Ii WOODY GUTHRIE

ii WOODY GUTHRIE THIS COLLECTION PRESENTS FOR THE FIRST TIME the full range of material Woody Guthrie recorded for the United States government, both in song and the spoken word. This publication brings together two significant bodies of work – the songs and stories he recorded for the Library of Congress, and the material he created when hired to write songs for the Bonneville Power Administration. There have been records released in the past of the Library of Congress recordings, but this collection is the first time that the complete and unedited Library of Congress sessions have been released. The songs from those recording dates have been available in the past – notably from Elektra and from Rounder – but we offer here the full body of work, including the hours of Woody Guthrie talking and telling his story. TO THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AND BPA RECORDINGS, we have also added material which Woody recorded for governmental or quasi-governmental efforts – some songs and two 15-minute radio dramas for the Office of War Information during the Second World War and another drama offered to public health agencies to fight the spread of venereal disease. WOODY GUTHRIE AMERICA N RADICA L PATRIOT by Bill Nowlin Front cover photo: marjorie mazia and woody guthrie in east st. louis, missouri. july 29, 1945. Inside front and inside back cover photo: woody, “oregon somewhere” on the coast in oregon. this is the only known photograph of woody guthrie during the time he spent touring with the bpa. ℗ 2013 Woody Guthrie Foundation. © 2013 Rounder Records. Under exclusive license to Rounder Records. Manufactured and distributed by Concord Music Group, Inc., 100 N. Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in the U.S.A. www.rounder.com; [email protected] 11661-9138-2 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S woody guthrie: american radical patriot .................... 9 The Library of Congress Recordings .................................... 12 The Bonneville Power Administration Recordings .......................... 18 What was it that Woody Guthrie truly believed? ............................25 Woody’s “Government Recordings” and the rest of his work ................... 35 Woody and the Merchant Marine ..................................... 39 Woody Guthrie in the U.S. Army ...................................... 40 How had Woody wanted to be seen? ................................... 43 Some Aspirations ................................................ 44 The V. D. Recordings .............................................. 45 Other Ambitions ..................................................47 the complete library of congress recordings ................57 the lyrics for the columbia river collection .............. 131 songs and radio dramas in support of the war effort .... 159 the reuben james ............................................. 209 the v. d. song demos and “the lonesome traveler” .........221 woody guthrie timeline ...................................... 235 the 78 rpm record ............................................. 243 the dvd. 247 A M E R I C A N R A D I C A L P A T R I O T Woody Guthrie loved his country. He didn’t agree with all of the policies of the government, or the ways in which some people took advantage of others. He saw faults in society, prob- lems that negatively affected real people, and he wanted to fix them. He saw shortcomings and human failures and weak- nesses – and strengths – and he knew things would never be perfect but he appreciated and understood and embraced the imperfections and he seemed to have a fundamental faith that people would see to it that things got fixed, if only more people realized that there really could be better ways. He was an optimist, and a bit of a dreamer, as anyone looking for real change must inevitably be. 10 WOODY GUTHRIE And he wanted to fix these things through the persuasive power of his writing, primarily through songwriting. As he once wrote: A folk song is what’s wrong and how to fix it or it could be who’s hungry and where their mouth is or who’s out of work and where the job is or who’s broke and where the money is or who’s carrying a gun and where the peace is.1 He was a tightly-wound bundle of restless energy who seemed rarely at home but was always at home, and who made the whole country his home. He had family of his own, and he also had the people of America as his family. There was the ab- stract and idealized concept – The People – to which others sometimes hewed. Woody swam in the sea of the people – people who were individuals, real people of flesh and blood. Some found him hard to take, and he had harsh words for those who wielded their power over others to take advantage – call it exploitation. There were those who damned and condemned him but one senses that he never wrote other people off, that he believed no one but the most heartless was beyond reach. And he felt compelled to call out, with words and song, giving voice to those who needed it most, the people and families who were suffering in the hard times of Depression era America. He saw hardship and he felt called to give voice to the desperate and the dispossessed. You elected me to this office Of a poet and a singer And I think I know What you want me to do here Things are said in history And they are said again And these of today Have got to be said Said again Because today is our first time To say What we are today – And I will say And sing of these things These things That you fight for today 2 “Woody Guthrie, American” – so ends Ed Cray’s superb biography of Woody Guthrie, Ramblin’ Man, and it’s a good place to start when appraising the recordings he made for the United States Government. Here was a man named after a United States President, but later castigated by some as unpatriotic. What did Woodrow Wilson Guthrie believe? Did he have a political philosophy? Some have suggested that “This Land Is Your Land” should become America’s true National Anthem in place of the more war-associated “Star Spangled Banner.” Others have called him a Communist. As this collection shows, he recorded a substantial number of songs for the U. S. government. Was that a contradiction of some sort? Was it a paradox, that a “radical” would record songs for a government he opposed?3 Did he truly oppose the government, though, or did he just oppose those of its policies he found wrong-headed? There is no reason to believe that he opposed the government. Indeed, there are numerous ways in which he thought government could help the populace. Born in 1912, he came of age during the New Deal, when many saw governmental action as the way to help guide the country out of economic straits, to help bring more benefits to a needy people. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) had brought rural electrification to the Tennessee River Valley. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) had provided employment for 2 ½ million Americans during the decade beginning in 1933. Social Security had been enacted and implemented. The Farm Security Administration worked toward rural rehabilitation. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) had stimulated creativity in the arts. There were other New Deal programs as well. There was opposition to these programs, naturally, but the New Deal prevailed and many Americans saw government not as evil but as something socially beneficial and worthy of support. American Radical Patriot 11 In the first half of the 1940s, Guthrie is found working in one way or another with certain government or quasi-governmental bodies – the Bonneville Power Administration, the Library of Congress, and during World War II he served in the Merchant Marine for more than a year in 1943 and 1944, and then was inducted into the United States Army on May 7, 1945, honorably discharged in mid-January 1946. He knew that government could be repressive, but also knew the government had the power to do good. After all, in building the Grand Coulee Dam he wrote that: Uncle Sam took up the challenge in the year of ‘Thirty-three, For the farmer and the factory and for all of you and me, He said, “Roll along, Columbia, you can ramble to the sea, But river, while you ramble, you can do some work for me.” –“Grand Coulee Dam” Here we see that Woody has given a human and avuncular face to government, with the moniker “Uncle Sam.” While he could rail against a given governmental action, and feel free to criticize policies of the national government, he had faith that a united and organized citizenry could prevail upon government to act for the public good. One perhaps needs to distinguish between governments. State or local governments sometimes appeared to act at the behest of local power holders, but the federal government may have offered more hope as a counter to entrenched local authorities, who were sometimes too compliant with big business in their area and too complicit in its depredations. The federal government could become a counterweight. There were vested interests which were threatened by the New Deal, and by the growth of militant labor, and those interests didn’t hesitate to paint opponents as radical or beyond the pale, as they saw it. Nonetheless, Woody’s spirit seemed to prevail. Robert Shelton, music critic of the New York Times, saw in him “a stunningly positive pride in nation and people” (citing his song “This Land Is Your Land” in particular), and Millard Lampell (formerly of The Almanac Singers) contrasted Woody to the later “beat generation” of the 1950s: “His hope, promise, and endurance led him to opposite conclusions from the beatniks.

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