Happy 100th Birthday, Woody Guthrie!
New songs by the American folk legend keep turning up, a century after his birth
- By Abigail Tucker
- Smithsonian magazine, July-August 2012, Subscribe
The recording is old but the voice is timeless: Woody Guthrie is singing to his daughter Cathy Ann (“Stacky” to her dad) on her fourth birthday:
You’ve played, little Stacky, all day
With dolls and wagons and clay
Your bath was warm and your jammers are nice
Goodnight, little Stacky, goodnight.
It’s not clear whether Cathy ever heard the 1947 ditty; shortly after its recording, a spark from a badly wired radio ignited her crinoline birthday dress and she burned to death.
Guthrie never recovered from the loss. His sadness, friends believed, hastened the progress of his Huntington’s disease. By 1952, the folk singer couldn’t remember the words to “This Land Is Your Land,” his most famous song; soon he was hospitalized for good. (He died in 1967, at age 55.) Most of his best work was crammed into a single decade, but he is still celebrated as one of the country’s most prolific artists, the prototypical singer-songwriter and a lodestar for Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and John Lennon.
“Guthrie was one of these solar flares who pass through periodically,” says Smithsonian Folkways producer Jeff Place, who, with Robert Santelli, put together Woody at 100, a collection of songs (including his lullaby to Cathy, previously unreleased), essays and drawings in honor of the centennial of Guthrie’s birth this July 14. “He threw sparks wherever he went.”
Cathy’s death was not the only time fire touched the singer’s life. His beloved older sister Clara died in a house fire; his father was badly injured in another blaze, and Guthrie, as his illness destroyed cells in his brain, would burn his arm and lose his ability to play guitar.
“Pete Seeger said that fire was Woody’s muse,” says Guthrie’s daughter Nora. “It just followed him around.” Indeed, Guthrie’s whole existence had a combustible quality: He drank hard, couldn’t hold jobs, married three times and fathered eight children (of whom Arlo Guthrie is the eldest son), sweeping through one city after another.
Sometimes called the Dust Bowl Balladeer, Guthrie got his start performing in the late 1930s when he traveled west from his home base in dust-drowned Pampa, Texas, with displaced Arkies and Okies. In California he wrote of his fellow migrants, setting the lyrics to traditional folk tunes. By 1940 he’d moved “from California, to the New York Island,” as his song goes, befriending Lead Belly and other famous artists. His country charm and writing chops inspired the city musicians: “Next thing you know everybody’s got a guitar and harmonica rack,” Place says.
The working man’s struggle was Guthrie’s favorite subject, but he also sang of spaceships, washing dishes, one-legged sailors, Ingrid Bergman and Hanukkah. He composed a remarkable series on the builders of the Grand Coulee Dam, another (commissioned by the Army) on venereal disease and several albums of children’s music. His creativity was almost unnerving in its intensity: He sometimes delivered six songs in a sitting, or reams of skillful pen-and-ink drawings. (Many of those featured in Woody at 100 were drawn in the same week.) He also wrote several books and composed personal letters that could ramble on for 70 pages, scribbling on wrapping paper if nothing else was at hand. “Every letter would have a lyric in it,” says Nora Guthrie. “Even his journal had this flow.”
Today “This Land Is Your Land” echoes at presidents’ inaugural concerts and Occupy Wall Street rallies alike. But it’s not just the classics that survive: In 2005, the punk band Dropkick Murphys released “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” an obscure Guthrie snippet that has since become an oft-blasted Boston Red Sox anthem.
Because Guthrie wrote so much, stashes of recordings and drawings are still being found. And it wasn’t until decades after his death that Place finally traced the origins of the “This Land Is Your Land” melody. It’s likely based on a church hymn titled “When This World’s on Fire.”
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Comments (3)
Did you know Woody Guthrie was in the American Merchant Marine during WW 11? The book, Woody, Cisco and Me, gives a lot of information about this part of his life. I was also in the Merchant Marine during WW 11, and when reading the book felt as if I was at sea with those three men. The "Me" from the book title is also the author of the book. His name is Jim Longhi, a practicing attorney in New York City. Cisco Houston is the other man. The three sailed together on the SS Paddy Whelan, probably a Liberty ship. Cisco and Woody were long time friends, and neither had to go to war, but volunteered in the Merchant Marine anyway. Jim Longhi also volunteered, as did all who were in the Merchant Marine, but he was eligible for the draft, and made the decision to go to the Merchant Marine after meeting Cisco and Woody a short time before they sailed.
This book is very entertaining, and although they did not see any heavy action, gives good insight into their lives during their time on the ship.
I enjoy Smithsonian very much,
Ray Ebeling
Posted by Raymond Ebeling on July 16,2012 | 01:03 PM
I have always loved Woody Guthrie for his honesty and dedication to the most undervalued voices in America. He was an amazing writer and educated countless people on how to live and how to stand up for themselves no matter their place in life. Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists (where I also work) wrote a really thoughtful call to arms blog post on Woody Guthrie and his attempts to fight back against cynicism and disillusionment. http://blog.ucsusa.org/woody-guthries-birthday-and-the-war-on-cynicism
Posted by Tim O on July 13,2012 | 02:40 PM
Two-time Grammy winner and National Medal of Arts recipient Ramblin’ Jack Elliott headlines This Train: A Woody Guthrie 100th Birthday Jubilee, on July 29th in Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square. This free event is a fun way for the whole family to hear over a dozen Guthrie-inspired bands and learn about Woody’s astonishing life and work in an authentic Dust Bowl atmosphere. Both hugely popular and deeply influential, Guthrie’s music, writing and drawing celebrated the lives and struggles of working people during the Depression and its aftermath. Ramblin’ Jack befriended Woody at an early age and brought his music to Europe in the 1950s. More information: thistrain.org and facebook.com/this.train.jubilee.
Posted by Daisy on July 4,2012 | 03:33 PM