Bluegrass Messengers

Woody Guthrie and His Folk Tradition

Woody Guthrie and His Folk Tradition
by Richard A. Reuss
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 83, No. 329 (Jul. - Sep., 1970), pp. 273-303

Woody Guthrie and His Folk Tradition [1]

IT IS IRONIC THAT the man who perhaps was the most creative and dynamic folk artist of the past generation is so little known to folklorists. The name and works of Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) are familiar to many of us, at least in a general way, and occasionally comments are made about Guthrie in record reviews or in articles containing brief illustrations of small points. But Guthrie as yet has received no serious attention from scholars, folkloric or otherwise, with the exception of some essays by John Greenway and my recently published bibliography of printed materials relating to his life.[2]

Many rewarding and fascinating studies of Guthrie as a representative of the folk and as a gifted re-creator of folk materials still await exploration in detail, even though the bulk of his writings and recordings were completed some twenty or more years ago.

That folklorists thus far have failed to come to grips with one of the most unique personalities ever to stray within their range is regrettable but by no means surprising. Guthrie's own talents as a writer and songmaker have been so strongly emphasized that his repertory of traditional songs, stories, and sayings has been overshadowed. Friends a nd associatess uch as Pete Seeger, who did most to publicize Woody Guthrie's name over the years, with few exceptions knew him after he had severed his ties with his early traditional environment. Their published reminiscences accentuate Woody's later activities, observed by them firsthand, rather than his early life, which is of greater interest to folklorists. Guthrie's creative abilities reached full flower just as he was leaving his folk milieu for good in 1940 and 1941. As Greenway has pointed out, Woody subsequently drew less and less on his own traditional folk culture for his work p roducedi n New York City.[3] Thus, as scholars became familiar with his name in the I940s, Woody correspondingly produced le ss of folkloristic interest.

Nor did Guthrie emerge into public view as a result of the efforts of some diligent field collector whose name became linked to his, as is often the case with famous informants. Leadbelly, for example,will inevitably be associated with the Lomaxes; but there is no comparable scholar or collector p rimarily responsible for bringing Woody Guthrie to the attention of folklorists. In truth, Guthrie first became widely known through folknik and left-wing circles rather than as a result of academic conclaves. Alan Lomax did record him for the Library of Congress in 1940, but the recordings were not widely publicized and remained generally inaccessible for twenty-five years. Lomax himself published virtually nothing on Woody until 1960.[4]

The brief notices accorded Guthrie i n folklore p ublications in recent y ears h ave done little to further research on his work, in part because of their brevity. No folklore journal reviewed his autobiography Bound For Glory, published in 1943, or even mentioned him in passing until the first issue of the New York Folklore Quarterly appeared in 1945, where he is listed among other folksingers appearing occasionally o n radio.[5]

The first meaningful comment of any kind by a scholar appeared in 1948, in Charles Seeger's important "Reviews" article, which noted Guthrie's relatively slow adoption of stylistic performancet raits characteristic of urban singers of folksong.[6] The only detailed analysis of Woody Guthrie in an academic publication is found in John Greenway's American Folksongs of Protest (1953). Not only have folklorists generally neglected Guthrie; literary critics, social historians, and other scholars by and large have done the same. Woody's creative work as literature a nd art has yet to be evaluated s eriously. Certainly his songs and prose are an eloquent chronicle of the Depression and World War II generation, presented f rom a unique p erspective, and m ight p rofitably b e studied.

I.
Guthrie's i mportance t o the folklorist l ies not in his negligible contribution to oral tradition but in his role as spokesman for various f olk or folklike groups. H is ability to communicate the life, feelings, attitudes, and culture of his people from the inside-using their terms, concepts, and modes of expression rather than those of elite American society-renders him worthy of the attention of the folklorist. In other w ords, G uthrie was a unique distillation o f the cultural experiences of several groups possessing folk elements, at once a mirror in which they saw themselves a nd their most articulate and able chronicler.

In enumerating G uthrie's "folk communities," one is faced with the problem of defining what constitutes a folk society. Classical anthropological definitions have equated folk groups with the land-tied peasantry that historically has no comparable analogue in the American society-the small farmer and frontiersman pushing the line of settlement continually westward, forming and re-forming the frontier, leaving in its wake a string of communities fashioned out of the conglomeration of elements at hand. The older and more isolated of these communities solidified and became more or less homogeneous in character, that is to say,
"folk groups." The newer ones were affected by more sophisticated forms of education, communication, and technology that developed w ithin an increasingly urbanized American society and in varying degrees leveled or prevented the erection of culturalb arrierss eparatinge ach communitya nd region from the rest of the nation. Thus, spatial isolation a nd relativelys imple technologicala nd communications systems have formed the basic criteria for determining folk society in the United States. My quarrel with this traditional definition is that it is too limited. Other factors besides geography, minimal formal education and industrialization, and lack of mass media may combine to enable a group to produce lore, as will be seen laterin Guthrie's case.

