Woody Guthrie is still as relevant as ever, and this collection is a good introduction to his work. I review it on Spectrum Culture:
Singing along with Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” is a childhood memory for such a large percentage of American adults that it’s almost a cliché to mention it in a discussion of Smithsonian Folkways’ new collection of archival Guthrie recordings. The anthology gives us the “standard” version of the American classic, the one that so many schoolchildren have internalized alongside “The Star-Spangled Banner” and The Pledge of Allegiance. But, we also hear the “alternative” version, the one that, unremarkably, isn’t taught in schools. We get that extra verse, the one fraught with ambiguity, anger and optimism, the one that sums up what makes Guthrie Guthrie and why he still resonates so strongly 100 years after his birth. Near the end of this alternate rendition, Guthrie sings, “There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me/ Sign was painted, it said private property/ But on the back side it didn’t say nothing/ This land was made for you and me.”Click here to read more.
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