Woody Guthrie

Roots of Woody Guthrie: Celebrating Woody at 100

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July 14th, 2012 will mark the 100th birthday of the great songwriter, author and artist Woody Guthrie.  On today’s show we’ll honor Guthrie by playing a number of his songs and taking a look at some of the sources for the melodies he used and influences on the style in which he played and sang.

Guthrie is best known as author of “This Land Is Your Land,” but in fact wrote thousands of songs, as well as autobiographical novels, poetry, and humorous op-ed news pieces.  He was also a fine visual artist as well as a rambling man, having traveled through out the United States and also Europe and Africa during in his time in the Merchant Marines during WWII.

There have been a number of books about his life and a film based on his book “Bound for Glory,” numerous reissues of his recordings, tribute albums and cover versions of his songs in a number of styles, but I’ve found that the least explored area of his work are his actual musical sources and style.

Woody Guthrie wrote very few original melodies, he took melodies of old time songs, folk and other songs and rewrote them with his own words to make them his own and into the songs we know today.  Most songwriters who claim Guthrie as an influence today do not perform in a style related to Guthrie’s old time style, but instead focus on his lyrics and a some notion of his politics and perform Guthrie’s songs and their own songs in a singer songwriter rock/pop based style.

Woody Guthrie was a great folk singer and had great taste in the songs that he used to base his own songs.  He loved the Carter Family as well as apparently many other old time musicians that made 78rpm records in the years before WWII.  Guthrie is pictured below with J.E. and Wade Mainer of the famous and influential old time string band “Mainer’s Mountaineers.”

By making these juxtapositions of Guthrie’s songs and their sources (probably Guthrie’s favorite pieces) I hope to place Guthrie aesthetically as an old time / “hill billy” musician much like the other performers featured on today’s show.

These are recordings that Woody either enjoyed or I think would have enjoyed, so here’s wishing Woody a happy 100th birthday and I hope you will enjoy the program.

Here is a list of all the tracks played on today’s show.  Each Guthrie song is followed by its source:

Intro music: Cowboy Waltz (Guthrie on fiddle)
1. This Land is Your Land – Woody Guthrie
2. When the World’s On Fire – The Carter Family
3. So Long, Its Been Good to Know Yuh – Woody Guthrie
4.  Billy the Kid – Vernon Dalhart
5. Pretty Boy Floyd – Woody Guthrie
6. Utah Carroll – Cartwright Brothers
7. 1913 Massacre – Woody Guthrie
8. Irish Soldier and the English Lady – Neil Morris
9. The Ludlow Massacre – Woody Guthrie
10. East Virginia Blues – The Carter Family
11. Ramblin’ Round – Woody Guthrie
12. Goodnight Irene – Leadbelly
13. Do Re Mi – Woody Guthrie
14. Hang Out the Front Door Key – The Blue Sky Boys
15. Two Good Men (Sacco and Vanzetti) – Woody Guthrie
16. Poor Howard – Leadbelly
17. I’ve Got to Know – – Woody Guthrie
18. Farther Along – Roy Acuff
19. Phildelphia Lawyer (Reno Blues) – Woody Guthrie
20. The Jealous Lover – The Stanley Brothers
21. The Sinking of the Reuben James – Woody Guthrie
22. Wildwood Flower – The Carter Family
23. Union Maid (Live Excerpt) – Woody Guthrie
24. Redwing – Riley Puckett
Outro Music – Wildwest Rambler by the Crowder Brothers. Once while speaking with the great folklorist Archie Green, he asked me to name examples of old records the prefigured Guthrie’s style.  This is one, sounds like Woody and Cisco to me.

P.S. I realized that I should have included “Pastures of Plenty” in this program, which is based on the melody of the folk song “Pretty Polly.”  And how could I forget “Tom Joad” based on the melody of “John Hardy!”  There are probably others that I missed too!

P.P.S.  Don’t forget to check out:

Woody Guthrie on live on WNYC with Leadbelly in 1940

The program was produced for WNYC in 1940 by Down Home Radio co-founder Henrietta Yurchenco.  The recording of the broadcast was discovered in 2006, at which time I went down to the archives and picked up a CD dub of it from archivist Andy Lanset.  Down Home Radio rebroadcast it for the first time in 67 year in 2007 with commentary by Yurchenco.


l to r: Eugene Rector, Woody Guthrie, Fred Smith, J.E. Mainer, Cisco Houston, Wade Mainer, at the BBC Studios New York. September 11, 1944.

More Thoughts on Woody Guthrie:

The scope of Guthrie’s work identifies him as a Popular Front era public intellectual and his influence on generations of artists, mostly song writers, continues to this day.  Woody Guthrie was incredibly prolific, especially considering the brevity of his career, cut short by the hereditary Huntington’s Disease that disabled him by the mid 1950’s and took his life in 1967.

Guthrie came from a middle class family in what was then the young state of Oklahoma , having been

Woody Guthrie at 100 – A Tribute Concert at the Jalopy Theatre

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Dear friends,

On Saturday July 14th I will be hosting, “Woody Guthrie at 100 – A Tribute Concert at the Jalopy Theatre.”

Songwriter, poet, political activist and Coney Island resident Woody Guthrie, born July 14th, 1912 would have turned 100 years old this year.  Best known for his composition “This Land Is Your Land,” a song known as a second national anthem and sung by school children nationwide, Guthrie was a native of Oklahoma who moved to Brooklyn in 1940 and lived here basically for the rest of his life.