A folk group or society is a relative concept, and absolutes are impossible to come by in the field, nor can they be unanimously agreed upon in the abstract
(much as folklorists in the past have failed to agree on the precise number of years
or versions needed to declare a song a "folksong"). The same holds true with
regardt o the southwesternr egionalc ulturei n which Woody Guthrieg rew up as
a youngm an. The areaw as settleda nd developede xtensivelyb y whitesa s recently
as the early twentieth century, just as newspapers, high-school education, and
industrial technology were becoming familiar in most parts of the country. The
"Last West," therefore, had no time to develop either a prolonged isolation or
narrow homogeneity. But it was populated by people who had in common certain
broad culturala ttitudesa nd traditions,p redominantlys outhern,a nd a stock of
lore rooted in the Anglo-Americane xperience.I f the settlementsi n the partso f
Oklahoma and Texas where Woody lived were not fully developed folk cultures
in comparison to others in America (the Pennsylvania Dutch and Ozark, for
example), they perhaps were the closest to be found in white society in that region,
and they certainly approached the notion of folk communities more than most
others in the United States in the second through the fourth decades of the present
century.
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born July 14, I912, in Okemah, Oklahoma,
then a town of about a thousand people located some fifty miles southwest of
Tulsa. In Woody's childhood years, Oklahoma was scarcely removed from its
frontier stage of development. The white population consisted largely of settlers
who had emigrated from nearby southern and prairie states, most of them having
lived in the territory no more than a generation. Significant numbers of Indians
and Negroes also resided in Oklahoma and often were in close contact with whites.
276 RICHARD A. REUSS
Woody later reckoned the population of Okemah in his youth to be half white,
one-fourth Indian, and one-fourth Negro.' Oil was discovered in the vicinity of
Okemah,a nd the influx of oil workersa nd the motley assortmento f individuals
who followed in their wake infused yet another element into the town's diversified
setting. Not surprisinglyW, oody absorbedt raditionalm aterialf rom many parts
of his society. His mother sang old ballads as well as "heart" and religious numbers;
his father performed cowboy songs, dance pieces, and blues. Negro boys
taughth im jigs and harmonicatu nes,a ndt he day-to-dayli fe of the towni nstructed
him in the tales,s altys ayings,a nd picturesquela nguagec ommont o the regiona nd
its peoples. He early exhibited an uncommon talent for making music, or at least
noise, as is well attestedb y old-time Okemahr esidents,8w ho recallh is dexterity
with the harmonica, Jew's harp, and bones and less frequently his attempts at
picking out tunes on the mandolin, guitar, and family piano. Woody performed
regularly for high-school assemblies, the boys in the schoolyard, and casual
listeners on the street corners of Okemah, but his musical bent was primarily
instrumentarl athert han vocal. There is no evidencef rom this periodo f his life
to suggestt hat he would laterb ecomea balladmakeor r a prolificw riter.F ew longterm
residentso f Okemahc laim that Woody made up songs as a youngster;o nly
one, Colonel Martin, a boyhood friend, is specific in this respect. Martin asserts
that Woody, while in his early teens, created the chorus of what became "So Long,
Its Been Good to Know You" from a phrase used as a cliche.9 No corroboration
of Martin's account, however, has yet come to light. Similarly, what evidence
therei s for an earlym anifestationo f talenti n the youngW oody Guthries uggests
that it lay primarily in the field of drawing rather than songmaking or writing.
The few songs with an Oklahoma setting that Woody composed-such as "Pretty
Boy Floyd" and "Oklahoma Hills,"-and his detailed sketches of latter-day
Okemahf rontierl ife in nine chapterso f BoundF or Glorya nd elsewherea ll were
written after he moved from the state.
In 1929 Woody left Okemah and followed the oil boom to Texas, eventually
settling with relatives in Pampa. The Texas Panhandle culture was much the
same as the one he left behind in Oklahoma, except that in Pampa his associates
were more often drawn from the roustabouta nd bootleggers egmentso f society
than had been the case in Okemah. It was in the Panhandle that Woody received
his principale xposuret o the earlyc ommerciahl illbilly medium.H e now learned
to play the guitar, mandolin,t enor banjo, fiddle, and drumss ufficientlyw ell to
travel aboutt he countrysidea s a membero f pick-upc ountryd anceb andsa nd in
his Uncle Jeff's magic show. He began composing his own songs, though he still
sang only infrequently in public, and there is abundant testimony that his uncle
and aunt (Jeff and Allene Guthrie) were in far greater demand locally as musical
entertainersH. is prose at this time was limited largelyt o "psychological"sp eculations,
now lost. His descriptionso f life on the TexasP lainsw ere writtenl ater.x0
7Woody Guthrie, Library of Congress Recordings (Elektra), Side i.
s Field data collected from Okemah residents by Rosan A. Jordan and Richard A. Reuss, August
15-18, 1966.
9 Interview, August i8, 1966.
o1S0 ee Bound For Glory (New York, 1943), chs. 9-12; American Folksong (New York, 1947),
3-5; and Hard Hitting Songs For Hard-Hit People, 21-26.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 277
It was also in Texas, not Oklahoma as is frequently asserted, that Woody encountered
the Dust Bowl-still a vivid regional folk memory today-which he
was to depict so graphicallyi n his songs and in his autobiographyB ound For
Glory.
In summingu p Guthrie'sf ormativey earsa nd the environmenth atm oldedt he
directionsh is talentsw ould takeh im, it mayb e said thatt he culturalm ilieuso f the
Oklahoma and Texas periods accomplished different functions. The Okemah
yearsw ere essentiallya time of passivea bsorptionn, ot just in termso f repertory,
but of style, form, and idiomatic expression. The Texas years, on the other hand,
saw the crystallizationo f Guthriet he performer,a s he was generallyt o be in his
best years. As a writer Woody did not reach creative maturity until 1940, but as
a performer the only significant element missing by the time he left the Texas
Panhandlew as his radicalc ommitmentw, hich he acquiredo n the West Coasti n
1938 and
In Mar1c9h3 9. 1937 Woody hoboed to California. For the next five years he led a
nomadic life, simultaneously moving in three cultures: hobo, migratory, and
labor-radicalH. e had been exposed to the first two while still in the Pampa
vicinity but became part of them only after moving to the West Coast. Woody
witnessed the Okie exodus as it passed through the Texas Panhandle, chiefly over
Highway6 6, and also mades everalt ripsa roundt he Southwestb y himself in hobo
style before migrating to California. It was in this latter state, however, that his
contacts with both Okie and hobo groups were sustained to the point that he
actuallyb ecamea temporarym embero f each. For the better part of two years
(I937-1939), Woody sang on radio station KFVD, Los Angeles, at first with
Missouri-born Maxine Crissman as "Woody and Lefty Lou," later alone as
"Woody the Lone Wolf." His listening audience was comprised mostly of Okie
migrants and other transients who preferred the sentimental folksongs and hillbilly
humorh e dispenseda s a singer, yarnspinnera, nd down-homep hilosopher.
His recurrentw anderingst hrought he length and breadtho f Californiaa nd the
Pacific Northwest broadened his personal contacts with the life and hard times
of the Dust Bowl refugees, with whom he found a deep cultural and spiritual
identity and about whom he would write with compassion and a gentle humor.
The extreme trauma of their uprootal and their struggle for survival in the hostile
California atmosphere bound the Okies together in common spirit and cultural
experience. In the few years that the Okie community existed as a discernible
entity in California (having been absorbed by the war industries during World
War II), it produced lore born of its traumatic life to supplement the older
materials brought along in the trek west. Traditional forms of folksong and folk
expression were retained, but lyric and prose content frequently were altered to
reflect contemporarye xperience,a s amply demonstratedin Todd and Sonkin's
collection of more than two hundred Okie songs-now in the Archive of American
Folk Song, Library of Congress.11 Woody Guthrie was in no way a stranger
11 For published examples see Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin, "Ballads of the Okies," New
York Times Magazine (November 17, 1940), 6-7, 18; reprinted in American Folk Music Occasional,
No. I (Berkeley, California, 1964), 87-91. Migrant mimeographed publications such
as The Towsack Tattler (Arvin, California) also contained songs and versification by the Okies
about their experiences.
278 RICHARD A. REUSS
to this milieu, and his talents made him by far the greatest spokesman produced
by the Okie migrant community.
Woody belonged both to hobo and Okie groups at various times. In the long
run, however, he probably spent more calendar time with hoboes, tramps, and
bums than with displaced Okies. But there can be no doubt which of the two
groups is more important insofar as his overall creative work is concerned. His
Dust Bowl ballads, the rambling lyrics like "Hard Traveling," "This Land Is
Your Land,"a nd "RamblingR ound,"a nd the triumphantC olumbiaR ivers ongs
all stem principally from his migrant experiences. By contrast, only his great
ballad "East Texas Red," part of four chapters of Bound For Glory-nos. I, 13,
14, and I8-and a few other incidental writings directly reflect his contacts
with the hobo world.
The last importants ubculturefo r which Woody acteda s spokesmanw as chiefly
distinguishedf rom the otherg roups by its ideology-the labor-radicasly ndrome
created by the militant rise of the CIO and the communist movement during the
depressiono f the 1930s. Broadlys peaking,a ny group having a continuouse xistence
in time is boundt o developt raditionsa s an outgrowtho f its isolatingf eatures,
with quantitya nd form to be determinedb y local circumstancesT. he Depression's
labor-radicaml ovementw as no exception.T houghi ts impacto n the nationals cene
of the 1930s was profound,i ts lore paradoxicallyw as the end producto f a largely
self-imposed isolation from the broader American culture.
The same radio broadcastso n KFVD that broughtW oody local fame among
Okie migrants in California eventually brought him to the attention of political
radicals.E d Robbinh as told how he introducedW oody to left-wing audiencesi n
1939, beginning with a Tom Mooney rally early in the year.12 For many "progressive"
intellectuals, Guthrie was the living incarnation of social issues they
had grappledw ith either in the abstracto r at firsth and. The timing of his emergence
on the scene hardlyc ould have been more auspiciousJ. ohn Steinbeckh ad
just publishedT he Grapeso f Wrath,t he La FolletteC ommitteew as investigating
crooked labor practices against migratory farm workers in California, and the
Okies were very much a part of the nationalc onsciousnessT. he suddenp resence
of a dynamic, articulate spokesman from the Dust Bowl community, not only
sociallyc onsciousb ut able to verbalizea boutc ontemporariys suesi n the vernacular
of the "folk,"p roduceda substantiailm pacto n manyu rbani ndividualsp olitically
left-of-center. Ed Robbin remarked about Guthrie's initial debut before a radical
audience:
There was this skinny lad on the stage, the very embodiment of these people [the Okies],
speaking their language and in their voice, in bitter humor and song, with the dust of his
hard traveling still on him, a troubadour, a balladeer, a poet, who had ridden the rails
and the jallopies, worked the orchards and the fields, lain in the jails, faced the cops and
the clubs of the vigilantes-here he was drawing out his hard, bitter, humorous songs.13
Not every left-winger took to Woody or his idiom, then or later, but enough who
did were so imbued with the spirit of proletarian romanticism that a natural
tendency developed to drape Woody in the venerable garb of the Noble Savage
12 Edward Robbin, "This Train Is Bound For Glory,' " People's World, October 28, 1967, 6-7.
13 Robbin, 6.
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280 RICHARD A. REUSS
stereotype.H e was quicklyi dealizeda s a "rusty-voicedH omer"14 and "the best
folk balladc omposerw hose identityh as ever been known."•5H e becamea radical
prototypeo f the democratica nd enlightenedw hite "folk,"m ucha s Leadbellya nd
Josh White were left-wing symbols of the Negro "folk" during the same period.
In whatb ecamea widelyq uotedp assage,J ohnS teinbeckw rote:
Woody is just Woody. Thousands of people do not know he has any other name. He is
just a voice and a guitar. He sings the songs of a people and I suspect that he is, in a way,
that people. Harsh voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there
is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. But
there is something more important for those who will listen. There is the will of a people
to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit.16
The Left's romantic vision of Guthrie also flourished in the communist press
of those years. One early Daily Worker feature on Woody displayed his photographa
nd caughtt he essenceo f the Noble Savages tereotypen eatlyi n the caption:
"'Woody,' that's his name. He's a native of Oklahoma, who's come East for a
time. He can tell you all about the Dust Bowl, the original characterso f 'The
Grapeso f Wrath'a nd of the latest letter he got from John SteinbeckH. e strums
a guitar,s ings people'ss ongsa ndw ritesc olumnsf or the Daily Worker.'"•N o one,
however,e ver contributedto buildingG uthrie'si magew ith moree xuberancea nd
gusto than Mike Quin, popular columnist for the People's World. On one occasion
he wound up an extravaganrt eviewp raisingG uthrie'sa ppearancoe n CBSr adio's
"Pursuit of Happiness" in a state of lyric euphoria. "Sing it Woody, sing it!" he
exhorted. "Karl Marx wrote it and Lincoln said it and Lenin did it. You sing it,
Woody. And we'll all laugh together yet."'8
Such simplistic characterizationo f the vagabond people's minstrel was, of
course, an illusion. Friends and close associates realized that Guthrie was a far
more complex personality than the image projected by the mass media would
suggest.Y et, encountersw ith Woody'se rraticb ehaviora nd unorthodoxu tterances
often proved disquieting to many leftists. Irwin Silber wrote a fiery partisan
critiqueo n the subjectf or the radicalN ational Guardian.
Like most revolutionaries, Woody was, at best, only partially understood by the revolutionary
movements of his time. The puritanical, nearsighted left of the forties and early
fifties didn't quite know what to make of this strange bemused poet who drank and
bummed and chased after women and spoke in syllables dreadful strange. They loved
his songs and they sang "Union Maid" or "So Long" or "Roll On Columbia" or "Pastures
of Plenty"... on picket lines and at parties, summer camps and demonstrations. But they
never really accepted the man himself-and many thought that as a singer, he was a
pretty good songwriter, and they'd just as soon hear Pete Seeger sing the same songs.... 19
14 Olin Downes and Elie Siegmeister, A Treasury of American Song (New York, 1940), 338.
15 Alan Lomax as quoted by John Greenway in American Folksongs of Protest, 275.
16 Steinbeck wrote these words in 1940. They may have been intended for the liner notes of
Guthrie's Victor Dust Bowl Ballads or for the anthology of Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit
