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Jimmy LaFave
“What attracts me to Woody’s music is that it's music for
the common man. The whole thing I like about his lyrics is that he traveled
around the country back in the 30’s and 40’s and picked up
bits and pieces of the landscape. That’s something that I like to
do. Not only do you get to know the land, but the people around the country.
I love that sense of rambling in his music. He also adds, “Woody
was way ahead of his time. He was a painter, an illustrator, and a philosopher.
There are so many facets to his life, that his music is just part of the
bigger picture.” Jimmy LaFave
While Guthrie’s songs serve as an inspiration to Jimmy LaFave, Guthrie’s
writings arguably carry even more weight in LaFave’s mind. LaFave
crafted the show’s script from a bounty of Guthrie’s writings,
found in now out of print books such as: Bound for Glory, Seeds of Man,
Born to Win, and Woody Sez.
Jimmy LaFave was born in Wills Point, Texas and by Junior High was making
music perched behind his Sears and Roebuck drum kit. It wasn’t long
before his mother traded a drawer full of green stamps for his first guitar
and the switch to singer-songwriter was in progress. His family later
moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma. Although, he has lived in Austin, Texas
for the past 17 years, many fans and music critics see him as from Oklahoma
due to his strong musical ties to the state. LaFave often refers to “red
dirt music” to describe his music, a searing reference to the geographic
and cultural landscape from which his musical maturation commenced.
LaFave has released eight critically acclaimed albums and counts Austin
Singer Songwriter of the of the Year (twice) among his many awards.
Eliza
Gilkyson:
“Woody Guthrie gave voice to the innocent and flawed beauty of the
American dream. He also bore witness to the core of the disease of greed
and divisiveness that ultimately could be this country's downfall. We
would do well to study the heart of his music, to remember who we were,
who we could be, and what we will become if we do not regain our greater
vision as individuals, as a country.” Eliza Gilkyson
The daughter of successful folk troubadour Terry Gilkyson, Gilkyson is
a third-generation poet/musician who from her earliest years in Los Angeles
knew that her life would revolve around music. "I got into it for
all the wrong reasons, more as a survival tool then anything else, but
it proved to serve me more than I dared to imagine it ever could."
As a young teenager she recorded demos for her dad (who wrote folk/pop
music hits "Greenfields", Marianne", and "Memories
are Made of This", among others) and started writing and recording
her own material as well. Over the years, Gilkyson has developed a loyal
fan base in the Southwest and Texas, in large part due to the intimate
style she has developed which lyrically founts from her personal experiences.
While musically Gilkyson melds folk music with a pop-influenced passion
for large melody to connect the audience with these experiences, to make
them conspicuously visceral.
Ellis Paul:
“Woody's life reads like the history of the 20th Century, growing
up in the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, serving in World War 2,
being part of the whole Commmie scare in the fifties, and affecting the
folk and rock music of the sixties and beyond. His music tells this country's
story as well as any history book. I can't help but be amazed by the size
of his song
catalogue... He was constantly writing, creating, seeing, thinking, philosophizing...
all with a great deal of honesty and directness.” Ellis Paul
"One of the things that is compulsory about that job plan is individuality,"
she says, "so the way Ellis is most like Woody is that he is true
to himself. Every time I see him, there’s a brightness about him,
a hopefulness, a liveliness. You never get this feeling of the drudgery
of the folk singer's life, which a lot of people write songs about it.
And I don't like that; I never heard it in my dad's songs. You would hear
criticism, but never complaining. I feel the same thing in Ellis; there’s
never anything pathetic or self-pitying in him. That really attracts me
to his work - that and his humor, which is something else I would compare
to my dad, that very dry, subtle, witty humor."
"I put him on there as a guide," Ellis Paul says of his Woody
Guthrie tattoo, "to remind me what the mission statement was, and
how committed he was to it every time he went out on the road or put pen
to paper. It was almost like a little badge of courage, to remind me to
write honestly, to write songs that reflect reality; to show people the
hard side of life, but also the softer side."
Slaid Cleaves:
Woody's music has served as a guidepost for as long as I've been a songwriter.
I'll always try to write, as Woody did, about what's important to people.
And I'll try my best to do it with economy, wit, compassion and honesty.
Woody taught me that you don't need any fancy equipment or virtuosso talent,
you just need to speak the truth, the deep down truth. He told me what
I already knew.” Slaid Cleaves
Like the best of his singer/songwriter contemporaries, Cleaves' music
is neither country, folk or rock, and nor is it particularly time-specific
as a result. On his CD, Broke Down, there is a version of Woody Guthrie's
"This Morning I Am Born Again," which is set to Cleaves' own
melody. Here, the singer crosses over - Twilight Zone style - into Guthrie's
world, and time as a device appears to erode entirely. Guthrie’s
lyrics, which reject the notion that Heaven is only attained in death,
underscores Broke Down's ultimate message: that life is a struggle, but
one worth fighting. "There was some confusion, because a couple of
other artists had recorded it," he explains. "I didn't think
I'd be able to get permission to do it, but it turned out that the other
artists didn't release it, so it was still up for grabs. It's a real thrill
to have it say, 'This Morning I Am Born Again by Slaid Cleaves and Woody
Guthrie.'" Cleaves recalls two other encounters with Guthrie's music,
once when his kindergarten-teacher mom played him Guthrie’s and
Pete Seeger's children's album as a child, and again at twenty when his
love for Bruce Springsteen drove him to raid his parents' attic record
collection in search of the Boss' musical idols. "I literally went
up to the attic and dug all those records out," he says. "Taped
'em all." The best of Cleaves’ work sounds something like an
amalgamation of all of those events.
