[QUOTE=Wikipedia.org]Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land", which is regularly sung in American schools. Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress.[1] Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton have acknowledged their debt to Guthrie as an influence.
Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour".[2] Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States communist groups, though he was never an actual member of any.[3]
Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. He is the grandfather of musician Sarah Lee Guthrie.[4] Guthrie died from complications of Huntington's disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder. During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.
Woody Guthrie was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 1997.[/QUOTE]
[IMG]http://themusicsover.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/woody-guthrie.jpg[/IMG]
[b]This Land Is Your Land,[/b] his most famous song was a socialist anti-facist song, which was written as a response to another song which was popular at the time, "God Bless America," of which he thought the lyrics were unrealistic and complacent:
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxiMrvDbq3s[/MEDIA]
Another socialist song he wrote was simply called [b]Jesus Christ[/b], which pointed out the hypocrisy of the religious right:
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVRqdhfFAXw[/MEDIA]
[b]Hobo's Lullaby[/b]:
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN_xvE79iXE[/MEDIA]
[b]Pasture of Plenty:[/b]
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH2DJvgNlMA[/MEDIA]
[b]Pretty Boy Floyd[/b] Another socialist song that contains the lyrics "you'll never see an outlaw drive a family from it's home." Classic Guthrie stuff right there:
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4YKUJZI5Bg[/MEDIA]
[IMG]http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3523/73872228.png[/IMG]
Woody was way ahead of his time in so many ways, as a musician, as a writer and as an activist. During his lifetime he wrote thousands of song lyrics, but only recorded and put music to a small handful of them. An amazing amount of number of songs weren't published until after his died, many of those among the best he's written.
The first one, [b]Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)[/b] was a protest song written in 1948 after a plane carrying 28 mexican migrant workers being deported back to Mexico crashed killing all 32 passengers. But in the newspaper that Woody read, the only people that were named were the white pilots and flight crew and the migrant workers were only referred to as 'deportees.' Only 12 of the workers were ever identified.
Woody Guthrie wrote the words but didn't have any music for it, so 10 years later a schoolteacher put a haunting melody to it and Woody's friend Pete Seeger started performing it. Eventually The Byrds recorded it. It is very sad sounding:
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9A5gCDNO-M[/MEDIA]
[b]The Mermaid Avenue Sessions:[/b]
[IMG]http://bigpondmusic.com/images/AlbumCoverArt/310/XXL/Mermaid-Avenue2.jpg[/IMG]
In the spring of 1995, Woody Guthrie's daughter contacted English songwriter and activist Billy Bragg and asked him to take some of Guthrie's unpublished lyrics and set them to contemporary music. Billy Bragg then asked the American band Wilco to be his backing band for the project, and they agreed. Wilco recorded with Bragg in Ireland, and they were given some of their own songs to finish. Nora Guthrie's liner notes in [i]Mermaid Avenue[/i] indicate that it was her intention that the songs be given to a new generation of musicians who would be able to make the songs relevant to a younger generation.
Most of the songs that Woody Guthrie recorded were political and protest songs, and the songs on here show a whole nother side of Guthrie that wasn't really seen before. It really sounds like he is coming back to life on these songs.
[b]Airline to Heaven:[/b]
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcmjRheVZmM[/MEDIA]
[b]Against Th' Law[/b]
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kWMgQpgq-4[/MEDIA]
[b]Secret of the Sea[/b]
I really like this song. It shows a previously unseen side of Guthrie and makes him feel more human:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgdBsUjNsx8[/media]
[b]At My Window Sad And Lonely:[/b]
This could very well be my favorite Guthrie song. This one really pulls on the heartstrings:
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnbP34rQwQA[/MEDIA]
[RELEASE]A folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it or it could be
who's hungry and where their mouth is or
who's out of work and where the job is or
who's broke and where the money is or
who's carrying a gun and where the peace is.
-WG[/RELEASE]
I hope someone out there appreciates him, his is definitely one of the biggest songwriters of the 20th century and I would consider him a hero of sorts. Not just because of his songwriting, but of everything. There is a reason he is Dylan's biggest influence.
I've been meaning to purchase the Asch Recordings for a while now, but right now I'm mainly getting by from listening to his stuff on YouTube like this:
[b]Oregon Trail[/b]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgvFnPFtXZI[/media]
And I'm quite partial to the Mermaid Avenue sessions as well (just got the second one this summer).
[b]Blood of the Lamb[/b]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0JYKOTUdd0[/media]
All in all, good post OP! Just thought I'd share two of my faves with anyone reading from a man who is a genuine American hero.
Truly significant to folk. Great artist.
I've just only been getting into folk music (with bob dylan being my obvious gateway drug) and I've been listening to some of the songs this man made. It's amazing and I feel a bit sad that I haven't listened to it before.
Great read OP.
[QUOTE=Akayz;24058255]Truly significant to folk. Great artist.[/QUOTE]
This, there isn't much else to say.
This is one of my recent favorites, despite it being written over 60 years ago it feels like it was written just yesterday, with the collapse of the housing market and whatnot:
[b]The Jolly Banker:[/b]
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdyLb7ouXUU[/MEDIA]
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