People, publishedi n 1967 after a twenty-fivey ear postponementI. n any event the statementw as
being quoted in feature articles on Woody (see A Woody Guthrie Bibliography, nos. 152 and
153) by September 1940o. 17 "Sings People's Ballads," Daily Worker, April 2, 1940, p. 7.
18s "Double Check," People's World, April 25, 1940, p. 5.
19I rwin Silber, "Woodie [sic] Guthrie:H e Never Sold Out," The National GuardianO, ctober
14, 1967, p. o10.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 281
For many, indeed, the Noble Savage image was less threatening. The stereotype
of the Dust Bowl troubadourg ave way to a moreu rbaner epresentatioinn the leftwing
press as the 1940s progressed,b ut as a whole the Left was never reallya ble
to fathomW oodyG uthrien or seriouslyw antedt o tryt o do so.
Recent academic criticism, notably that by John Greenway and Ellen Stekert,
hase mphasizedt he negativei nfluenceo f the left-wingm ilieuo n WoodyG uthrie.20
It does not, however,g ive proportionatec onsiderationto the positive featureso f
the relationship,f or it was the communist-dominatelda bor-radicaal tmosphere
that providedW oody with the spiritualn ourishmenat nd raisond 'etreh e needed
to produce his best work. For nearly a decade prior to his initial contacts with
urban radicals, Guthrie had sought a rationale for his existence. He had read
avidly and sometimes dabbled in the occult sciences: popular psychology, hypnotism,
astrology,s piritualismf, aith healing, fortunetelling,a nd Orientalp hilosophy
and mysticism.H e was at varioust imes a membero f the Churcho f Christ,a
practicingf aith healer, an authoro f a book on "psychology,"a collectoro f Rosicrucianl
iteraturea, nd an admirero f Lao-tsea nd Omar
Khayy.m.21
None of these
interests proved sustaining intellectual props or capable of guiding his energies
into meaningfulc hannelso f productivityI. t was the radicals ocial gospel of the
New Deal era that finally filled his spiritual void and elevated his hillbilly versificationt
o quitea notherp lane of socialc ommentaryw, hereh e spokef or the national
traumas and triumphs as well as for regional conditions. One may plausibly argue
that Guthrie'sc ommunismw as politicallyn aivea ndh umane,i n largem easurer ooted
in frontiera grarianr adicalismr athert han in Marx or the Partyl ine; but only
sheer bias and anticommunisfte rvorw ill permitt he criticalo bservert o deny the
emotional solace, social direction, and organic synthesis the Left gave to Guthrie's
work in the days when both the Movement and he were dynamic and young.
The years 1939-1941 were a transitionalp eriod in Woody's life, as he continuedt
o move easilyi n and out of his earliers outhwesternh, obo, and Dust Bowl
environmentsb; ut he graduallyf orsooka ll of them for the urbanl eft-wing milieu
in which he largely functioned thereafter to the end of his active career. It probably
would be accuratet o say that the first significantb reakw ith his earliere nvironments
came in February I940, when he made his first trip to and prolonged
stay in New York. In the next year and a half he made two extensive journeys
back to old familiar scenes in the Southwest and on the West Coast and then
toured some of these same areas again with the Almanac Singers. But during this
time he consistently used his talents to describe concepts, events, and political
causes that were not central to the experience of the groups he had previously
representedin Californiap riort o his going East.B y the fall of 1941, when Woody
settled in New York more or less permanently, the separation from his earlier
folk milieu was complete.B oundF or Glorya nd occasionasl ongs like "EastT exas
Red"-drawn from his life in the southwestern,h obo, and migrantf olk complexes-
continued to come from his pen in the next year or so; but from the time
20 Greenway, "The Anatomy of a Genius" and "Woody Guthrie: The Man, The Land, The
Understanding"E; llen Stekert," Cents and Nonsense in the Urban Folksong Movement:1 930-
1966," in Folklore and Society, ed. Bruce Jackson (Hatboro, Pa., 1965), I61-164.
21 Data collected from Pampa, Texas, residents and Maxine Crissman Dempsey, June I968.
See also Bound For Glory, ch. 12.
282 RICHARD A. REUSS
he entered the merchant marine in 1943, the great mass of his voluminous writings,
personal reminiscences, and songs ceased in most instances to reflect his
former traditional environments.
It would be hard to underestimate the importance of these transition years for
Woody Guthrie, for in them he produced the bulk of his greatest work: most of
the Dust Bowl ballads, all of the Columbia River songs, the long ballads "Pretty
Boy Floyd," "East Texas Red," and "Tom Joad," the lyric songs "This Land Is
Your Land" and "Hard Traveling," most of his best labor and war verse, Bound
For Glory, and several of his finest essays. All were written between 1939 and
I942. This material is a creative fusion of Guthrie's folk heritage with a leftwing
social consciousness. The rural Southwest of Woody's youth gave him an
instinctive knowledge of ballad structure, folksong style, and the folk idiom.
Migrant and hobo wanderings of his early manhood provided crucial themes for
his pen, drawn from first-hand observation, to mold into verse and prose. Contacts
with Communists and other radicals sharpened and focused an innate sense
of social concern developed out of the experiences of his early life. His own
artistic abilities enabled him to weld these diverse strands into a unique synthesis
of folk-styled poetry and social gospel.
Prior to the time Woody encountered the Left, he held no special status within
society other than that of another "good" hillbilly songwriter. Later, after radical
publicity brought him to the attention of urban intellectuals, he became a symbol
of the Okie trauma and the turmoil experienced by anonymous millions of Americans
during the depression. The folksong revival ultimately enshrined him as one
of its culture heroes, admiring or worshipping him not only for his songs and
prose, but for his "free" life-style, uncompromising honesty, and spiritual independence.
Guthrie's most unique and viable period as a creative artist, however,
lies during those years of his life when he belonged exclusively to no one group,
when he was able to effectively blend old forms and new experiences and draw
freely on the varied esthetic and intellectual material his several worlds had to
offer him. Much of his voluminous output is unworthy of remembrance, but his
more lasting creations have made no small contribution to the American heritage.
An appreciative national government tendered him official recognition for his
efforts to awaken the American people to "their heritage and the land" in ceremonies
sponsored by the Department of Interior on April 6, 1966.22
II.
The folk tradition Woody Guthrie inherited from the Southwest is usually
evaluated in terms of the songs he acquired there, but it should be noted that
Guthrie's folk repertory was by no means limited to songs alone. He knew large
numbers of anecdotes, jokes, toasts, proverbial phrases, and witty sayings, which
he effectively utilized in his varied roles as raconteur, soothsayer, humorist, and
writer. Many of these were clearly traditional; others might prove to be so with a
little investigation. His language, for example, was studded with colorful neologisms
and idiomatic expressions: "colder'n old Billyhell," "out like Lottie's
22 Robert B. Semple, Jr., "U.S. Award Given to Woody Guthrie," New York Times, April 7,
1966, p. 47.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 283
eye" (went kaput), "That boy don't care if school keeps or not," "Take it easy,
but take it," and endless others. Apparently no one made any effort to collect these,
or his yarns and other witticisms; and such as are extant must be culled from his
writings and the memories of friends. A more detailed record, however, does exist
for the traditional songs in his memory.
At the time he was singing on Los Angeles radio (1937-1939), Woody drew
his song material almost entirely from his southwestern cultural experiences. His
repertory consisted of folksongs, hillbilly pieces, and compositions of his own
based on folk and hillbilly models. His contacts with the few popular singers of
folksongs of that period were almost nonexistent; yet, within two years after
leaving California for New York City, he had absorbed numerous songs alien to
his own musical tradition from the small clique of urban folksingers gathering in
the East during the early forties.
No folklorist ever tried systematically to collect Guthrie's traditional song
repertory. The Lomax recordings for the Library of Congress in March 1940
were conceived of as a documentary word-portrait rather than as a folkloristic
probe.23 Moses Asch recorded a large number of traditional songs from Woody,
frequently in conjunction with Leadbelly, Sonny Terry, Cisco Houston, and others;
but, in the absence of external documentation and control data, it is often difficult
to tell whether Guthrie is singing a song from his own tradition or one he learned
from the early folksong revival milieu. For instance, his version of "Buffalo Skinners"
has been praised by scholars as an excellent example of American folksong
style, which it is; yet I know of no evidence indicating that Woody knew the song
prior to the mid-i94os, when it was released on the Asch album Struggle (Asch
36o). Indeed, his lyrics closely follow the text published in Cowboy Songs and
Other Frontier Ballads.
It is largely through surviving manuscript collections kept by Guthrie himself,
and the fortuitous actions of Alan Lomax, that there is any clear delineation of
Woody Guthrie's "pre-revival" folksong repertory. Lomax recorded Guthrie for
the Library of Congress scarcely a month after the latter arrived in the East in
1940, and before Woody had much chance to absorb new material from other
singers. Lomax, however, was not interested in the hillbilly songs that comprised
a significant portion of Guthrie's repertory; hence there is little trace of such material
in the Archive of American Folk Song recordings. Far more significant than
these recordings was a manuscript collection Lomax procured from Woody shortly
thereafter and had copied for the Library of Congress. Entitled "Songs of Woody
Guthrie," typed copies of the collection are on deposit in the Archive of American
Folk Song. A photocopy of the original manuscript in Woody's hand and typescript
is on microfilm in the Music Division of the Library of Congress. This collection
contains texts of two hundred songs Woody sang over the radio in California
to his Okie and political audiences on the West Coast. A breakdown shows
half of the songs to be of Guthrie's own authorship, the rest being divided roughly
into 6o percent folksongs and 40 percent hillbilly items, parlor ballads, or sentimental
religious pieces. Among the traditional songs are versions of three Child
ballads ("Barbara Allan," "Gypsy Davy," and "The Golden Vanity") and more
23 Interview with Alan Lomax, August 29, 1966.
284 RICHARD A. REUSS
than twentyA mericanb alladsa nd balladlikep iecesc lassifiedi n the Lawsi ndexes.
The Laws ballads are BI, B2, B4, B13, D27, EI, EI4 (combined with FI3, probably
obtained from the Lomaxes' Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads), FI,
F20, G3I, H4, 14, 115, I17, LI6B, N28, 033, 038, P24, and P36B. In addition,
Woody knew manyb alladlikep iecest hatL awso mitsf rom his "official"c atalogue,
such as "Kitty Wells," "Little Rosewood Casket," and "Billy the Kid." I have
omitted from the above list such indigenous ballads as "Buffalo Skinners" (Bio)
and "Root Hog Or Die" (B21) because for the moment I can find no evidence
that they were a parto f Woody'so riginalt raditionarl epertoryI. t is interestingt o
note, however, that in two small songbooks of "oldtime hill country songs," put
out by Woody and Lefty Lou in 1937 for KFVD listeners,t raditionabl alladsa re
entirely absent.24I nstead, these booklets contain such pieces as "Maple on the
Hill," "MidnightS pecial,"f "BuryM e Beneatht he Willow," "A Pictureo f Life's
Other Side," and "On That Jericho Road," plus a few of Woody's early compositions
such as "Reno Blues" ("Philadelphia Lawyer"), "Oklahoma Hills," and
"Do Re Mi." All of the above are presenta s well in the large manuscriptc ollection,
but the selectivity of the contents in Old Time Hill Country Songs underscorest
he devotiono f Woody, LeftyL ou, and theirl istenerst o sentimental" down
home" songs until recently disdained or ignored by folklorists and folkniks alike.
Such songs largelyd isappearedf rom Guthrie'sp ublic repertorya fter his removal
to New York. Apparently, his new social concerns led him to emphasize themes
of a more topicaln aturei n his compositionsw, hile the folksong revivalr epertory
did not admit many hillbilly and parlor songs into its canon until long after
Guthrie was gone from the scene. Moses Asch did record Woody singing several
of his sentimental numbers in the 940os but did not release them commercially
until twenty years later. They include "What Did the Deep Sea Say," "Brown
Eyes," "A Picture of Life's Other Side," "Put My Little Shoes Away," and
"Stepstone,"r ecordedo n Woody GuthrieS ings Folk Songs, vols. 1-2 (Folkways
FA 2483 and 2484), and Bed On the Floor (Verve-Folkways FV 9007) -
For documentationo n the sourcesf or his traditionals ongs one is forcedt o rely
on Guthrie'so wn randomc ommentsi n his writingsa nda t the bottomo f occasional
song texts. In actualf act, a carefulg leaning of strayr emarkst urnsu p quite a bit
of useful information. Thus Woody reports that his mother sang him "Barbara
Allan," "GypsyD avy," "The ShermanC yclone,"a burlesquev ersiono f "Springfield
Mountain,"a nd manys entimentals ongs on the ordero f "A Pictureo f Life's
Other Side."A n Okemaho ilfield workern amedG antze ntertainedy oungW oody
and small companionso n summern ights with "Stewball";O tto Gray'sc owboy
band introduced him to "Midnight Special" in the course of an Okemah theater
performance. "Little Darling, Pal of Mine" was learned from relatives at the
Boydstun ranch near Jericho, Texas, in 1931; and "Curly-HeadedB aby" was
absorbedin itiallyf rom two teenageb oysi n a Pampap oolhall. "TheG ypsyD avy,"
"Sherman Cyclone," and "Stewball" are cited in "Ear Players," Common Ground
(Spring, 1942), pages 32, 35, with information on Gantz being supplied in a
24 Woody & Lefty Lou's Favorite Collection [of] Old Time Hill Country Songs. The first
edition (which title ends .. . Old Time Hillbilly Songs) was mimeographed; the second, printed.
Both were published in Los Angeles in 1937, and contain identical songs. Woody's prose comments,
however, differ in some cases.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 285
manuscript of the latter song in the possession of Marjorie Guthrie. "Barbara
Allen" is mentionedi n AmericanF olksong,p age 3; "SpringfieldM ountain"o n
page 237 in Woody's "Old Book" manuscript collection of songs owned by
Marjorie Guthrie; and "Little Darling, Pal of Mine," "Midnight Special," and
"Curly-Headed Baby" in Old Time Hill Country Songs, pages [12], [I4], [291.
Similarm inimumd ocumentationc ould be cited in the case of many other songs,
both traditional and of Guthrie's own creation, although in some cases the information
provided for the same song in different places is contradictory.
On the whole, the corpus of songs Guthrie inherited from the Southwest is not
especiallyu nique. Other singersh ave had largero r more variedr epertoriesT. he
two most importantt hings the southwesternf olksong traditiong ave to Woody
were a thorough grounding in folksong style and an instinctive knowledge of the
ballad form. Fromh is earlym usicale nvironmenth e acquiredt he terse, flat vocal
sound inherited from the older folksong tradition of the southern United States.
He also learnedt he importanceo f textuala nd melodicu nderstatemenHt. is guitar