Sarah Lee Guthrie:
“Woody Guthrie helps me be who I am” Sarah Lee Guthrie
Sarah Lee Guthrie was born into the first family of American folk music
in the colorful Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. As the youngest
daughter of world-renowned singer/songwriter Arlo Guthrie and granddaughter
of the legendary Woody Guthrie, Sarah Lee grew up with music as a part
of her everyday life experience. With a close family that extended from
her parents Arlo and Jackie to her mentors, Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack
Elliot and Hoyt Axton and many others, the youngest Guthrie found herself
in the spotlight as a third generation singer/songwriter. Sarah Lee Guthrie
delivers a sweet and powerful performance at every show. Alone or with
others, Sarah Lee, through no fault of her own, has become the next Guthrie
in the legacy of a great family. And, as her father once noted, "There's
more where she came from". Together with husband Johnny Irion the
next generation is ready to see the world and carry on the family legacy.
Johnny Irion:
“When looking for the American Spirit—I go to Woody.”
Johnny Irion
Johnny Irion originates from a family of artists. His grandfather, Fred
Knight, a tenor singer, was cast as the lead in the traveling Broadway
show, "Oklahoma". His grandmother, Rubilee Knight is a classical
violinist. His uncle, Thomas Steinbeck, son of John Steinbeck, writes
books and screenplays. Having been surrounded by music all of his life,
then exposed to great literature by his uncle, writing and performing
was a natural progression for him.
“Blessed with a high, clear tenor voice that recalls Gram Parsons
or a Harvest-era Neil Young and an elegant six-string style. Mr. Irion's
songs gravitate toward themes of travel and movement and searching for
those truths that can only be found on the open road, someplace between
nowhere and any place at all.”
Augusta Chronicle Augusta, GA
Kevin Welch:
"Growing up in Oklahoma, I was hit hard by Woody Guthrie. There’s
a collection of essays, poems, rants and rambles called Born To Win that
was my Bible through my teens and into my 20’s, and he threw a big
shadow over Kerouac and H. Williams and the Beatles and everything else.
There wouldn’t be much rock and roll without him, I know that much,
and I'd be a different kind of critter too. Probably a lot more boring...."
Kevin Welch
Kevin Welch has a unique talent: the ability to write lyrics laden with
such visual metaphors that merely hearing them is like watching a movie
inside your head. He put that talent to work as a staff songwriter for
many years, having songs cut by such artists as Moe Bandy, T. Graham Brown,
Jonathan Edwards, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, The Highwaymen, Scott Joss, The
Judds, The Kendalls, Patty Loveless, Reba McEntire, Charlie Pride, Ricky
Skaggs, Pam Tillis, Randy Travis, Conway Twitty, Don Williams, and Trisha
Yearwood.
"Kevin Welch defines the new "Americana" sound as well
as anybody: hardbitten songs of busted knuckles and bruised hearts played
out in sweet, virile melodies and articulated in a smooth-as-Kentucky-bourbon
singing voice....Welch's debut on the Dead Reckoning label is lightning
in a bottle."--Wallace Baine, Addicted to Noise
Michael Fracasso:
"Woody Guthrie invented my job, and I consider myself blessed to
be able to go around and meet people, sing to them, maybe make them feel
better." Michael Fracasso
Michael Fracasso’s greatest strength as a singer/songwriter could
arguably be the intellectual nature and profound content of his sings.
And then there's that voice, which only complicates matters.
Like the great vocalists to whom he has been compared (Roy Orbison, Gene
Pitney, Buddy Holly), Fracasso is simultaneously wry and forlorn, ephemeral
and urgent, down but not out. His voice touches us in many places at once,
and his touch leaves us renewed and more alive.
"No other artist playing the folk/rock circuit today comes as close
to really putting all the great strains of American music into such a
cohesive package. Only Springsteen with "Born to Run" and Petty
with "Damn the Torpedoes" have come as close to such a definitive
album that rocks without being adolescent..." Greg Johnson Oklahoma
Gazette on Michael's "World in a Drop of Water"
Joel Rafael:
"Woody Guthrie was a walking, talking, singing celebration of life
and the human spirit. His spirit continues to inspire me everywhere I
go." Joel Rafael
Described as a natural interpreter of Woody Guthrie’s lyrics and
music, Rafael in 2003 released a titled Woodeye. Produced by Dan Rothchild,
Woodeye contains fourteen songs. Twelve were penned by Guthrie, one by
Rafael, and one unpublished lyric—“Dance A Little Longer”—is
co-written with words by Guthrie and music by Rafael. The album also includes
guest appearances by Jennifer Warnes, Ellis Paul, Van Dyke Parks, and
Matt Cartsonis.
“I really wanted to make a recording that would be a Woody Guthrie
experience for a new audience: a collection of songs, both familiar and
rare, that would bring Woody’s material within reach of the ears
of today’s listeners,” explains Rafael.
Rafael’s ability to interpret Guthrie’s songs can be attributed
to Rafael’s own personal and emotional hardships. And, like Guthrie,
Rafael’s music evokes the inspiration, the hope and the greater
realization that there is often more to life than what is readily apparent.
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