Published: April 30, 2008 11:23 am            

About Books 04-30-08

The “Woody Guthrie Song Book,” now at Stillwater Public Library, is a tribute to one of Oklahoma’s heroes. It contains all Guthrie’s well-known songs plus a concise biography in case you don’t know anything about this unusual man’s background.

I didn’t know till I read this book that he was married not twice, but three times. His son Arlo from his second marriage comes to sing at Allied Arts in Stillwater every few years, and he is a treat to hear.

Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) was born in the little oilfield town of Okemah. Because of some family tragedies, he was on his own at an early age and started wandering around the western part of the country. He was deeply affected by the Great Depression, and he became a strong advocate of poor people and hoboes like himself as he made his way from place to place, often in an empty railroad car.

The book is edited by Judy Bell and Nora Guthrie, published a few years ago by Ludlow Music in New York. How does one review a songbook like this?

Well, luckily it is well organized according to themes — Hot Ones, Union Labor, Men and Women, Dust Bowl and Kids’ Songs. And the cover of the book is the most famous of the pictures of Woody Guthrie, from about 1934. It shows him with his guitar, looking optimistic as he sings.

Woody struggled to make a living, and he worked very hard as he composed songs. In 1937, he was lucky to get on a radio station in Los Angeles. By 1939 , still eager to move around the country, he went to New York City where he became part of a protest group including Burl Ives, Lead Belly and Pete Seeger.

As the editors put it, Woody Guthrie had “a talent for controversial social commentary and criticism on topics ranging from corrupt politic, lawyers and businessmen to praising the principles of Jesus Christ, Pretty Boy Floyd and Union organizers.” The reason the outlaw was mentioned was that it was the belief at that time that Floyd stole from the rich to give to the poor.

In 1940, Alan Lomax made recordings of Guthrie’s songs for the Library of Congress. In the late 1940s and ’50s, he started writing and performing with a popular folk music group called the Weavers.

Several songs capture his spirit. The one that always springs to my mind is “This Land Is Your Land.” It is a a true salute to democracy.

Guthrie was much in favor of unions, and his song “Union Maids” is sung very well by Arlo. It tells of the loyalty of a female service worker to her union. Its most memorable lines are the peppy, “I’m sticking to the union. Oh, you can’t scare me. I’m sticking to the union till the day I die.”

Many of Guthrie’s songs have to do with poverty during the Depression, small farmers losing out, Okies struggling to find a better life in California.

One of the most radical — and I mean that in the best sense of the word — is “Jesus Christ.” Its theme is that Jesus was a working man who was in favor of the rich giving to the poor. As the last two lines say, “If Jesus was to preach here as he did in Galilee, they would lay poor Jesus in his grave.”

        

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