playing, though technically competent, always lacked ornamentation and remaineds
ubordinatedto vocale xpression.2H5 e clungt o the older folk and hillbilly
styles of vocalization and harmony and shunned emergent forms of modern
country-westermn usic,m ost notablyt he pseudocowboyv arieties.E venh is contacts
with urbanf olksingersm aden o importantc hangesi n his traditionals tyle.
Alan Lomaxc laimst hatW oodyb earsc ertainr esemblancetso Ozarkf olksingers
and composers, notably Jimmy Driftwood. Lomax feels that insofar as song
delivery,h abitualt inkeringw ith traditionall yrics (especiallys ong endings), and
relegationo f tunes to secondaryim portancea re concerneds, ignificantl inks can be
establishedb etweent he two traditionsa nd singers.26W hile giving Lomaxh is due
for a provocatives uggestion,I am inclinedt o view Guthrie'sr elationshipto Ozark
singers as an open-endeds ubjectf or future investigation,s ince no detailedc omparative
studies exist.
Though Woody wrote many lyric songs in folk style, it is in his ballad and
balladlikec ompositionst hat his profoundc omprehensiono f the folksong idiom
is most evident. He was exposed to the ballad form from his earliest days as a
child, principallyt hroughh is motherb ut alsot hrougho therr elativesa nd members
of the community at large. The techniques of balladmaking were thoroughly
mastered,a s becomesa bundantlyc learw hen one turnst o Guthrie'so wn creations.
His narrative songs focus on local episodes, sometimes wholly isolated events,
and in other instances parts of larger dramas. Like other traditional songmakers,
Woody concentratedo n portrayings ocial interactionin humant erms,e ven when
the point he wantedt o makew as economico r political.T he "I 913 Massacre,"fo r
instance,e nds with the class-conscioulsi ne "See what your greed for money has
done," addressed to the copper-mine owners whose thugs provoked a tragedy
costing the lives of over seventy miners' children. The plot, however, is couched
in personal terms of human drama rather than labor statistics.
Character descriptions and plot development in Woody's ballads begin and end
abruptly, are terse and pithy, and on the whole give only information essential to
25 For Woody's comments on overornamented guitar playing, see his letter in the People's Songs
Bulletin, vol. 3, no. 8 (September 1948), 6.
26 Lomax interview.
286 RICHARD A. REUSS
the theme. Greenway, for example, has recently discussed how Guthrie effectively
pared down the sprawling narrative of The Grapes of Wrath to eighteen stark
verses, eliminating or reducing to a few words unnecessary or peripheral details,
leaving only what was truly pertinent to the story and its moral.27 The trek of the
Joads across the desert, as Greenway points out, was reduced from whole chapters
in the Steinbeck novel to one succinct sentence in "Tom Joad."
Theyb uriedG randpaJ oadb y the sideo f the road;
BuriedG randmao n the Californias ide,
Theyb uriedG randmao n the Californias ide.
Such traditional condensation and contrast techniques have their appeal for literary
critics. But not all of Woody's creative efforts are satisfying in terms of art
esthetics. A good example is his retelling of the charge of the Light Brigade, composed
February 14, 1939.
You've heard of the Light Brigade and of the charge they made,
This ride the Captain said was a deathly blunder;
When love and country called to face that rifle ball,
Into the valley of death rode the six hundred.
A brave young soldier lad who loved a sweet young maid
Rode with that Light Brigade thru fire and thunder;
A letter he did forge, he told the troops to charge
Theyc hargedt o win the war,t hatb raves ix hundred.
Don't weep for me he cried while she was by his side,
Then into death did ride this brave six hundred;
0' you can be my bride when back to you I ride,
But in that battle died his brave six hundred.
Immortahl avey ou madet his chargeo f the LightB rigade,
This handsomed ashingl ad'sm agnificenbt lunder;
For every man that fell a maiden lives to tell
A love dream planned so well-now blown asunder.28
What is instructive about this text is its use of an incident from the Crimean War,
totally removed from the American context, reshaped as grist for a balladmaker's
art. Like "Brave Wolfe" and so many other war ballads, the battle serves as a
backdrop for a close-up focus on a love affair, the song's emotional core. And, in
spite of the stilted language, there is scarcely any wasted statement; each scene is
described in terse, parsimonious style, conveying maximum information with a
minimum of narrative. The action moves quickly in a series of vignettes from an
initial overview and the captain's doubts about the charge to the forgery by the
young soldier, his farewell and promise to his sweetheart, and the tragic aftermath.
The lyrics are replete with cliche and formulaic patterning ("face that rifle ball,"
you can be my bride when back to you I ride," "into the valley of death rode the
six hundred") of Guthrie's making or borrowed from others. But the general tone
is matter-of-fact, even understated, rather than maudlin, and thus is an improvement
over the sticky sentimentality of much Anglo-American broadside balladry.
27 Greenway," Woody Guthrie:T he Man, The Land,T he Understanding,"30 , 74-75.
28 "Songs of Woody Guthrie," 126. Copyright Guthrie Children's Trust Fund. Reprinted by
permission.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 287
Though the lyrics are not among Guthrie's most memorable, they illustrate full
well how much at home he was in the ballad idiom.
One must understand that Woody composed primarily from a folk rather than
a literary point of view. Two different esthetics are involved, and judgments made
from one perspective are not necessarily valid for the other. Woody's implicit
concern in composing ballads and lyrics was to construct an effective emotional
core. As Coffin has stressed, the emotional core is of fundamental importance to
the traditional singer and his audience, superseding all other poetic considerations.
29 Such Guthrie ballads as "Philadelphia Lawyer," "Pretty Boy Floyd,"
"1913 Massacre," "East Texas Red," and "Tom Joad" vary considerably in subject
matter, mood, and minor stylistic devices; but all accentuate an emotional core
rather than tight literary construction. This, it seems to me, accounts for the success
of Guthrie's best compositions, even when they are deficient in terms of structure,
rhyme, or other formal poetic attributes.
As an example of the limitations inherent in evaluating Woody's songs solely
in terms of literary esthetics, let us consider "Pretty Boy Floyd," which Coffin calls
"one ong, sentimentalized cliche" and classifies with "Ballads of No Literary
Merit," characterized in the following terms: "Unimaginative, trite, frequently
maudlin, if not garbled, these songs rely only on the quaintness of their environment,
the cause they serve, or the beauty of their melody for their appeal."30
Specifically, he objects to clothing a "degenerate sadist" in the garb of the good
outlaw stereotype, although he admits Guthrie's literary right to do so. Coffin
criticizes the famous "Some will rob you with a six gun, and some with a fountain
pen" stanza as expounding a prejudice not developed in the song. It is true that
the stock characterization Woody uses for Floyd is at least as old as Robin Hood
and that Guthrie makes certain cultural assumptions not explicitly stated in the
ballad. Moreover, in literary terms a number of lines are pedestrian, and three
verses fail to hold to any reasonable rhyme pattern whatsoever. Yet, such criticism
ignores the interrelated dynamics of folk culture and folk music that
prompted Woody's creations and determined the forms they took. From a traditional
point of view the theme, vernacular, and structure of "Pretty Boy Floyd"
are tried and proven. The "good outlaw" has had wide folk appeal in America,
and in this ballad Guthrie does no more than state the prejudices of many of his
fellow Oklahomans about Floyd. Strict adherence to rhyme frequently has been
disregarded by ballad singers and composers. Phrases such as "He took to the trees
and timber to live a life of shame" may scarcely challenge Shakespeare's rhetoric,
but they remain culturally accurate statements in terms of the local world view,
concise and vivid in their imagery in spite of their stereotyped character. With
suchl ines Guthries killfullyb uildss ympathyfo r Floyda nd developst he emotional
core of his song. The "six gun-fountain pen" verse indeed links Floyd's plight to
hitherto unmentioned social prejudices, as Coffin suggests, but balladmakers have
done the same for generations, notably by tacking on religious morals to secular
tragedies. While scholars have yet to determine which of these traditional features
29 Tristram P. Coffin, "Mary Hamilton and the Anglo-American Ballad As an Art Form,"
JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE, 70 (1957), 208-214.
30 TristramP . Coffin," The Folk Ballada nd the LiteraryB allad,"M idwestF olklore,9 (1959), 7.
288 RICHARD A. REUSS
are the manifestations of folk esthetics and which are the product of historical
accident, their consideration in terms of folk rather than literary standards is
essential if any meaningful evaluation of Woody's creative output is to be made.3'
Blaming him for failure to meet artistic criteria not inherent in his traditional
environment tells us more in the long run about "art" standards in "high culture"
than it does about Guthrie.
Looking at Woody's patterns of creativity as folk-oriented rather than literaryoriented,
we shed light on various historical problems connected with his artistic
production, such as his seeming inability to edit his own work beyond an occasional
deletion or scribbled insertion. Contrary to the popular belief that Guthrie never
rewrote anything, there are multiple drafts of many of his best-known songs,
among them "This Land," "Union Maid," "Pretty Boy Floyd," and "I Ain't Got
No Home in This World Anymore," as well as of a small percentage of his reams
of prose. Intervals of months or years, however, frequently separate many of
these drafts, which commonly show substantial textual alterations. Yet, the
changes were made not as part of a process of careful polishing and repolishing
in the manner of a "literary" author, but as an outgrowth of an innate and probably
unconscious attitude on Woody's part about the nature of the creative experience,
strongly ingrained in him by his early folk environment.
For Guthrie, as with other traditional artists, the composition or performance
of a song was a creative act born out of the dynamics of a given moment in time.
Since no two occasions were apt to produce precisely the same circumstances
whereby a composer-singer interacted with his milieu, there was no compelling
reason to spend time honing old phrases to literary perfection or attempting to
recreate an earlier song experience. To Woody, each draft or performance of a
song was a new creative experience rather than the revision of an old one, even
though the same themes, phrases, and structural assumptions might be used in
each case. Similarly, the creative act in constructing an essay or a poem was initially
typing his ideas on paper, not in refining and editing his work to meet literary and
publishing standards. Editing in the usual sense occurred only as part of the primary
creative experience, which in Guthrie's case was more likely to be a matter
of hours than days or months. When Guthrie devoted his energies to extended
works such as books, the length of the creative experience, of course, would be
longer. Moreover, he tended to write batches of songs in a short period around a
single theme, for instance his Columbia River songs and Peekskill songs. These
might properly be viewed as falling within the purview of one creative experience.
Thus, if an original song draft were not immediately at hand, or if for some
reason it proved unsatisfactory, Woody would undertake to reconstruct the song,
tinkering freely and often more or less unconsciously with lyrics, ideas, and
stanzas. The changes might be drastic or minimal, artistically pleasing or debilitating,
but the process of textual alteration followed the tradition of Anglo-
American folksong re-creation rather than the editing patterns characteristic of
"high culture." The same creative process was involved when Guthrie wrote prose
or nonmusical verse, and this explains the otherwise puzzling phenomenon of
two early drafts of Bound for Glory. These were written within a year and a half
31 I am indebted here to Ellen Stekert for her perceptive comments on the problems of the study
of folk esthetics,w hich,t o date,s cholarsh aver arelyc onsidered.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 289
of each other and cover the period of his youth, including many of the same incidents;
y et they are essentiallyt wo differentb ooks-in-the-makinagn d represent
two separate creative acts. The first was written in the latter part of 194o and in
early 1941. It is titled simply "Book In Progress" and can be consulted on microfilm
in the MusicD ivision of the Libraryo f CongressT. he otherd raftw as written
in 1942 and was essentially that published as Bound for Glory. Rather than locate
and revisea n old manuscripti,t seemst o have been muchs implera nd appropriate
for Woody to create a new one.
Two other factors must be taken into account in any overall evaluation of
Guthrie'sw ork: performancec ontexta nd function.W oody's lyrics,i n most cases,
were written as songs, to be sung and performedi n a dynamica tmosphereR. educed
to two dimensions on the printed page, they frequently suffer as do many
famous traditional songs. The New Masses once recognized as much when it
rejected several poems submitted by Guthrie on the grounds that the words lacked
musica nd did not stands atisfactorilyb y themselves.32S ucha ccoutermentass voice
inflection, added emphasis on the bass strings of the guitar to underscore certain
phrases,g esturesa nd facial expressions,a nd the mood and the interactiono f the
singer and his audience are all a part of the total song experience and need to be
assessedi f a completep ictureo f the balladeer'sm usicalc reationsi s to be obtained.
Woody's "Jesus Christ," for example, may look like impossible doggerel on the
printed page, but in the hands of Cisco Houston, who sings it with quiet yet bitter
irony, the lyrics take on a significancea nd life that cannotb e communicatedb y
text and tune alone.33S imilarly,o ne must make allowancef or historicals etting
and function.T he Dust Bowl balladsa re best understooda nd appreciatedin the
context of the 1930s. "All You Fascists Bound to Lose" today seems execrable
poetry; however, as a singable bit of war propaganda, it was by no means unsuccessful.
A dynamicr enditiono f this song is found on the cast-copyr ecordso f
the BBC wartime special "The Martins and the Coys," sung by Woody and chorus,
a tape dub of which is on deposit at the Archive of Traditional Music, Indiana
University, Bloomington, Indiana.
This is not to suggest that Guthrie's work should not be analyzed and evaluated
from a literaryp erspectiveo, nly that such a perspectivei s severelyl imited if
one wishes to understandt he full implicationso f the creativea rtistryo f Woody
Guthrieo r anyo thert raditionals ingero r writer.I t will be the tasko f some future
writert o assessG uthrie'sa rtisticp roduction,b alancet he good and bad, and draw
whateverc onclusionss eem appropriateI.n the meantime,s uchu ncriticallye xtravagant
praise as that found in Robert Shelton's introduction to Born to Win, an
inferior collection of Guthrie miscellanea, and intemperate criticism couched
solely in termso f Guthrie'ss econdarye fforts,l ike that in Ellen Stekert'se ssayi n
Folklore and Society, cannot be taken seriously as final judgments of his work.34
111.
