Woody Guthrie, Folk Singer

“I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling.

I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built.

I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.”

                                                                        - Woody Guthrie on songwriting.

On July 3^rd it was 239 years since the Declaration of Independence was written. It’s the time of the year when patriotic songs like “The Star Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key, “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” by George M. Cohan, “America” by Samuel Francis Smith, “America the Beautiful” by Katherine Lee Bates, and “God Bless America” by Irving Berlin are sung, as well as one of my favorites, “This Land is Your Land,” by Woody Guthrie. Almost everyone knows the chorus and maybe the first three verses, but many song books left out the last three verses because Guthrie wrote it as a protest song, a parody of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” It’s not until verse four and beyond that you realize it’s a protest song. In the original song which he wrote in 1940, the last line was “God blessed America for me,” but when he started performing it in 1944, he changed that last line to “this land was made for you and me”as his love song to America. At one time he was thought to be a communist, but it was never proven. Probably it was because of his protest songs striking out against the wealthy, who ignored the poverty around them, and probably even more so because he was a strong supporter of the unions all his life and wrote hundreds of union songs. My father, his siblings, and his six children have all been strong union supporters, too. Maybe it’s one of the reasons why I love folk music so much.

 

Picture taken years later when it was unoccupied.

Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie was born July 14^th, 1912 in Oklahoma. His father was a politician and named him after Woodrow Wilson, then Governor of New Jersey and soon to be elected President of the U.S. During his childhood, his mother was committed to a hospital for the insane. Later it was realized she had Huntington’s disease. In the early years of the Great Depression, his father left his children for a job in Texas. Fourteen year old Woody and his siblings relied on an older brother for support. Woody worked at odd jobs around town, begging meals and sometimes sleeping at the homes of family friends. He befriended an African-American blues harmonica player named George who had a shoe shine booth. He’d watch him play and before long, Guthrie bought a harmonica and began playing along with him. He was a natural musician and played by ear. He dropped out of high school before graduating and started playing at dance halls with his father’s half-brother Jeff Guthrie, a fiddle player.

 

Not George, but Woody related to the common man.

At age 19, Guthrie married his first wife, Mary Jennings. They had three children. With the advent of the Dust Bowl era, Guthrie left and joined the thousands of Okies migrating to California looking for work. Woody worked and sang to support himself, and in California he sang on the radio and became popular with other people who’d moved away from the Dust Bowl states. His songs carried messages about fairness and justice. Titles such as “I Ain’t Got No Home,” and “Talking Dust Bowl Blues” spoke not only to victims of the Dust Bowl, but about political corruption and spoke to other folk singers. He became known as the Dust Bowl Troubadour. His extensive traveling led to his divorce with his first wife.

During World War II, Woody served in the Merchant Marines and the U.S. Army. He married Marjorie Mazia, a dancer in New York City in 1945 and they had four more children, including Arlo Guthrie, another folk singer.

He was a prolific writer, and wrote thousands of pages of unpublished poems and prose, many written while living in New York City. While recording Woody’s songs, Alan Lomax suggested that he write his autobiography. With his wife’s help, Guthrie wrote Bound for Glory told in the down-home dialect and the imagery of a true storyteller according to one review.

In the late 1940s, his health was declining and his behavior was becoming extremely erratic. In 1952, he was finally diagnosed as having Huntington’s disease. Marjorie believing he might be a danger to their children, suggested he return to California without her. They eventually divorced.

Unable to control his muscles, he was hospitalized in numerous hospitals where he died on Oct. 3^rd, 1967. At that time, Huntington’s disease was not understood. His death helped raise awareness of the disease. His two daughters with his first wife developed the disease and both died at age 41. Their son died in a car/train accident.

Woody became an American singer song writer, who wrote hundreds of political, traditional, and children’s songs as well as ballads. In the late 1950s and early 1960s a new generation of young people was inspired by folk singers such as Guthrie. By the time of his death, his work and been discovered by a new audience introduced to them through Dylan, Pete Seeger, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, his ex-wife Marjorie, and other new members of the folk revival like Peter, Paul and Mary, Tom Paxton, as well as his son, Arlo, and many others. These new folk singers were more politically aware in their music. They focused on the issues of the day such as the civil rights movement, the war in Viet Nam, and  the free speech movement. Dylan wrote of Guthrie’s repertoire: “The songs themselves were really beyond category. They had the infinite sweep of humanity in them.” When Bob Dylan learned where Woody Guthrie was, he regularly visited him in the hospital. His ex-wife Marjorie and their children spent a lot of time with him, and after his death, Marjorie worked to establish a fund to research Huntington’s disease.

The young Bob Dylan 

Woody Guthrie influenced many folk singers like Bob Dylan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, Harry Chapin, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton and there were many more who even if they didn’t acknowledge Guthrie as a major influence probably still could trace their love of folk songs back to him.

Although I have no CDs of Woody Guthrie, I am a big fan of folk music and have been for years. I have a huge collection of CDs of folk singers including some of those I mentioned above as well as Joan Baez, Judy Collins, one by Arlo Guthrie in which he sings that long song “Alice’s Restaurant,” and many other and some newer folk singers, who I’m sure were inspired by Woody Guthrie, too. I saw Arlo Guthrie in concert once. He was a great performer as were others I’ve seen in concert like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton and quite a few others.

Do you like folk music?

If so, who are some of your favorite folk singers?