Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967), known almost universally as "Woody", was a folk singer and raconteur who wrote some of America's best-loved songs. He is best known for "This Land is Your Land" (MP3 clip).

Related Topics:
July 14 - 1912 - October 3 - 1967 - Folk singer - America - This Land is Your Land

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Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, in 1912, the year his namesake Woodrow Wilson was elected President. At age 19 he left home for Texas, where he met and married his first wife, Mary Jennings, with whom he had three children. He left Texas (and his family) with the Dust Bowl, following the Okies to California. The poverty he saw on these early trips affected him greatly, and many of his songs are concerned with the inequities faced by America's working men and women. A lifelong socialist and trade unionist, he also contributed a regular article, "Woody Sez," to the Daily Worker and People's World newspaper.

Related Topics:
Okemah, Oklahoma - Woodrow Wilson - President - Texas - Dust Bowl - Okies - California - Socialist - Trade union - Daily Worker

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In 1935 or 1937 he achieved fame in California as a radio performer of both traditional folk music and his protest songs.

Related Topics:
1935 - 1937 - California - Radio - Folk music - Protest song

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In 1939 or 1940, Guthrie moved to New York City and was embraced by its leftist and 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.

Related Topics:
1939 - 1940 - New York City - Alan Lomax - Library of Congress - Dust Bowl Ballads - Victor Records - Camden, New Jersey - Bound for Glory - 1943

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In 1940, Guthrie wrote his most famous song, "This Land is Your Land", which was inspired in part by his experiences during a cross-country trip, and in part by his distaste for the Irving Berlin anthem "God Bless America", which he considered unrealistic and complacent (he was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio). In the original version of "This Land is Your Land" Guthrie protested class inequality with the verse,

Related Topics:
This Land is Your Land - Irving Berlin - God Bless America - Kate Smith

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

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

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:As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

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:Is this land made for you and me.

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and protested the institution of private ownership of land with the verse,

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:As I went walking, I saw a sign there;

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:And on the sign there, It said, 'NO TRESPASSING.'

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:But on the other side, It didn't say nothing.

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:That side was made for you and me.

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In another version, the sign reads "Private Property."

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These verses were left out of subsequent recordings (even by Guthrie himself), turning what was a protest song into one more along the lines of the then current style of patriotic songs.

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The melody Guthrie used for "This Land is Your Land" is the melody for the old gospel song, "When the World's on Fire". This song is probably best known as recorded by the country/bluegrass legends, The Carter Family around 1930.

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In May 1941, he was commissioned by the 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." Around the same time, he met Pete Seeger and joined the legendary Almanac Singers, with whom he toured the country and moved into the cooperative Almanac House in Greenwich Village.

Related Topics:
May - 1941 - Department of the Interior - Bonneville Power Administration - Columbia River - Roll On, Columbia - Grand Coulee Dam - Pete Seeger - Almanac Singers - Greenwich Village

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Guthrie originally wrote and sang anti-war songs with the Almanac Singers, but eventually he and they, along with the Communist milieu with which they were associated, joined the anti-fascist cause -- Guthrie famously wrote the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists" on his guitar. He joined the Merchant Marine, where he served with fellow folk singer Cisco Houston, and then the Army.

Related Topics:
Communist - Fascist - Merchant Marine - Cisco Houston

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In 1944, Woody met Moses "Moe" Asch of Folkways Records, for whom he first recorded "This Land is Your Land," along with hundreds of others over the next few years.

Related Topics:
1944 - Moses "Moe" Asch - Folkways Records

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He began courting Marjorie Mazza in 1942 and married her in 1945 while on furlough from the Army. They moved into a house on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, and together had four children, including Cathy, who died at age four in a house fire, sending him into serious depression, and Arlo, who became a famous singer-songwriter in his own right. It was during this period that he wrote and recorded Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child, a collection of children's music.

Related Topics:
1942 - 1945 - Coney Island - Arlo - Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child - Children's music

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Meanwhile, he was still writing topical songs, as well. The 1948 crash of a plane carrying 28 Mexican farm workers from Oakland, California, to be deported back to Mexico inspired the poem "Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)". The poem was set to music a decade later by Martin Hoffman, and the song has since been covered by performers such as Pete Seeger, Dolly Parton, and Woody's son Arlo Guthrie. "Pastures of Plenty", written around the same time, also sympathized with the struggle of immigrant farm workers.

Related Topics:
Topical songs - 1948 - Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos) - Pete Seeger - Dolly Parton - Arlo Guthrie

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By the late 1940s, Guthrie's health was worsening and his behavior becoming extremely erratic. He left his family, traveling with Ramblin' Jack Elliott to California, where he married for a third time and had another child, before eventually returning to New York. He received various diagnoses (including alcoholism and schizophrenia), before he was finally discovered to be suffering from the degenerative nervous disorder Huntington's chorea, which had killed his mother. He was hospitalized until his death on October 3, 1967. By that time his work had been discovered by a new audience, introduced to him in part through Bob Dylan, who visited Guthrie in the last years of his life and described him as "my last hero."

Related Topics:
1940s - Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Huntington's chorea - October 3 - 1967 - Bob Dylan

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In 1964, Phil Ochs's debut album 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 (especially socialist) lyrics.

Related Topics:
1964 - Phil Ochs

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In 1995, Woody's daughter Nora approached the British singer Billy Bragg about recording lyrics her father had composed in the later years of his life. After researching the lyrics at the Woody Guthrie Archive in New York City, Bragg worked with the band Wilco to record 40 tracks, a number of which were released on the albums Mermaid Avenue in 1998, and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II in 2000. These albums derived their names from a lesser known song "Mermaid's Avenue." She also approached Janis Ian about writing a song using the lyrics of one of Guthrie's unfinished songs, "I Hear You Sing Again". Ian wrote music in his style for the song, changing some of his lyrics and incorporated some of her own. The song was released on her 2004 album Billie's Bones.

Related Topics:
1995 - Billy Bragg - New York City - Wilco - Mermaid Avenue - Mermaid Avenue Vol. II - Mermaid's Avenue - Janis Ian - 2004

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