Prior to going East, Woody Guthrie had no concept of what folk tradition was
or that he himself was a member of the folk. He wrote later, "I didn't even hear
32 Letter to Woody Guthrie, May 20, 1942, in possession of Marjorie Guthrie.
33 Cisco Houston Sings the Songs of Woody Guthrie (Vanguard, VRS 9089).
34 Robert Shelton, "Introduction," Born to Win (New York, 1965), ii; Ellen Stekert, "Cents
and Nonsense in the Urban Folksong Movement," 161-164.
290 RICHARD A. REUSS
the word 'ballad' nor the word 'folk,' well, till I hit New York in the snow of '41
[40]."•3
None of his earlier California writings (including his 15o-odd columns
for the People's World) contains so much as a single reference to such words as
"folksong" or "folksinger." If a musical appellation was needed for him, both
Guthrie and his audiences would have used the term "hillbilly singer." In leftwing
circlesi n 1939, he was occasionallyr eferredt o as a "progressiveh illbilly."86
But after Alan Lomax recorded him for the Library of Congress, the jargon of
folkloristsb egan to appeari n his lettersa nd publicationsO. ne of the earliesti nstances
was in a People's World column of June 1940, "Feller asked me if I was a
Folk Lorist, and I said--Nope. I'm a Poor Folkist.""37S ubsequently,f olklore
terminologya boundedi n Woody'sw ritings,e speciallyd uringt he latterp arto f his
career.H e begans tylingh imself as a "folksinger,"a nd even as a "folk composer."
He reviewed the Lomaxes' Folksong U.S.A. for the People's Songs Bulletin and
wrote articleso n folksongs, more or less theoreticali n nature,f or the earlyS ing
Out!38 All of these developments, however, were an outgrowth of his contacts
with Alan Lomax.
The friendship Guthrie formed with Lomax was in many ways one of the most
importanto f his life and is an interestingd eparturefr om the moreu sual relationship
between informant and folklore collector. The two met in New York on
February 24, 1940, after a benefit concert to raise money for Spanish Loyalist
refugees. It was Guthrie's public debut in the East. At the time, Woody was
twenty-seven years old, at his peak as a performer, just entering his most viable
years as a songwriter, and strongly imbued with a new-found sense of social commitment.
L omaxw as a self-assuredy oung radicalw ho as a folksong collectorh ad
already spent countless hours listening to traditional singers. Guthrie, nevertheless,
profoundly impressed him as he had many another left-wing intellectual.
Lomax and his father had published their study of Leadbelly in 1936,39 and it
would have been logical for one or both of them to attempt a similar documentary
of Woody and his folksongt raditionY. et the youngerL omaxw as sufficientlya wed
by the creative talents of his new informant to feel that Woody should be allowed
to worko ut his artisticd estinyu nhindereda, t leastf or the time being.40T herefore,
except for the Library of Congress recordings, intended for use on a radio show
that never materialized, Lomax postponed any idea of an in-depth folkloristic
analysis of Guthrie.
Lomax, however, proved to be an enormous influence in Guthrie's life. He
providedG uthriew ith numerousc ontactsi n the commerciael ntertainmenwt orld
and among publishers,l eading, among other things, to performanceso n several
35 Shelton, Born to Win, 71.
36 Woody is called a hillbilly singer in his first column in the People's World, May 12, 1939,
p. 4, and in one of the first significant articles written about him, James Forester's "Slow Train
through California" (not to be confused with the mimeographed booklet of the same title by
Guthrie himself), The Hollywood Tribune, July 3, 1939, p. io. For use of the term "progressive
hillbilly," see the radio listings in the People's World, May 19, 1939, p. 5.
37 June I2, 1940, p. 4.
38 "Folksong U.S.A.," People's Songs Bulletin, 3:5 (May 1948), 4-5; "Folksongs; How Long?"
Sing Out!, i:io (March I95s), 4; "Folk-Songs-'Non-Politickled' Pink," Sing Out!, 2:11 (May
1952 ), 10.
39 John A. and Alan Lomax, Negro Folk Songs As Sung By Lead Belly (New York, 1936).
40 Lomax interview.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 291
important CBS radio shows and two RCA albums, Dust Bowl Ballads (P-27 and
P-28). Moreover, Lomax's encouragement was a crucial factor in Woody's development
as a writer. In a letter to Guthrie dated February 4, 1941, Lomax wrote:
"I hope you are going to work more on writing and get those short stories written.
When they are ready I'll show them to everybody I know and try to help get them
sold if you would like me to. I believe your job is as a writer as well as a talker and
singer, and I hope you keep digging at it."41 Through Lomax Woody received
his initial exposure to academic notions about folksongs and folklore and in the
process gained a whole new perspective of himself and his music. Skeptical at first
of Lomax's high-powered talk, he was won over after Lomax took him to Washington
and showed him the range of material and equipment possessed by the
Archive of American Folk Song. The Negro folksongs that Alan played for him
made a special impression. Later a somewhat more enlightened Woody wrote to
Lomax-a little naively-from the West Coast: "What help can I be to your
project in the Library? I aim to deal first hand in folk lore and to accumulate
several thousand good letters [via radio] containing stories of all kinds and colors
and to collect songs that reflect the real life of just natural people."42
Woody, however, never interpreted himself or his traditional background in
the usual folkloristic terms. Already committed to a radical political outlook by
the time he met Lomax, he absorbed from Lomax and others the prevailing leftwing
views on folksongs and other traditions of the people and thus equated "the
folk" with the lower economic classes and the antiestablishment forces. Woody
saw himself, for example, as a folk person by virtue of his being one of the working
class, a migrant, a refugee from the Dust Bowl, an anticapitalist, and so forth.
The aura of social protest colored his understanding of folksong. He once wrote
Alan Lomax:
A folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it, or it could be whose hungry and where
their mouth is, or whose out of work and where the job is, or whose broke and where the
moneyi s, or whose carryinga gun and wheret he peacei s-that's folk lore and folks made
it up becauset hey seen that the politiciansc ouldn'tf ind nothingt o fix or nobodyt o feed or
give a job of work [tol.43
Both Guthrie's left-wing social consciousness and his familiarity with selected
terms in the folklorist's lexicon came after his career as a songwriter was well
underway. Only after acquiring the necessary conceptual framework did he attach
a theoretical base to the folksong form he had utilized previously without any
sociopolitical rationale.
Woody frequently is pictured as a totally spontaneous performer, composer,
and writer. While the description is accurate enough in some ways, it is misleading
if accepted in toto. It is true that he was quite capable of dashing off reams of
material with hardly a pause for thought, or of improvising a verse or monologue
onstage at the spur of a moment. Yet there is also abundant evidence that he was
attuned to the demands of his audiences, conscious in his selective emphasis on the
"folk" idiom as his chief means of artistic communication, and quite aware of
the various roles assigned to him by urban intellectuals.
41 Archive of American Folk Song, Library of Congress. Reprinted by permission of Alan Lomax.
42 February 15, 1941; copyright Guthrie Children's Trust Fund. Reprinted by permission.
43 September i9, I940; copyright Guthrie Children's Trust Fund. Reprinted by permission.
292 RICHARD A. REUSS
Guthrieh ad been entertainingo thersa s a musician,j ig dancer,c omedian,a nd
chalk-talk artist as far back as his Oklahoma and Pampa, Texas, years. He had
long since absorbed the principle that performers do not successfully exist in a
vacuum. On KFVD radio, he and "Lefty Lou" devoted much of their time to
singing requests-the old folksongs and parlor pieces preferred by their Okie
audiences-and in several cases made program format changes after reading
their mail. LaterW oody occasionallyle cturedh is fellow AlmanacS ingerso n how
to put themselves across to an audience. He also admitted to the same group that
he rarelyd ared sing his own partisanp olitical compositionsw hen bummingh is
way in bars while on the road. In short, Guthrie was well aware of the need to
tailor his performances to fit the expectations and demands of his audiences.
CharlesS eeger is of the opinion that in accommodatingh is New York listeners
Woody at times went so far as to nearly drown his creative talents in "Greenwich
Villagese."''4W4 hile this mayh aveb een trueu p to a point, it shouldb e emphasized
that Guthrie would placate his audiences or his employers only so far as their
demands did not conflict with his value system, in which case he usually would
simply walk out. Yet Woody was quite knowledgeable that his success as a performerd
ependedo n his abilityt o achievea satisfactoryin teractionw ith his audience.
Like other traditionale ntertainers,h e did not recognize himself in the
beginning as a folk artist, but he was always fully cognizant of his special role
as a performer.
Guthrie'sc ontinuouse xperimentationws ith literaryf orm indicatet hat he was
consciously seeking to convert the regional language of the Southwest "folk" to
writing, and that he opted for his idiomatic expression in prose and poetry over
severalo ther alternativesC. ontraryt o the primitivists tereotypef osteredb y some
urbani ntellectualsw, hen Woody reachedt he publicv iew he was not an unlettered
genius without any semblance of formal education. He had progressed to the
eleventhg radeb efore droppingo ut of high school,b ut more importantlyh e read
voraciously, if unevenly, throughout the following years. In 195o, he attended
Brooklyn College for a few weeks on the G. I. Bill. He had at least a passing
familiarity with the formal syntax and structure of the English language, and
once he surprised Butch Hawes of the Almanac Singers by carefully correcting
the spelling and grammaro f a manuscripHt awes was in the processo f writing.45
Quite a few of Woody's letters and a number of his essays show scarcely a trace
of the self-styled regional dialect so familiar to readers of the left-wing press
prior to World War II. In later years he wrote some excellent, straightforward
journalism,a nd he might have gone far as a newspapermanh ad he elected to
pursuet his occupationo n a regularb asis.
In Guthrie's earliest prose, written for the People's World, The Hollywood
Tribune, and other radical news media, he attempted to reproduce phonetically
the laconic observationsh, umor, and advice he dispenseda s a radio performer.
More or less typical is this excerpt from his People's World "AWTOBYOGRAFIE":"
I got what you wood call disgurstedb, usted.I rooledm e up a bundel
of duds, an' caughta long, tall frate-traint het had a Californias ign on the side
44 "The Folkness of the Non-Folk" in Folklore and Society, 4.
45 Interview with Butch Hawes, July 21, 1967.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 293
of it. I got down in a 'refrigrater-"reefer"-somewhere in the dustbowl, an' the
first daylight I seen, it said California I21314151 feet below sea level."46 Such
immatures tabs at imitatingv ernaculars peech are obviouslyc ontriveda nd painfully
folksy. Unfortunatelyt, hey permeatet he majorityo f his writingsi n the leftwing
California press and sometimes his later columns for the Daily Worker.
While they were very well received, their success was due nonetheless, to their
humorousq uips and politicalc ontenta s mucha s to theirp seudofolkl iterarys tyle.
Once Guthrie dropped his more eccentric ventures into phonetic spelling and
literal expression, seemingly at the suggestion of Alan Lomax and Will Geer, his
writing matured noticeably and in due time led to his best prose efforts: Bound
for Glory, the essays in American Folksong, "Ear Players," "Child Sitting," and
a numbero f othern oteworthyp ieces.
At the other extreme from most of his early California writings, and on the
whole equally unsuccessful artistically, are his efforts at expressing idiomatic
speech in free verse and formal poetic styles, such as are found in the recently
published anthology Born to Win. Most of these selections are from his postwar
work, but someg o backt o his Californiay earsa ndp ossiblyb efore.H ere Guthrie's
lack of adequate training in literature and creative writing may have hurt him,
for he was not equipped by his education and background to write in certain
urban art forms. But these pieces at least indicate he was aware enough of nontraditional
poetic forms to consciously experiment with them. In sum, Woody's
writings tyle was largelyt he resulto f a deliberatee xploitationo f his folk heritage
and the language idiom it employed. This conscious utilization of his own traditioni
n his writingw asp aralleledi n certainr espectsi n his role as entertainer.
During his first year on KFVD (July, 1937-June, 1938), Woody was unaware
that his music and backgroundh ad any specialm eaning for others who did not
come from his own backgroundT. he latterp arto f 1938 saw the strengtheningo f
his sense of social concern, so that he was already speaking and singing on topical
issues to his rural Okie migrant audiences over KFVD when he was discovered
by Ed Robbin and other radical intellectuals early in 1939. Then Guthrie soon
discoveredt hat his traditiona nd cultureh ad a significancet o city "progressives"
that he previously had been unaware of. It did not take him long to realize that
by capitalizing on traditional performance patterns he could gain a hearing for
himself and his emergents ocial convictionsa mong segmentso f the urbanm ilieu
hitherto shut off from him. Thus began a period of experimental "role playing,"
similart o his attemptst o find a viable,a ppealingl iterarys tyle.
The first of several roles Guthrie assumed was that of the rustic comedian-sage
philosopher, on the order of Will Rogers. Woody's hillbilly audiences on KFVD
had conceivedo f him primarilya s a singer,w ho also dispensedd own-homea dvice,
humor, and commentaryW. hen, however, he began to perform for urbanl eftwing
audiences in California just the reverse was true; he was much better known
as a humorist-philosophetrh an as a balladeer,t hough he receivedp ublicityi n
both capacities. Throughout I939 and I940, the label "a second Will Rogers"
was applied to him. Woody in truth had always liked his fellow Oklahoman
and had thoroughly grounded himself in the deadpan, delayed style of Rogers
46 "Woody Sez: A New Column Introduces Himself," People's World, May 12, 1939, 4.
294 RICHARD A. REUSS
humor. Alan Lomax reportst hat at the time of their first acquaintanceG uthrie
was "one of the funniest men alive," and in addition had mastered Rogers
mannerismsin strikingd etail.47P ete Seegera lso notes that Woody borrowedt he
idea for his daily newspaper column from a similar series formerly written by
Rogers for the New York Times.48
The secondr ole assumedb y Guthried uringh is initial contactsw ith city culture
was that of the Dust Bowl minstrel. This role began to emerge in his first appearancesb
efore left-wing audiencesi n California,b ut it was greatlya ccelerateda fter
the release of his RCA Victor Dust Bowl Ballads in July 1940. In this guise
Woody was widely heralded as the "singing Okie," the poet of the migrant refugees,
the original prototypec haracterf or John Steinbeck'sG rapes of Wrath.49
He contributedo n his own to the enhancemenot f this image by writing a folksy
account of conditions in the Dust Bowl for the liner notes of the Victor albums
and by stylingh imself for a time as the "dustiesto f the dustb owlers."
The Rogersa nd Dust Bowl minstrelr olesw erel argelye laborationos f the Noble
