in folk music for at least three generations.

Death

Already by the late l940s, Guthrie's health had worsened and his behavior was extremely erratic. He received various diagnoses including alcoholism and schizophrenia, but was finally diagnosed to be suffering from Huntington's disease in 1952, the genetic disorder that had caused the death of his mother. Upon his release from a California hospital, Marjorie Guthrie would not take him back, calling him a danger to the children's well-being.

While still in California, Woody lived in a compound owned by Will Geer and some other old folk singer types. He met his third wife, Anneke Van Kirk, and had another child, Lorina Lynn. The couple moved to Florida briefly, before eventually returning to New York in 1954. Shortly after that, Anneke filed for divorce, citing the strain of caring for Woody. Anneke left New York and Lorina Lynn was adopted by friends of hers, but died at age 19. After that divorce, his former wife Marjorie, who had continued to keep tabs on Woody, returned to his life to care for him and assisted him as his condition worsened.

Woody, increasingly unable to control his muscle movements, was hospitalized at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital from 1956 to 1961, at Brooklyn State Hospital until 1966, and finally at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center. Woody died of complications from Huntington's on October 3, 1967. His ashes were sprinkled in the Atlantic Ocean.

Legacy

Guthrie's death raised awareness about Huntington's Disease. Guthrie's condition was misdiagnosed and proper treatment delayed because little was known about Huntington's Disease at the time. In 1967 his ex-wife, Marjorie Guthrie, helped found the Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease, which became the Huntington's Disease Society of America.

A statue honoring Guthrie was erected in Memorial Park on Main Street in his hometown of Okemah. Also in Okemah, the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival celebrates his legacy each summer. It is produced by the Woody Guthrie Coalition, founded by his sister, Mary Jo Edgmon.

A year before Woody died he was given the Conservation Service Award by the U.S. Department of the Interior. This award was given because of his love and kinship to the land that is contained in so many of his songs and writings.

He was a prolific writer throughout his life and wrote more than three thousand songs, of which about 600 were recorded, and thousands of pages of unpublished poems and prose. Guthrie completed several novels in his lifetime, the most famous is Bound for Glory, which is loosely autobiographical. He also eventually completed a heavily edited version of Seeds of Man, a book of poetry called Born to Win and several songbooks. His 'Woody Sez' columns from Daily Worker newspaper were also published as a collection posthumously. Bound For Glory was released in no small part due to the patient editing assistance of Marjorie Guthrie, his second wife.

• Woody Guthrie appeared in one movie Brother Can You Spare a Dime (1975)
• In 1988, Woody was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Musical influence

''"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built. I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work."'' —Woody on Songwriting

Guthrie's catalogue never brought him many awards while he was alive, but in 2000 he was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously.

Several groups have recorded versions of Woody's songs, particularly "This Land Is Your Land." Bob Dylan, The Wayfarers, Glenn Yarborough, the Kingston Trio, the Brothers Four, the Limelighters, the New Christy Minstrels, Peter, Paul and Mary, Trini Lopez, Harry Belafonte, Jay and the Americans, Glen Campbell, Billy Bragg, Bing Crosby, the Staple Singers, Tex Ritter, Connie Francis, Country Joe McDonald, Paul Anka, Jim Croce, the Mike Curb Congregation and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir all recorded versions of "This Land Is Your Land". In 1962, Bob Dylan wrote "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie," a long tribute poem and included "Song to Woody" on Bob Dylan his first, eponymous album. In 1964, Phil Ochs debut album, All the News That's Fit to Sing, included the song "Bound for Glory," a tribute to Guthrie and a criticism of revisionism and ignorance among modern audiences who preferred to forget some of Guthrie's more controversial lyrics. With the release of Donovan's 1965 debut album "Catch the Wind (1965 album)," the folk singer included a cover of the Woody Guthrie staple "Car Song." In 1971, Joan Baez first began publicly performing Guthrie's song "Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)." She continues performing it, most recently releasing it on her 2005 live album Bowery Songs. Baez and Bob Dylan both played the song as a duet on his ill-fated 1976 television special Hard Rain. Bruce Springsteen recorded "This Land Is Your Land" live at the Nassau Coliseum and is included on the Live/1975-85 album (1986). The band Blackfire released their "Woody Guthrie Singles" in 2003. The Colorado-based band, Leftover Salmon, honored Guthrie on their 2004 self-titled release with the song "Woody Guthrie." Woody Guthrie is a featured part of the band Son Volt's 2005 album Okemah and the Melody of Riot and is mentioned by name in the first track on that album, "Bandages & Scars." Old Crow Medicine Show released a cover of Guthrie's "Union Maid" on their album Big Iron World. The Dropkick Murphys covered "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" on their 2005 CD, The Warrior's Code.

Several works have been composed in tribute to Woody. Alabama 3's song called "Woody Guthrie." Freakwater released a song called "Cathy Ann" on their album Thinking of You about the tragic death of Guthrie's daughter. In 2006, the band The Casualties album Under Attack includes the song "In It For Life" that is dedicated to Guthrie.

