Guthrie, Woody (actually, Woodrow Wilson)

Guthrie, Woody (actually, Woodrow Wilson), American folk songwriter, singer, and guitarist;b. Okemah, Okla., July 14, 1912; d. N.Y., Oct. 3, 1967. As a folk- and country-based songwriter whose lyrical concerns embraced social issues, Guthrie was the pri-mary influence on the generation of singer-songwriters who emerged in the early 1960s. His chief disciple was Bob Dylan but his songs and his approach were carried forward by numerous other performers, among them the Weavers, the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, the New Christy Minstrels, Joan Baez, and Bruce Springsteen. Guthrie’s best-known songs include “This Land Is Your Land/7“So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh,“and“Oklahoma Hills.”

Guthrie was the son of Charles Edward and Nora Belle Tanner Guthrie. In the year of his birth his father left his job as a court clerk to become a land speculator, initially with success. Both parents were musical, and Guthrie began singing and playing the harmonica at an early age. He enjoyed a comfortable childhood at first, but then his father went bankrupt and his mother, who suffered from the hereditary disease Huntington’s chorea, had to be institutionalized. He was adopted by other families, later rejoining his father in Pampa, Tex., where he learned to play the guitar. By his late teens he was living on his own and traveling around the South-west.

Guthrie married Mary Esta Jennings in Pampa on Oct. 8, 1933, and settled down, working as a sign painter; the couple had three children. But the disastrous economic conditions of the Depression and his own restlessness sent him back on the road by mid-decade. He settled in L.A. in 1937, launching the daily radio show The Oklahoma and Woody Guthrie on local station KFVD on July 19. Soon he was earning enough to send for his family. During the late 1930s he became increasingly involved with the union movement.

Guthrie had moved to N.Y. by 1940. In March he was interviewed for the Library of Congress, reminiscing about his childhood and singing songs. He appeared on several nationally broadcast radio shows and began writing a column, “Woody Sez,” for the Communist publications The Daily Worker and People’s World. (The columns were published in book form in 1975.) Contracted to RCA Victor, he recorded 11 of his songs for two three-disc 78-rpm albums, Dust Bowl Ballads, Volume One and Volume Two. These songs included“Talking Dust Bowl Blues,” “Do Re Mi” the two-part “Tom Joad” (a musical retelling of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath), “Dusty Old Dust77 (later retitled“So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh77),“I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore,“and“Vigilante Man/7 (Guthrie’s compositions frequently feature original lyrics with melodies borrowed or adapted from previously existing songs.)

In May 1941, Guthrie was commissioned to write songs for a documentary film about the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams on the Columbia River and spent a month in Portland, Ore., where he composed such songs as“Roll On, Columbia” (later named the official folk song of the state of Wash.),“Grand Coulee Dam,” and“Pastures of Plenty.” The completed film, released in 1949, contained three of his songs.

Returning to N.Y. in June 1941, Guthrie joined the politically oriented group the Almanac Singers to record the album The Soil and the Sea. He toured the country with them in 1941, and in February 1942 he appeared on their final album, Dear Mr. President. He published his autobiography, Bound for Glory, in 1943, and then joined the merchant marines, serving through most of the rest of World War II. He appeared in the single performance of the Off- Broadway play It’s Up to You (N.Y., March 31, 1945).“Oklahoma Hills,” which he had written with his cousin, Jack Guthrie, became a #1 hit on what was then called the folk (later country) chart in July 1945 for Jack Guthrie and His Oklahomans.

Divorced from his first wife, Guthrie married dancer and dance instructor Marjorie Greenblatt Mazia on Nov. 13, 1945. They had four children, including Arlo Guthrie, who became a singer-songwriter and recorded many of his father’s songs. In the late 1940s, Guthrie recorded extensively for the record labels run by Moses Asch, notably Folkways, committing to wax an extensive repertoire of original and traditional folk songs and children’s music.

The Weavers, whose members included two former members of the Almanac Singers, scored a Top Ten hit with their recording of“So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh” in February 1951. Guthrie divorced his second wife and married Anneke Van Kirk in December 1953. They had one child and divorced in 1956. By then Guthrie was suffering from Huntington’s chorea. He spent the last decade of his life hospitalized.

As the folk revival gathered steam in the late 1950s, Guthrie’s songs began to be covered extensively by emerging performers. The Kingston Trio put“Hard, Ain’t It Hard” on their gold-selling debut album The Kingston Trio, which topped the charts in November 1958;“Hard Travelin”’ on their Top Ten Make Way! album, released in February 1961;“Pastures of Plenty” and“This Land Is Your Land” on their Top Ten Coin’ Places album, released in June 1961; and“Reuben James” on their Top Ten Close-Up album, released in September 1961. That same month, the Limeliters released their Top Ten album The Slightly Fabulous Limeliters, which featured“Hard, Ain’t It Hard” and“Hard Travelin’.” Meanwhile, Hank Thompson revived“Oklahoma Hills” for a Top Ten country hit in May 1961.