Savages tereotypeo, ne emphasizingv erbalc ommunicationt,h e otherm usical.B oth
images helped boost Guthrie into prominence in an urban context. Woody, however,
soon found his artistic creativity hemmed in by the limitations these roles
imposed on him. After some months' billing as a "second Will Rogers," he wrote
in the People's World: "This business of callin me a nother Will Rogers is one
thing I don't go for. In the first place they cant be but one of everybody and to
call me a second somebody is-plumb off the track. I don't want to be a 2nd
somebody.I wantt o be a firsts omebodyI. justw antt o be me."50
Not long after his arrival in New York, he began to resent bookings unduly
stressingt he "talkingh illbilly"r ole. He commentedd isparaginglyo n such newspaperh
eadlinesa s "TroubadouWr oody GuthrieI s FiguringO n 'StoreC lothes.'"
and when besiegedw ith primitivistr omanticsh e was apt to play the fool. "Now
I got an idea what a book is, reckon I'll back off and write a few more," he told
one intervieweri n 1943 after his autobiographBy oundF or Gloryr eceivedl avish
praise from the critics."5S arahO gan Gunning recalls him on anothero ccasion
reacting in similar fashion:
Way back in the last part of '40 or the first part of '41 . . . they had a bunch of us up
there singing, . . . pretending that they was going to make some records. (I don't know if
they ever made them or not, but I never did hear nothing else about it.) And ... they took
us out to dinner-some of these big shots. And they took us in a place. I guess it was
like an automat....
Anyway, Woody he goes in there, and he said to the girl behind the counter, "Say, Sis.
Give me a hunk of this and a slab of that," and pointing his finger at it [the particular
food he wanted].
I said, "Woody. . ."
47 Lomax interview.
48 "Woody Guthrie-Some Reminiscences," Sing Out!, 14:3 (July 1964), 28.
49 Art Shields, "A Balladeer From the 'Okie' Country," Daily Worker, March 17, 1940, p. 7;
"Sings People's Ballads," Daily Worker, April 2, 1940, p. 7; Malcolm Johnson, "About Woody
Guthrie,t he Singing Okie at JimmieD wyer's SawdustT rail,"N ew York Sun, September5 , 1940,
p. 26.
50 July 20, 1939, p. 4.
51Q uoted in MargueriteY oung, "Now That He Has An Idea What A Book Is, Woodie [sic]
Guthrie Will Write A Few More," Pittsburgh Press, May 2, 1943.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 295
And he said, "Well, they think we're goddamned fools. Let's be sure not to disappoint
'em."p52
Often he simply left without bothering to put on an act. On several occasions,
notably at the Rainbow Room nightclub and on CBS radio's "Pipe-Smoking
Time" he gave up lucrative employment to do so.
For a number of reasons the Rogers and Dust Bowl troubadour images gradually
dissolved in the early 1940s. The Left's admiration of Rogers was tempered
by the opinion, frequently expressed in the radical press, that in reality he was a
spokesman for the Establishment. The crisis of the Okie migrants and their place
in the national spotlight ended for the most part with their absorption into the
burgeoning California war industries at the beginning of World War II. Guthrie
for his own part was able to assert his individuality as a performer as he became
better known. After 194o he was seldom regarded simply as a hick comedian or
a migrant minstrel; the intensity of his social commitment left little room for
roles based principally on levity and primitive nostalgia. Perhaps of greatest
importance was the fact that Woody had found an intellectual climate within one
segment of the Left where he was accepted essentially on his own terms. This
new milieu was created first by the Almanac Singers and later by the People's
Songs, Inc. movement. It in turn gave rise to the final, most lasting, and insofar
as he was concerned, most acceptable role assigned to Guthrie during his active
career, that of "people's artist." This term came into general use within the Left
in the late 193os and early 1940s and was crystallized during the years of the
People's Songs organization (1946-1949). It, however, received its clearest
theoretical exposition after the demise of the latter organization.53
The new designation was yet another synthesis of the contemporary fascination
with the "folk" mystique, but much more urbane and sophisticated in its essence.
The rustic hillbilly of the past was largely obliterated and the quaint troubadour
considerably diminished. Taking their place was a militant respect on the part of
urban radicals for the artistic integrity and creative capabilities of rural traditionbearers,
coupled with an idealization of their real or supposed class struggles at
the grassroots level. The term "people's artist" as developed in the I940os was
widely applied to others besides Woody, and the role he was expected to fillproducing
"worker's" or "people's" art, especially music-was sufficiently broad
and compatible with Guthrie's own values to be readily acceptable to him. As
before, Woody contributed on his own to the identification of himself with his
role, but this time his enthusiasm for the role remained undiluted. The affixing
of an ego-satisfying label to his name scarcely guaranteed Guthrie instantaneous
creative success; however, regardless of esthetic considerations, the conscious assumption
of the "people's artist" wreath was an honest intellectual decision,
entirely consistent with his political and social beliefs.
The topical music produced by left-wing artists of the 1940s, while heavily
folk-oriented, varied considerably in form and style, ranging from material
closely approximating folk tradition to that emphasizing jazz, "pop," and even
classical elements. But Guthrie proved quite conservative in his musical prefer-
52 Sarah Ogan Gunning interviewed by Ellen Stekert, August 11, 1968.
53 "First Issue," Sing Out!, i:I (May 1950), 2, and other articles in the magazine's early years.
296 RICHARD A. REUSS
ences-far more so than in his literarye xperiments-and deliberatelyc omposed
within the frameworko f the Americans outhernf olk musict raditionh e was most
familiar with. While he could identify easily with folksongs from cultures other
than his own, for example his wife Marjorie's Yiddish music heritage, he disliked
artists who violated the natural limits of their own traditions. On occasion
he would argue with his closest associates in the Almanac Singers and People's
Songs organization when he felt them straying too far from prescribed folk
models. He likewise scorned the pretentiousnessa nd pseudofolksya ffectations
of a numbero f performersa nd writers.H e and otherA lmanacsp rivatelym ocked
concertized" art"a rrangementos f folksongsb y the AmericanB allad Singersa nd
John Jacob Niles, and pooh-poohed the lush, sugary tones of other entertainers.
"BurlI ves," Woody once sniffed, "musth ave been raisedi n lace drawers."5O4 f
Millard Lampell's prose for The Lonesome Train, he sang drily, parodying the
author'sw ords," You couldh ardlyt ell whereS andburgle ft off andw hereL ampell
began."55 He took an equally dim view of the synthetic "folk" affectations, as he
considered them, of Alan Lomax, his erstwhile benefactor and friend. Not surprisingly,
he felt most at home in New York with such musicians as Leadbelly,
Sarah Ogan Gunning, Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee, who
like himself possessedt raditionalr ootsy et felt no need to provet heir "folkness."
Thus Woody's sense of folk consciousnessw as conditionedb y the left-wing
milieu of the 194os, which led him down roadsf oreignt o mostt raditionailn formants
and folklore scholars. Along the way, he accepted several roles utilizing his
folk backgroundb, estowedu pon him by progressivesa nd the urbanm assm edia.
He settled on none, however, until he found an image suitable both in terms of
his values and potentialr angeo f artistice xpression.H e experimentedk nowingly,
far more at any rate than the stereotype of the unspoiled natural genius would
suggest, and his search for an identity as a performer paralleled his quest for a
meaningful style of expressiona s a writer. In deliberatelye mphasizingh is folk
heritage as performera nd composer-writerG, uthriec hose unerringly;h is traditional
background was by far the strongest reservoir of form and content his
talents could draw upon, and it enabled him to reach heights in his work he never
would have achieved otherwise.
IV.
Woody Guthriei s frequentlyd escribeda s a "folk composer"y; et the accuracyo f
the description depends on the definition of the term. If this implies "a person
with a traditionalb ackgroundw ho composess ongs,"t he label is correct;b ut if by
"folk composer" is meant an individual who created songs that have entered oral
tradition, then Guthrie has no strong claim to the title, for none of his musical creations
circulateo rallyw ithin a folk communityw ith evidenceo f textuala ndm elodic
variation.
For any song to become a folksong it must meet at least two requirements. Its
content and mode of expression must be acceptable to a folk group; in other words
it must fit a traditional community's ethos. In the second place, the song must be
related to a vital and relevant oral tradition into which it may be absorbed. Many
54 Lomax interview.
55 Arthur Stern interview.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 297
of Woody'ss ongs,a t leastt hoseb etterk nown,d o containe vents,i magerya, nd
conceptsw ithint he realmo f meaningfuel xperiencefo r the folk and folklike
groupsw ithw hichh e wasa ssociatedN. one, howeverh, avef oundt heirw ayp ermanentlyin
tot he musicatlr aditiono f anyo f theses ubculturebs,e causGe uthrie's
compositionws eren ot availableto the appropriatoer alt raditiono r becauseth e
groupsth emselvecse asedto existo rm aintaina dynamisco ngt radition.
Fore xamplem, anyo f Woody'sc reationds ealingw itht he southwesterOn,k ie,
andh oboc ulturews erew rittenin New YorkC ityo r otherp lacesq uiter emoved
fromt he livingf olksongr epertoroyf theseg roupsa, ndw eren everh eardb y the
variousc ommunitietsh eyr epresentedIt. is worthn otingt hatt he only songso f
Guthrie'as uthorshitpo havea nyi mpactw hatsoeveorn the southwestercnu lture
thats hapedh is earlyl ife andm usicw ere" OklahomHa ills"a nd "TheP hiladelphiaL
awyer.B" othb ecamec ommerciacol untry-mushiict si n the 1940s, butt here
is no prooft hate itherh asa cquiredan yt raditionaslt atusin the folkloristisce nse.
The Dust Bowl communityd isappeareidn to the Americanm ainstreamaf ter
World War II, but even before it did, none of Woody's song compositions
showeda nys ignso f enteringt hatg roup'so ralt raditionT. herea re no Guthrie
creationsf,o r instancei,n the extensiveT odda nd Sonkinc ollectiono f Okieb alladsa
nds ongsr ecordedin Californiian i939-1941, justa fterW oody'sp eriodo f
maximumex posurea mongm igrantisn the statet hroughr adioa ndp ersonaal ppearancesI.
f anyo f his songss tooda chanceo f beinga bsorbedin to the Okie
folksongr epertoryth, eys houldh avet urnedu pa tt hatt ime.N oned id.
The radicaslu bculturien whichG uthriefu nctionedd uringt he I940sn o longer
existsi n anyv iablef orm.D uringi ts heydayo nly one of Woody'ss ongsm aintainede
ven a tenuoust oeholdi n the veryw eako ralt raditiono f the left-labor
movementT. hisw as "UnionM aid,"w ritteno riginallyin OklahomCa ityi n May
194o ands ubsequentlrye casta ndp opularizeidn labor-radiccailr clesb y the AlmanacS
ingersT. hought exta ndt unew erel argelys tandardizebdy recordingasn d
by repeatedp ublicatioinn mimeographesdo ngsheetasn dp rinteds ongbookss,e veralv
ariationasn dm anyp arodiesa ppeareda;n dG uthriefr equentlyre ceivedn o
creditf or composingth e song.56T o a limitede xtent" UnionM aid"b egana n
independenetx istencea partf romi ts creatori,n the processa lteringim perceptibly
alongt raditionaliln es.T he collapseo f the "singingla borm ovementa"t the close
of the i940s, however,e nded whateverq uasi-traditionsatla tust he song had
achievedu pt ill then.N oneo f Guthrie'ost hers ociopoliticacol mpositionins behalf
of left causesa cquiredev ent his mucho ralc urrenciyn the labor-radicmali lieu.
"WhyD o You StandT hereI n The Rain,"a n antiwarb allado f the Nazi-Soviet
pactp eriod( 1939-194i), wasr ecoveremd anyy earsl aterf romt he memoryo f a
full-fledgedtr aditionasli nger,S arahO ganG unningw, ho learnedit whilea part
of the earlyN ew Yorkf olksongr evivals cene", but in spiteo f its considerable
momentarpyo pularittyh e songr emainedfi xedi n charactearn du naffectebdy t he
folk process. Similarly, "You've Got to Go Down and Join the Union," set to the
tune of "Lonesome Valley," was widely printed in labor songbooks during the
56 Greenway notes the many parodies and widespread currency of "Union Maid" in American
Folksongs of Protest, 299.
57 Her recording of this song may be heard on Sarah Ogan Gunning: "Girl of Constant Sorrow"
(Folk-Legacy FSA-26). Archie Green's liner notes provide some brief contextual information,
although Guthrie was not actually present in the scene described, as asserted.
298 RICHARD A. REUSS
postware ra yet seemsn ot to have achievede ven the limitedt raditionaal cceptance
amongr adicalst hat "UnionM aid"d id.
The truth is that no one has ever made public a text of a Guthrie song collected
from a dynamic oral tradition, in spite of casual allegations from time to time that
such do exist.58T he jury still may be out, but the case looks extremelyd oubtful.
This is not to say that Woody's songs are not well known. Mass media have made
his name and compositions familiar to many. "This Land Is Your Land" has acquired
the status of a "national" song and may be heard on almost any occasion
from a political campaign to a football game. Some of the Columbia River songs
are commonly sung in the schools of the Pacific Northwest, and many of the lyrics
for childrenh ave been widely utilizeda nd praisedb y parentsa nd educatorsG. enerally,
though, Guthrie's songs are to be found within the context of the urban
folksong revival, much more the possession of the folkniks than of the folk,
though such an assertion in no way implies a qualitative judgment about either
group or its songs.
Regardlesso f the stateo f Woody'sc ompositionsa s folksongs,i t is apparentth at
they owe much in imagery and content, as well as in form and style, to folk tradition.
Nor should it be forgotten that Guthrie recast large numbers of older songs
as well as creating new ones, notably during his days as a "hillbilly" performer,
and that these are as importantf or the studyo f his handlingo f traditionatl hemes
as his original works. While it is general knowledge that he drew on his firsthand
experiencesa nd observationsto createt he Dust Bowl ballads,t he ColumbiaR iver
songs, Bound For Glory, and other material, the extent to which he utilized traditionalt
hemesf or the contento f his songs, and sometimesh is prose,i s often overlooked.
For instance,h is adaptationso f cursorym otifs are numerousa nd can only
be hinted at here. The "little black train" image of death in "East Texas Red"
is a commonf olk theme, found in at least one staplet raditionals ong in Woody's
repertoryT. he term "Philadelphiala wyer"i s an old folk clich6f or a "sharp"o r
"slick"o perator,w hich he used in both a literala nd figuratives ense. The title of
Guthrie'sm imeographedp amphlet" On a Slow Train through California"w as
borrowedf rom ThomasW . Jackson'sw idely popularb ook of cornfedh umorO n
A Slow Train Through Arkansas, published originally in 1903, which went
through numerouse ditions and had a considerablev ogue in remote as well as
populous areas. And the famous "Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some
with a fountain pen" stanza in "Pretty Boy Floyd" is little more than a striking
poetizationo f a loosely-structurepdr overbials ayingc ommont o the southwestern
region where Woody spent his early life.
Woody first began to compose songs as a young man in Texas, but his serious
