Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, known as Woody Guthrie, was born on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma, and died on October 3, 1967. An American singer, songwriter, and composer, he became one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His songs took shape in an era of dust storms, migration, labor hardship, and war. He wrote about American socialism and anti-fascism, and he often performed with the message “This machine kills fascists” displayed on his guitar.

Guthrie is best known for “This Land Is Your Land,” written in February 1940 as a response to what he felt was the overplaying of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” on the radio. He also wrote “Tear the Fascists Down” and hundreds of country, folk, and children’s songs, along with ballads and improvised works. His 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads, based on his experiences during the 1930s, helped earn him the nickname the “Dust Bowl Troubadour.” Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress, and Dust Bowl Ballads was included on Mojo’s list of 100 Records That Changed the World.

His early life was marked by instability and loss. Guthrie was the son of Nora Belle Sherman Guthrie and Charles Edward Guthrie, a businessman active in Oklahoma politics. Fires scarred the family: one destroyed their home before Woody was born, his sister Clara died after her clothes caught fire, and his father was badly burned in 1927. His mother suffered from Huntington’s disease, though the family did not know it at the time; they saw dementia and muscular decline. When Woody was 14, Nora was committed to the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane, and he and his siblings relied on their eldest brother Roy for support.

Music entered his life through old ballads, traditional English and Scottish songs, and the blues harmonica playing of an African-American shoeshine boy named George. Guthrie bought his own harmonica and played along, then busked for money and food. He did not finish high school, but teachers described him as bright, and he read widely. In 1929 he moved to Pampa, Texas, where his father was living and working. He played dances, learned songs in the streets and library, met Mary Jennings in 1931, and married her in 1933.

The Dust Bowl changed the course of his work. Guthrie left Texas for California with thousands of other Okies and Texans looking for employment, leaving his wife and three children behind for a time. In Los Angeles he performed hillbilly music and traditional folk on KFVD with Maxine “Lefty Lou” Crissman, befriended Will Geer and John Steinbeck, and wrote for the communist newspaper People’s World from May 1939 to January 1940. He was associated with United States communist groups, though there is no evidence that he was a member of one.

Guthrie married three times and fathered eight children. His son Arlo Guthrie became nationally known as a musician. Woody Guthrie died from complications of Huntington’s disease, the same illness that had afflicted his mother, and his first two daughters also died of it. His words still carry because they are direct: songs of work, hunger, migration, politics, children, and common ground. Musicians including Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, and many others have acknowledged his influence.