Woody Guthrie was the most important figure in the history of American folk music. Guthrie was more than a singer and musician. He was a real-life incarnation of John Steinbeck’s character of Tom Joad from the Grapes of Wrath and a committed left-wing political activist.
Guthrie was born in Okemah ,
Oklahoma in 1912. When he was 14
he began playing the guitar and harmonica and learned the English and Scottish
folk songs from the parents of his friends. Despite being a bright student,
Guthrie dropped out of high school and started busking on streets. When he was
eighteen his father called for him to come to Texas to attend school, but Guthrie spent
his time busking and reading in the library.
By 1930, Guthrie joined thousands of other “Okies” (Oklahomans) who were
migrating to California to search for work and
escape the “dust bowl” drought that plagued Oklahoma .
In California ,
Guthrie worked odd jobs, and by the end of the thirties, he had managed to land
a job playing folk and “hillbilly” music on the radio. At this time he would
write the songs about his experiences during the dustbowl era migration to California that would
later become his legendary collection of dustbowl ballads. In 1936, he would
begin to perform at communist party events in California , and although he never joined the
party, he would later be tagged as a communist.
By the 1940s, Guthrie was in New York
City , and his “Oklahoma
cowboy” nickname and reputation endeared him to the leftist folk music
community in the city. He would record his album, “Dust Bowl Ballads” (1940)
for the Victor Records in Camden ,
New Jersey , shortly after his
arrival. The album has long been hailed as a superb document of an episode of
American history told by a man who lived it. Guthrie would also record for Alan
Lomax of the Library of Congress, singing and speaking about his adventures of
the dust bowl period of ten years before.
Guthrie would land another radio job in New York , this time as the host of the “Pipe
Smoking Time” show which was sponsored by a tobacco company. He also appeared
on CBS radio on the program, “Back Where I Came From”. He managed to get a sopt
on the show for his friend, the legendary black folk singer, Huddie “Leadbelly”
Ledbetter. By 1941, Guthrie was off to Washington State
to write and perform songs about the construction of Grand Coulee Dam in the
employ of the American Department of the Interior. Guthrie wrote 26 songs for a
film which was to be produced about the project, but the film never came to
fruition. The songs, “Pastures of Plenty” and “Grand Coulee Dam” would become
well known nonetheless.
In 1944, Guthrie met Moses Asch of Folkways Records for whom
Guthrie would record hundreds of songs including the first recording of perhaps
his best known tune, “This Land is Your Land”. Folkways would later release
these songs in various collections.