During the early 1970s, before adopting the name of Joe Strummer and founding The Clash, a young John Mellor began calling himself "Woody Mellor," derived, apparently, from Woody Guthrie. Bob Geldof's band, the Boomtown Rats, took their name from a page in Guthrie's autobiography, Bound for Glory. In 1996 the tribute album 'Til We Outnumber 'Em: Live From Cleveland was released, artists it featured performing Guthrie covers were Ani DiFranco, Billy Bragg, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, the Indigo Girls, Dave Pirner, Tim Robbins, Bruce Springsteen and Arlo Guthrie.

Woody Guthrie archive

Woody's extensive notebooks and writings were archived and maintained by his estate. The archives are open to the public by appointment.

Guthrie's extensive archive of unrecorded written material has been the starting point of several albums. In 1998 and 2000 musicians Jeff Tweedy and Billy Bragg released Mermaid Avenue and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II. This project was initated by Woody's daughter Nora. In 2000, Slaid Cleaves included the song, "This Morning I Am Born Again," on his album, Broke Down, using lyrics from the archive. In 2001, Frankie Fuchs produced Daddy-O Daddy, rare family songs from lyrics written by Woody, set to music from musicians including Joe Ely and Taj Mahal (musician). In 2003, Hans-Eckardt Wenzel released English and German versions of the album, Ticky Tock featuring lyrics adapted from the archive. In 2003 and 2005 respectively, Joel Rafael released, Woodeye: Songs of Woody Guthrie, and Woodyboye: Songs Of Woody Guthrie And Tales Worth Telling, Vol. 2, which include a mix of Woody Guthrie songs, songs created from the lyric archive and Rafael's own stories and songs. In 2004, Janis Ian released "I Hear You Sing Again." based on unreleased Guthrie lyrics. In 2006, the Klezmatics released Wonder Wheel, which melds their unique take on klezmer with the Guthrie's lyrics. Another album of Guthrie material, entitled Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah, was released via JMG in August 2006. The Dropkick Murphys recorded an unreleased song of his, titled 'Gonna Be A Blackout Tonight' on their 2003 album Blackout (Dropkick Murphys album). Anti-Flag released "This Machine Kills Fascists" after a visit to the Archive. Subsequently, they recorded "Post-War Breakout," a song featuring archive lyrics penned by Woody Guthrie. Ellis Paul recorded "God's Promise" on his Album "Speed of Trees." The lyrics were discovered after a visit to the archives, with Ellis Paul writing the music to accompany it. Eliza Gilkyson arranged music to the lyrics for the song "Peace Call" from the archive, it appears on her album Land of Milk and Honey.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Cray, Ed. Ramblin' man: the life and times of Woody Guthrie. NY: W.W. Norton, 2004. ISBN 0393047598
• Christensen, Bonnie. Woody Guthrie: poet of the people. NY: Knopf, 2001. ISBN 0375811133
• Guthrie, Woody. Guthrie Songs. New York, 1972.
• Guthrie, Woody. Bound for Glory. NY: E. P. Dutton, 1968. OCLC 449124 (autobiography)
• Guthrie, Woody. Pastures of Plenty: A Self-Portrait. New York, 1990.
• Guthrie, Woody; and Marjorie Guthrie. Woody's 20 grow big songs. NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0060202823
• Jackson, Mark Allan. Prophet Singer: The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie. University Press of Mississippi,
• Klein, Joe. Woody Guthrie: A Life. New York: Random House, 1980. ISBN 0385333854
• Longhi, Jim. Woody, Cisco and Me. New York: Random House, 1997. ISBN 0252022769
• Neimark, Anne. There Ain't Nobody That Can Sing Like Me: The Life of Woody Guthrie. Atheneum, 2002. ISBN 0689833695
• Partridge, Elizabeth. This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie. New York: Viking, 2002. ISBN 0670035351

External links

• The Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives Retrieved December 17, 2007.
• The Woody Guthrie Folk Festivalwoodyguthrie.com. Retrieved December 17, 2007.
• Pop Matters on the Woody Guthrie Folk Festivalpopmatters.com. Retrieved December 17, 2007.
• Documentary American Masters Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home PBS.org. Retrieved December 17, 2007.
• Allmusic.com entry for Woody Guthrieallmusic.com. Retrieved December 17, 2007.
• Woody Guthrie and the Archive of American Folk Song: Correspondence, 1940-1950Library of Congress. Retrieved December 17, 2007. (84 pages of manuscript material by, about, and to Woody Guthrie.)
• Timeline of Guthrie's life Library of Congress Retrieved December 17, 2007.
• MP3 recording of "This Land Is Your Land" University of Virginia. Retrieved December 17, 2007.
• Hudson River Sloop Woody Guthrie, A Hudson River Ferry sloop operated by the Beacon Sloop Club Retrieved December 17, 2007.
• Sarah Lee Guthrie, Link to Woody's granddaughter Retrieved December 17, 2007.
• Steve Earle on Woody Guthrie, A piece that appeared in The Nation magazine, July, 2003. Retrieved December 17, 2007.

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