Woody Guthrie's Memory Lives On

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Woody Guthrie gave a voice to the down and out in the 1930s and '40s with songs that were a testament to the suffering he witnessed among the poor and the powerless. <br><br>He didn't

Thursday, November 16th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Woody Guthrie gave a voice to the down and out in the 1930s and '40s with songs that were a testament to the suffering he witnessed among the poor and the powerless.

He didn't write any Top 25 hits. Many people hated him for his populist politics. Yet the folk singer from Oklahoma, who died on Oct. 3, 1967, at age 55, is enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

Earlier this year, ``Mermaid Avenue Vol. II'' was released, with ``My Flying Saucer,'' ``All You Fascists'' and ``Joe DiMaggio Done It Again'' among the songs on the album.

This past spring, Guthrie was posthumously awarded an honorary Grammy for Lifetime Achievement. The Recording Academy described Guthrie as ``the original folk hero'' who transformed the folk ballad into a vehicle for social protest and observation that paved the way for Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and many other folk and rock songwriters.

``I think part of this resurgence has to do with this re-looking, this excitement of re-looking at someone that we thought we knew, but it turns out we know very, very little of,'' said his daughter Nora Guthrie, who directs the New York-based Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archive.

The foundation, with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has put together a Guthrie exhibit that is touring the country through 2002. The exhibit is part of a fund-raising effort to expand and preserve the archive.

New books and publications of Guthrie's words and drawings, and a children's book ``This Land Is Your Land'' by folk artist Kathy Jakobsen, have also helped bring Guthrie back into the mainstream of popular culture.

And the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival in Okemah, Okla., will have its fourth annual festival next year (July 11-15) to honor the singer's birth on July 14, 1912. (He was born Woodrow Wilson Guthrie.)

In 1996, the Woody Guthrie Foundation worked with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland to present a weeklong look at Guthrie and his music. A concert featured British folk singer Billy Bragg, Springsteen and the Indigo Girls.

``It really kind of started then. Anyone who was there then took that buzz back to wherever they came from,'' Nora Guthrie said. ``That was a great thing.''

She said the folk singer's memory also got a big lift two years ago when Bragg and the American band Wilco released ``Mermaid Avenue,'' a collection of songs that Guthrie wrote while living in Brooklyn, N.Y. The songs had never been set to music.

``Mermaid Avenue'' includes Guthrie's recollection of his childhood in Okemah, a ditty about actress Ingrid Bergman and his thoughts about songwriter Hanns Eisler's brush with the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

``Billy had the guts to go where no man would go before, which is really trying to get to the truth, trying to get the whole story and true history of who Woody was,'' said Nora Guthrie, who asked Bragg to do the project. ``He took the dare.''

Guthrie traveled the country during the Great Depression, playing a guitar that had the words ``this machine kills fascists'' pasted on it.

His songs ``Dust Bowl Blues,'' ``The Ballad of Tom Joad'' and ``Pastures of Plenty'' mirrored the populist beliefs of the time. But his pro-union, pro-working class leanings soon earned him a communist label; so much so that even his classic ``This Land Is Your Land'' could not make him palatable to many Americans.

``He wrote some very modern stuff,'' Bragg said. ``Woody symbolizes an alternative view. He speaks today as clearly as he did in the 1930s and 1940s.''

Guthrie's son Arlo agrees.

''`Deportee' is a good example of the endurance of his songs. I was in England not too long ago and saw some dead Chinese immigrants in a truck. Nobody knew their names. With a few changes, `Deportee' could have been written last week. The world hasn't changed that much since my dad was writing.''

Yet he seems a bit baffled by the renewed interest in his father's life.

``It's been almost too much to keep up with. I am really excited that people are rediscovering him,'' he said. ``The work of my sister Nora is behind a lot of it, but it does not explain all of it. For the last five years, it has been really building.''

Harold Leventhal, Woody's longtime business manager, credits ``This Land Is Your Land'' and numerous musicians with keeping Guthrie's name alive.

``When `This Land Is Your Land' began to play at schools all over the country in the middle '60s, then at least there was some recognition,'' Leventhal said.

``Right now, because of the new, younger generation that has taken up to him, and that would include Springsteen and Ani DeFranco and many other contemporaries, there has been a resurgence.''

Leventhal believes most of Guthrie's music remains true to what is happening today.

``Think of the social and political stuff. It stands up,'' he said.

Folk singer Ellis Paul carried in his guitar case a small rock from the crumbling foundation of Guthrie's childhood home.

``There is a lot of respect for his way because of how true he was to what he was trying to do,'' Paul said.

``He was writing about his life and his times. He wasn't one of these songwriters who were trying to get on hit radio or trying to make a commercial impact or trying to become millionaires.''

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On the Net:

Official site for the annual Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival: http://www.woodyguthrie.com.

Site of the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives: http://www.woodyguthrie.org/

Site of Billy Bragg: http://www.billybragg.co.uk/merIIdetails.html