careera s a songwritert ook shapei n Californiaw hen he was singingo n radiow ith
Maxine Crissman ("Lefty Lou") as many as three times a day, five days a week.
The programr equiredt hat they expandt heir repertoryto includea goodly number
of songs. Since Maxine had no extensive traditional music background to draw
on, the burden fell on Woody, who began to dredge his memory for all the old
songs he had heard back in Oklahoma and Texas, and in the course of his travels.59
58 For example, Alan Dundes, "The American Concept of Folklore," Journal of the Folklore
Institute, 3 (1966), 235.
59 Interview with Maxine Crissman Dempsey, June 14, 1968.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 299
He also wrote many songs on his own and devoted a considerable amount of energy
to refurbishing fragments he couldn't quite remember or tinkering with lyrics he
did recall more clearly. Some of the changes were relatively minor, such as the
addition of extra stanzas to round out incomplete texts. Other alterations were
more drastic. "At My Window Sad and Lonely," a favorite sentimental air learned
from Jeff Guthrie, was rewritten to such an extent that Woody's uncle subsequently
said most of the words were totally unfamiliar to him.60
Several problems complicate the study of Guthrie's reworking of traditional
material. In the first place, quite a few older songs at various times have been mistakenly
credited to his authorship because of familiar association with his performances,
because of copyright problems, or through simple ignorance. Among
them are "The Ranger's Command," "Curly-Headed Baby," "Hard, Ain't It
Hard," "Buffalo Skinners," and "Hobo's Lullaby." In actual fact, the last was
written and recorded by Gobel Reeves in the 1920s; the rest are traditional.61
"Hard, Ain't It Hard," for example, is a derivative of the "Butcher Boy"/"Tavern
in the Town" song complex and consists of nothing more than a series of commonplace
stanzas including the "Who's gonna shoe your pretty little foot" motif.
Woody learned the song from his Uncle Jeff, who in turn got it from the Kenyon
family in Olive, Oklahoma, in the early years of the century.62Y et because he sang
it frequently and received copyright credit for a number of recorded versions in
the 1950s, some people still believe the composition to be original with him.
Furthermore, while Guthrie usually specified on his manuscripts whether he
was setting down a traditional song, one he had rewritten, or one he had made
up entirely, there are enough cases in which he claims credit for older lyrics to
make the investigator wary of relying exclusively on his word. "Face That Rifle
Ball," in the Library of Congress manuscript collection of Woody's songs, to
cite one illustration, is listed as an original composition, written in March 1939.
Actually it is a reworking of the ballad popularly known as "The Cruel War Is
Raging" (Laws 033). Likewise, Woody seems to have assumed credit for a traditional
stanza widely found in American religious folksong.
Some people say that John was a Baptist,
Some folks say he was a Jew;
But the Holy Bible tells us
That he was a preachert,o o.
Even when confronted by people who knew better, he sometimes insisted on having
authored such songs as "The Gypsy Davy" and "Careless Love." Guthrie's
stubborn persistence in his claims on these infrequent occasions is puzzling, but
on the basis of his apparent approach to the creative experience it seems reasonable
to assume that he was thinking in terms of the momentary process of re-creation,
which was indeed his own, rather than of archetypal origins.
Spotting such takeovers is comparatively easy; determining what original additions,
subtractions, and refashionings are of Guthrie's making is much harder, for
in his early years as a composer there was nothing to distinguish Woody from
60 Interview with Jeff D. Guthrie, June 28, 1967.
61 John Greenway, "Cisco Houston's Last Record," Western Folklore, 20 (196I), 298; Greenway
also provided me with information about Gobel Reeves.
62 Interview with Jeff D. Guthrie.
300 RICHARD A. REUSS
other folk and hillbilly songmakerso f the southernU nited States.P riort o 1939,
and in some casesa fterwardsh, is utilizationo f themes,i magery,s tyle, tunes, and
form was so completely within the musical heritage from which he came that it
is hard to tell where tradition ends and Woody Guthrie begins. A classic example
is Guthrie's" reworking"o f "The GypsyD avy," which Alan Lomaxa nd others
long have held to be a uniquer e-creationo n the parto f the Oklahomab alladeer.
In his notes to Woody's recordingf or the Libraryo f Congress,6r3e leasedc ommerciallyi
n 1942, Lomaxo bservedt hat Guthriew as responsiblef or interpolating
a single stanza into the ballad, which had the effect of lifting the entire song out
of what was essentially an English setting and placing it instead in the Southwest.
The verse in question depicts a campfire scene with the gypsy playing the guitar
and serenadingh is ladyw ith whatp resumablyis a cowboys ong:
Well, he had not rode till the midnight moon
Till he saw the campfire gleamin',
And he heard the gypsy's big guitar,
And the voice of the lady singin'
The song of the Gypsy Dave.
Lomaxn otes that Woody edited the song to reflecth is "Oklahomau pbringing,"
the "milk white steed" becoming the buckskin horse, and so on. Guthrie himself
is not so specific, but he also hints at having made major changes in the lyrics in
his "Old Book"m anuscripct ollectiono f songs. "Thiss ong changedw hen it come
west. Because one nite in a saloon a feller said he'd give me four bits to sing it for
him and I just rememberedth e firstv erse-and so I neededt he money for a flop
and a slop-so here's what come out of it."
But the assumption that the western innovations of "The Gypsy Davy" were
exclusivelyW oody'sc annotg o unchallengedI. n "ClaytonB oone,"a I96I variant
recordedb y cowboy-artistH arry Jackson,t he southwesternt rappingsa re even
more elaborate. The ballad is set on the Mexican border, the boss's horse (replacing
the lord's steed) is a dun, the saddle is silver, leather chaps are worn, and
the gypsyi s a sweet-singingm andolinp layer.
I rode until the midnight sun
Till I seen their campfire burnin',
And I heard the sweetest mandolin
And the voice of young Dave singin'.64
Since Jackson learned his version of the song in Wyoming in the late 1930s from
a cowboy named Ed Marchbanka, nd Guthriee lsewherea ssertst hat he heard a
dozen differentt exts over the years,6o5n e is left with the conclusiont hatt he verse
and its westerno rnamentationa re in large part traditionalr athert han a product
of Woody's creative imagination.
When composing his own material, Guthrie most often would create new lyrics
using the framework of an old song. Generally, this meant simply writing new
words to a standard tune, for while Woody reworked melodies freely he seldom
wrote music on his own; he borrowed virtually all of his musical repertory from
63 Anglo-American Ballads, (AAFS 1-5), n.d. [1942), Side 2A; reissued on LP as AAFS LI.
64 The Cowboy (Folkways FH 5723).
65 Liner notes to Songs by Woody Guthrie (Asch 347).
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 301
folk and hillbilly sources,n otablyt he recordingso f the CarterF amily.S ometimes,
however, he would take over a textual theme and use it along with the tune as the
basis for a new song. In "Philadelphia Lawyer," for example, he seemingly
adapted plot as well as melodic elements of "The Jealous Lover of the Lone Green
Valley" (Laws FI) to create his own ballad of a. cowboy's revenge for the wooing
of a sweetheart by an eastern shyster. Roger D. Abrahams recently discovered a
traditionalv ersiono f "The JealousL over,"a lso entitled "PhiladelphiaL awyer,"
in the repertoryo f Ozarks inger Almeda Riddle, who claimst o have learnedi t
about 1930. The lawyer comes to grief in both versions; in the Ozark text, he
wastesa wayi n prisonf or having slain his sweethearti n the best "murderedg irl"
ballad tradition, but in Woody's song death is his reward for prompting the girl's
perfidy.
Similarly,G uthrie'sc lass-conscioubs lues ballad "JesusC hrist"s eems to be a
partial revamping of a traditional religious lyric rather than just a parody of
"Jesse James." The latter at first glance would appear to be the basis of Woody's
song becauseo f its identicalt une and such transparenlti nes in Guthrie'st ext as
"One dirty little coward named Judas Iscariot laid Jesus Christ in his grave."
However,a sentimentagl ospel hymn,l ikewisec alled "JesusC hrist"a nd also sung
to the familiar "Jesse James" melody, was collected in 1964 by Richard Hulan
from Carlos" Red"A lexanderi n Mayfield,K entucky,w ho apparentlyfi rsth eard
it in the 1920s or early i 930s. Its opening stanza is:
Jesus Christ was a man,
And he traveled through the land,
Helping the poor as he went,
But his enemies arose,
And they nailed him to the cross,
And they laid our Lord in his grave.66
Woody's" JesusC hrist"b eginsw ith remarkablysi milarp hrasing:
Jesus Christ was a man,
Who traveledt hrought he land,
A hard working man and brave.
He said to the rich,
"Give your goods to the poor,"
But they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.67
The traditional song, with its chorus of "He arose, he arose, with victory o'er
his foes," continuesi n rathers accharinef orm to recountt he glories of the resurrectiono
f Christ,w hile Guthrie'si s a song of p:rotesct hroniclingt he exploitation
of the poor by the rich. One can only speculate when and where Woody may have
encountered the former, for there is no trace of such a text in his documented
repertoryB. eyondt he first verse, the songs have little in commone xcept for the
tune. Yet "coincidence"i s not a satisfactorya nswer, so one must hypothesize
borrowing on Guthrie's part, at least insofar as the initial stanza is concerned.
Besides reshaping traditional themes found in older songs, Woody drew on
narratives having independent oral currency to create original ballads and songs.
66 Manuscriptte xt communicatetdo me by RichardH ulan,J une 1966.
67 Pete Seeger, ed., Woody Guthrie Folk Songs (New York, 1963), 12.
302 RICHARD A. REUSS
"Death Valley Scotty," an early California composition, was based on prospector
tales, popular gossip, and newspaper accounts about Walter E. Scott, semilegendary
miner who parlayed public curiosity about mysterious periodic "discoveries"
into a thirty-year fortune of publicity rather than gold. "East Texas Red" was
prompted by stories told by hoboes in the Texas Gulf area about a notorious railroad
"bull," whose real existence has not been clearly determined. The Dust Bowl
songs were based partly on the accounts of others as well as on firsthand observations.
And Pretty Boy Floyd, as suggested by Steinbeck through Ma Joad in The
Grapes of Wrath, was very much a topic of interest to the folk mind in the Southwest.
Woody wrote his ballad about the outlaw in California, having grown up
only twenty-odd miles from Floyd's hometown of Sallislaw, Oklahoma, and having
heard numerous accounts of his real or alleged doings. Several members of the
Guthrie family profess to have known or met Floyd personally.
It is worth noting with regard to this last ballad that the folk themselves are
often divided in their opinions about bad-man heroes of tradition. Woody's song
quite accurately reflects the local attitudes of many people, including his own
relatives, towards the "boy gone wrong"; yet, it gives only one side of the story.
An entirely different "Pretty Boy Floyd," diametrically opposed in its view of the
outlaw, was collected from an Oklahoma-born informant in 1962 and subsequently
printed in the Colorado Folksong Bulletin. It casts Floyd into a historically
more accurate light, that of gangster and murderer, and after recounting his crimes
in typical broadside fashion, moralizes appropriately:
'Twas the last trip to Ohio, oh! for this wicked fool;
He was shot dead eight miles from Liverpool.
Pretty Boy will learn on that last great day
That a life filled with crime doesn't pay.68
While there is no evidence to show that either Floyd song possesses any vigorous
oral currency, each may be said to faithfully represent one of the divergent attitudes
of the local population towards the outlaw.
In later years, Guthrie drew increasingly on mass media rather than traditional
narratives for themes in his work. Many of his "newspaper ballads" were composed
at the behest of Moses Asch, who provided Woody with historical and contemporary
reading material as creative stimuli; other subjects for songs were
suggested by the daily press. Some of his better-known musical creations of this
period (1944-1950) are "The 1913 Massacre," "Song of the Deportees," "Belle
Starr," "The Dying Miner," and the Sacco-Vanzetti lyrics. Woody, however,
produced little original material after the early 1940s that could be traced directly
to oral tradition, and much more was not even based on firsthand experience.
Guthrie's songs continued to be composed in folk style as his themes moved
farther and farther from his old folk cultures. But many-including old radical
friends and supporters- felt that his verse and prose lost some of their vitality
when their contents no longer were rooted so firmly in tradition.
By way of conclusion, it might be said that the restless movement and constant
metamorphosis of the folk groups in the Southwest to which Woody belonged
68 Colorado Folksong Bulletin, 2 (1963), 7-8.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION 303
werep aralleledin his ownl ife. Seeminglyt,h e bulko f his mostw idelya cclaimed
workw as the producot f dynamicin nert ensionse ngenderedb y a philosophical
andp sychologicaal,s well as physicalt,r ansitionfr omr uralt o urbans ocietya nd
the concurrensth ift froma n essentiallcyo nservativaep, oliticaol utlooko n life to
an activistr, adicals ocialp osition.F olkt raditione, speciallym usic,w as the one
constanfto r Guthriei n thesey ears.I t provideda lmostt he only threado f continuitya
s all else in his life alteredp rofoundly-geographicaenl vironment,
occupationaals sociatesf,a milyt ies, socialm ilieu,a ndp oliticapl hilosophyO. nly
his awarenesosf traditionc hangeda s he movedt hrought imea nds pace.I n this
respectm, ucho f his careerc anb e summarizeidn termso f his use of folk tradition:
f romu nconsciouust ilizationin the beginningt,o consciouus tilizationat the
peako f hisc areert,o relativen onutilizatioin thel aters tages.
To his urbana dmirerGs uthriew as as mucha symbolo f who the folk ought
to be as of whot he folk reallyw ere.T heL eftl ionizedh ima s a "People'As rtist,"
intellectualrse gardedh im as a folk JohnS teinbeckan dW altW hitmanw, hilea
few radicalssa wh ima st he "communiSsth akespeairne overalls."A t firstG uthrie
hardlyq ualifiedf or any of these labels.H e was the producto f an altogether
different social tradition, with other patterns of creative artistry, esthetic values,
andf ormso f culturael xpressionO. nlyg raduallwy eret heser eshapeda ndm odified
to conformt o urbanv aluesa nd the expectationosf intellectuaal udiences,
primarilyr adicali n orientationw, ith whomG uthrieh imselfw as in sympathy.
This acculturativep rocessi n turn led to Woody's best-knownw ork and his subsequentc
anonizatiobny his contemporarieasn, d laterb y the folksongr evival
as well.
Guthrie belongs to folklorists as much as to any other group of scholars, since
his whole life and creative work are bound up by tradition and by his experiences
in folk cultureY. et folklorisths aven eglectedW oody,p erhapbs ecauseth eyh ave
spentt oo little time evaluatingth e role of the individuacl arriera nd creatoro f
folklorew ithint raditionaslo ciety.P erhapsin the futuret he furthers tudyo f
Woody Guthrie may enable us to better comprehend the dynamics of folk
tradition.
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan

Footnotes:

1 This article is a revised version of a paper read at the annual meeting of the American Folklore Society in Boston, November 20, 1966. I am grateful to Archie Green, John Greenway, Ellen Stekert, Neil Rosenberg, Lisa Feldman, and Alan Lomax for their helpful comments and suggestions, and to Richard Hulan, Roger Abrahams, and Marjorie Guthrie and the Guthrie Children's
Trust Fund for permission to reprint materials quoted.

2 Except for the discussion in his chapter "The Song-Makers" in American Folksongs of Protest (Philadelphia, 1953), 275-302, and "Woodrow Wilson Guthrie," JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE, 81 (1968), 62-64, Greenway's commentaries on Guthrie have appeared in popular and
folknik publications. See especially "Woody Guthrie: Modem Minstrel," This Trend (Spring-
Summer 1948), 22-28; "The Folk Informant," Good News, vol. I, no. 2 (May 1961), I-2; "The
Anatomy of a Genius: Woody Guthrie," Hootenanny, vol. i, no. 3 (May 1964), 16-17, 69-72;
and "Woody Guthrie: The Man, The Land, The Understanding," The American West, vol. 3,
no. 4 (Fall 1966), 25-30, 74-78. My own work is A Woody Guthrie Bibliography (New York,
1968).
 3 Greenway, American Folksongs of Protest, 281-282.
4 The Folk Songs of North America (Garden City, New York, I96o), 426-431; see also Lomax's
"Compiler's Postscript" to Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People (New York, 1967), 364-366,
and his notes in the brochure accompanying the Woody Guthrie Library of Congress Recordings,
(Elektra EKL 271/272), released in 1965.
5 Elaine Lambert Lewis, "City Billet," New York Folklore Quarterly, I (1945), II3.
6 Charles Seeger, "Reviews," JOURNALO F AMERICAN FOLKLOR6EI (1948), 217.