On Saturday July 14th, Woody’s 100th birthday, the Jalopy Theatre will present a tribute concert to Guthrie featuring a number of New York City and Brooklyn’s best folk music performers, including people that knew Guthrie personally and can speak about him.

The event will feature a number of performers including John Cohen (of the New Lost City Ramblers), Eli Smith, Mamie Minch, Ernie Vega, Geoff Wiley, Jesse Lenat, Elizabeth Butters, Stephanie Jenkins, Bob Malenky, Jaime Longhi and others performing Woody’s songs.  Smith and Cohen will also be reading brief selections from Guthrie’s works of poetry and goof-offs and Longhi will read from his father’s memoir of serving with Guthrie during WWII.  The film “To Hear Your Banjo Play,” the only footage of Guthrie in his prime, will also be screened.

Details:

Jalopy Theatre
315 Columbia St.
Brooklyn, NY
11231
(718) 395-3214

Saturday July 14th
Showtime: 9pm

Gonna be a great show.
Hope to see you there!

P.S.  Don’t forget to check out:

Woody Guthrie on live on WNYC with Leadbelly in 1940

The program was produced in 1940 by Down Home Radio co-founder Henrietta Yurchenco for WNYC and the recording was discovered in I believe in 2006.  Down Home Radio rebroadcast it for the first time in 67 year in 2007 with commentary by Yurchenco.

To Hear Your Banjo Play

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Here’s an amazing 1947 film called, “To Hear Your Banjo Play.”  The story and dialogue were written by Alan Lomax.  The film is narrated by Lomax and features a young Pete Seeger guiding viewers through a brief history of the banjo, American Folk Music and its relevance to modern society.  This film features some of the best of the 1940’s New York folk music scene.  It has the only footage of Woody Guthrie performing in his prime, Margot Mayo’s American Square Dance Group is featured, along with Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Butch Hawes and others.  Texas Gladden makes an appearance as well.  This is an incredible film!

Here is some more footage of Woody Guthrie, apparently from the same session as the footage used in “To Hear Your Banjo Play.”  Woody is singing his song, “Ranger’s Command.”  Apparently this footage has only recently come to light.


And don’t forget to check out our good friends at the Old Time Herald Magazine – www.oldtimeherald.org – lots of great articles, reviews and more!

Remembering Henrietta Yurchenco – Leadbelly & Woody Guthrie Live on WNYC, 1940!

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Henrietta Yurchenco, photo by Peter Gold 2006

Last December, Down Home Radio co-founder Henrietta Yurchenco passed away at the age of 91. I met her when she was 89 and we had a great time doing this show together and generally hanging out in the last 2 years of her life.   She was a tremendously accomplished person who over a very long career left an amazing musical and historical legacy, some of which has been preserved for us to hear. For a short history of her carreer read my essay, her obituary from the New York Times, her excellent autobiography, or visit her website.

Starting now I will begin to bring out some of the things from her archives which I have or can get my hands on. In this entry I am re-posting a very remarkable show we did in January of ’07, airing a radio show Henrietta produced for WNYC in 1940 at the beginning of her career – It was Leadbelly’s show, and that week the guest was Woody Guthrie. This amazing show was recorded in excellent quality, preserved and found by the archivist at WNYC! We re-aired it together with Henrietta’s comentary 67 years later.  So look out for more excellent material from the Yurchenco archives, as well as all the shows we hosted here on Down Home Radio.

This week Henrietta and Eli discuss outlaw ballads and how criminals are transformed into popular heroes. In conjunction with that and of extra special interest, they rebroadcast a show Henrietta produced for WNYC radio back in 1940. It is Leadbelly’s show and he has as his guest, Woody Guthrie. This program has not been heard since it was first broadcast 67 years ago! Down Home would like to thank WNYC and archivist Andy Lanset for providing us with this rare material.

Leadbelly & Woody Guthrie Live! On WNYC 1940

Henrietta Yurchenco (1916-2007)

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Henrietta Yurchenco, photo by Peter Gold 2006

Dear Friends,

I am very sorry to report that Henrietta Yurchenco, my friend and co-creator of Down Home Radio, died on the morning of Monday Dec. 10th at the age of 91. Although she had not been feeling well for some time, her death was never-the-less sudden and shocking. She was an extraordinary person, incredibly full of life, energy and love for people and for music. Henrietta leaves behind untold numbers of friends, devoted students and people who she influenced in any number of ways. The value of her work documenting and promoting the indigenous cultures of Mexico, the United States and many other parts of the world is extraordinary.

The Down Home Radio project was not Henrietta’s first time around with radio, it was more like her fourth or fifth, and yet she approached it with all the zeal of someone a quarter her age. Henrietta started her radio career in late 1939 as a producer at WNYC here in New York. She produced a series of programs featuring American folk music and music from around the world, and was also the producer of Leadbelly’s radio program. She worked closely with Leadbelly preparing the scripts for the show and doing whatever else producers do! She arranged for Pete Seeger’s first radio appearance as well as Woody Guthrie’s first radio appearance in New York. It was not easy to find foreign ethnic bands at that time or even to get recordings, so in order to get talent for her world music radio shows she would hit the streets, casing ethnic community houses and restaurants, union halls and other places to find musicians to put on the air. Henrietta was back on the air for a short time in the late 50’s on WBAI, and then for almost all of the 1960’s on WNYC where she did a show called “Adventures in Folk Music.” On this program she did the first, or one of the first, radio interviews with Bob Dylan. Name almost any folk musician (and many “non-folk” musicians and other artists) of the last 60 years and Henrietta had them on a radio show at one time or another. That or they came to one of her famous parties, or appeared at a concert she produced or all of the above.