(5CD set. 100 original recordings from the folk legend inc...)
5CD set. 100 original recordings from the folk legend incl the timeless classics 'John Henry', 'This Land Is Your Land', We Shall Be Free'. 20 page booklet.
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music.
Background
Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma, the son of Charles Guthrie, who ran a cattle and real estate business, and Nora Belle Sherman, a rural schoolteacher. Although the family endured tragedies in Okemah - a sister was burned to death, three of the family's homes were destroyed, the father's business failed, and the mother began displaying mental symptoms of Huntington's chorea - Woody remained in the town with his older brother, Roy, when the rest of the family moved to Pampa, Texas.
Education
Guthrie completed his junior year in Okemah High School, serving as the humor editor of the school annual; to raise money for the class treasury, he danced jigs and played harmonica on the streets of the town.
Career
Guthrie left Okemah in 1927 to rejoin the family in Pampa. It was there that he developed his ability as a guitarist, performing at dances with a trio that included his uncle on fiddle and aunt on accordion, and playing with a country-and-western band. In 1937 he suddenly left for California. He soon was performing daily on a sing-and-talk program on radio station KFVD in Los Angeles and became extremely popular for his Will Rogers type of humor. This led to a friendship with newscaster Ed Robbins, through whom he made contact with the progressive left-wing movement of California. In 1939, at the urging of actor Will Geer, Guthrie traveled to New York City, leaving behind his family. There he acquired admirers in folksinger Pete Seeger and historian Alan Lomax, to whom he was introduced by Geer at a benefit concert for Spanish Loyalist refugees. Lomax presented Guthrie on his CBS network show, "Folk School of the Air"; taped songs and conversations with him for the Library of Congress Archive of American Folksong; and arranged for him to record on Victor. Released early in July 1940 in two volumes, the twelve sides constituting the legendary "Dust Bowl Ballads" were Guthrie's first commercial discs; they brought him renown and remain a landmark in American folk balladry. In 1941, again through Lomax, Guthrie was hired by the Department of the Interior to write songs and act in a film produced about the Bonneville Power Administration in the Northwest. During World War II Guthrie and folksinger Cisco Houston joined the merchant marine and sailed on three ships that were torpedoed. Guthrie wrote anti-Hitler songs and inscribed his guitar with the legend This Machine Kills Fascists. He was drafted as the war was ending and served almost a year before receiving a dependency discharge. In this period Guthrie's Bound for Glory (1943) was published. This portrayal of Guthrie's childhood, family tragedies, and life in Okemah was always referred to by him as his "novel, " but others regarded it as an autobiography. On Guthrie's return to New York after a trek across country in 1952, the symptoms of Huntington's chorea, inherited from his mother, were beginning to manifest themselves. At his wife's urging, Guthrie voluntarily entered a hospital. Finding it difficult to perform and even to write, he remained hospitalized for most of the time until his death on October 3, 1967, at Creedmore State Hospital in Queens, New York. Guthrie is said to have written more than a thousand songs between 1932 and 1952. Many were popularized by the Weavers, the most successful folk group of the 1950's, whose personnel overlapped that of the Almanac Singers. The Guthrie best-sellers in their repertoire included "Hard, Ain't It Hard" and "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You, " one of the celebrated "Dust Bowl Ballads. " "This Land Is Your Land, " also introduced by the Weavers, enjoyed renewed commercial acceptance in 1961, when it was recorded by the New Christy Minstrels. Other popular numbers in the Guthrie oeuvre include "Pastures of Plenty" and "Oklahoma Hills, " both extolling the scenic beauty of America; "You've Got to Go Down" and "Union Maid, " fervent labor songs; "Blowing Down This Old Dusty Road" and "Do Re Mi, " detailing the hardships of migratory workers; "Tom Joad, " written after he saw the film The Grapes of Wrath, based on the John Steinbeck novel; "Pretty Boy Floyd, " a ballad in the Robin Hood tradition; and "Hard Traveling, " one of many songs based on his experiences as a hobo. The novel Seeds of Man (published posthumously in 1976) is based on stories Guthrie had written about his search for a silver mine in Texas. His other publications include American Folksong (1947) and Born to Win (1965). Guthrie was the poet of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, of unionization and antifascism, and, above all, of the American hobo and the West.
Although Guthrie's father actively fought socialism, Guthrie's own political development was steadily leftward. In the early 1940's he joined the Almanac Singers, formed by Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Millard Lampell to promote leftist songs and to perform at factories, union meetings, and antifascist conclaves.
Connections
On October 28, 1933, Guthrie married Mary Jennings; they had three children. Having divorced his first wife, Guthrie married Marjorie Greenblatt Mazia soon after World War II. They had four children, one of whom is the singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie. This marriage also ended in divorce (probably in the mid-1950's), and Guthrie subsequently married Anneke Van Kirk. They had one child.