Bob Dylan, who had befriended Guthrie upon his arrival in N.Y. in 1961, put his original tribute“Song to Woody” on his debut album, Bob Dylan, released in March 1962. In April the chart-topping, two-million-selling self-titled LP by Peter, Paul and Mary included“This Train”; the trio also covered“This Land Is Your Land” on their Top Ten, gold- selling album Moving, released in January 1963. The previous month the song had reached the singles charts in renditions by the New Christy Minstrels and Ketty Lester. It also appeared on Trini Lopez’s Top Ten, gold-selling album Trini Lopez at PJ’s, released in July 1963. Meanwhile, Joan Baez covered“Pretty Boy Floyd” on her Top Ten, gold-selling In Concert LP, released in October 1962.

Guthrie’s own recordings were reissued extensively during this period: Folkways released Songs to Grow On, Volume 3, and Ballads ofSacco and Vanzetti in 1961, Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs in 1962, and Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs, Vol. 2, and Dust Bowl Ballads in 1964, while Stinson Records, which had acquired part of the Asch catalog, released Folk Songs by Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston and More Songs by Woody Guthrie in 1963. The major new release of the period was Elektra Records’ three-LP box set collection Woody Guthrie: Library of Congress Recordings, issued in 1964 and a nominee for the year’s Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording. In 1965, Macmillan published Born to Win, a collection of Guthrie’s writings edited by Robert Shelton, the New York Times folk-music critic.

Guthrie died at 55 in 1967. Two memorial benefit concerts were held in the years immediately following his death, the first at Carnegie Hall on Jan. 20, 1968, featuring Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins, and Richie Havens, and the second at the Hollywood Bowl on Sept. 12, 1970, featuring Seeger, Collins, Havens, Joan Baez, and Arlo Guthrie. Recordings of both shows were released in April 1972 under the title A Tribute to Woody Guthrie, Part One and Part Two, and charted briefly. In October 1976, Bound for Glory, a film based on Guthrie’s autobiography, was released. His songs and life story were also brought to the stage in the Off-Broadway musical Woody Guthrie(N.Y, Nov. 26, 1979) and the regional theater revue Woody Guthrie’s American Song (Haddam, Conn., July 31, 1991).

In 1988 the Smithsonian Institution financed its purchase of the Folkways catalog with the album A Vision Shared—A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, in which Guthrie’s songs were performed by John Mellencamp, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen (who had covered“This Land Is Your Land” on his charttopping, multiplatinum album Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band Live/1975-85 in 1986 and who titled his 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad), U2, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger.

In 1989, Guthrie’s recording of“This Land Is Your Land” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Guthrie’s recordings were reissued by several labels in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2000, a traveling exhibit organized by the Smithsonian Institution toured the U.S. and included Guthrie’s writings, songs, films, and recordings.

Discography

All of the following were recorded during the 1930s and 1940s and recently reissued on CD. Columbia River Collection (1987); Dust Bowl Ballads (1988); Library of Congress Recordings (1988); Struggle (1990); Long Ways to Travel: The Unreleased Folkways Masters (1994); Ballads ofSacco and Vanzetti (1996); ThisLand Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1 (1997); Muleskinner Blues: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 2 (1997); Hard Travellin’: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 3 (1999); Buffalo Skinners: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 4 (2000).

Writings

On a Slow Train through California; Bound for Glory (N.Y., 1943); ed., American Folksong (N.Y, 1947); California to the N.Y. Island (1960); Hard-Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People;W. G. Folk Songs (N.Y, 1963); R. Shelton, ed., Born to Win (N.Y, 1965); W. Sez (N.Y, 1975); Seeds of Man: An Experience Lived and Dreamed (N.Y, 1976).

Bibliography

R. Reuss, ed., A W. G. Bibliography, 1912-67 (N.Y, 1968); H. Yurchenco, A Mighty Hard Road: The Life of W. G. (N.Y, 1970); H. Wood, ed., A Tribute to W. G. (N.Y, 1972); H. Leventhal and M. Guthrie (his second wife), eds., The W. G. Songbook (N.Y, 1976); E. Robbin, W. G. and Me: An Intimate Reminiscence (Berkeley, Calif., 1979); J. Klein, W. G.: A Life (N.Y, 1980); D. Marsh and H. Leventhal, eds., Pastures of Plenty: A Self-Portrait(N.Y, 1990); J. Longhi, W., Cisco, & Me: Seamen Three in the Merchant Marine (Urbana, III, 1997).

—William Ruhlmann