Okemah, OK. The rails of the West. Florida. New York. Northern California.
A biography about Woody Guthrie probably becomes more of a story about
place, than about the man himself. The hard factual data follows:
1912:
Born on July, 14th
1933: married Mary Jennings and had three children(Gwen, Sue, Bill) andformed
the Corn Cob Trio.
1937: hired by KFVD radio to sing “old time” numbers.
1940: arrives in NYC and becomes a part of the Almanac Singers. Lomax
records the group, and saves a large portion of Guthrie’s songs
for posterity.
1945: met and married Marjorie and had three children(Cathy, Arlo, Joady,
and Nora Lee). Fires back at the McCarthism suffusing politics.
1946: back in NYC after a spell in Oregon. Arguably begins showing signs
of Huntington’s disease in his writing. Leaves for California with
Ramblin’ Jack Elliot. They end up in Topanga Canyon, where Guthrie
befriends and marries Anneke Van Kirk, with whom he has one child(Lorina)
1954-1967: Battles Huntington’s disease until passing on October
3rd.
Which reads like a crass obituary page from a Sunday newspaper, doing
little to explain Woody Guthrie, his music, and what instigated Jimmy
LaFave to create this tour. Returning to the notion of place, when people
describe Woody Guthrie, even when Guthrie himself limned his work, the
word America often serves as the starting point. His songs, his lyrics,
correlate to places, and as a direct result to a spirit. Always at the
core of Guthrie’s work was the ongoing notion of achievement; to
overcome the arduous.
The summation of the above postulation regarding “who is Woody Guthrie”
can best be found in his most famous song “Deportee.” In the
song Guthrie discusses the perils of the migrant worker, caught in the
paroxysms of a society needing their labor, but simultaneously decrying
their existence. Through “Deportee,” Guthrie’s sense
of America, of American ideals, and of humanity’s core rights become
clear.
They are the same opinions espoused in the Declaration of Independence,
the Constitution, and of course the Bill of Rights. Where due process,
acceptance, and freedom are clearly and consciously constructed and discussed.
I mean what can be more American than intellectually correlating to such
documents?
Furthermore, there consists the ongoing relevance of the question posed
in “Deportee,” of how it has resurfaced now some sixty years
later; merely gestated to an internet friendly, mass media form. Which
could lead some to argue the true biography of Woody Guthrie, from neophyte
guitar “strummer” in the Corn Cob Trio to NYC hot dog eating
“boho” to Huntington’s disease victim wandering the
American range, hasn’t been finished. Every time “Deportee”
or “This Land is Your Land” or a thousand other Guthrie songs
are sung, the biography keeps changing. What Guthrie means, and his place
in the realm of music, writing, and American socio-political exegeses
receives revision as each person new to these songs comes across them;
their words coming from the past to illuminate a moment of present concern.
The Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway Corporation hopes Guthrie’s
biography does not stay stagnant. For the “text” to incessantly
change, to jump on to the next passing train and find something bigger,
something greener, something wilder out there. More importantly for the
RHESC to reach some sort of acme by merely augmenting this biography,
to allow enough people to hear a scintilla of the story and to pull Woody
Guthrie back into the present. The RHESC’s success will be measured
in such terms.
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