Set Looks Back at a Great American Voice

Woody Guthrie.

Need an introduction?

The answer to that question may identify in which decade you started listening to pop music.

If you began listening in the ‘50s and early ‘60s when folk music moved from underground to mainstream status in this country, you know that Guthrie was one of the giants of the movement--some say its greatest songwriter.

Guthrie’s own records didn’t make it onto the charts, but his songs--including “This Land Is Your Land” and “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You”--were popularized by the Weavers and others.

If your pop consciousness began between the late ‘60s and mid-’80s, your introduction to Guthrie probably came second-hand though such major artists as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and U2, each of whom either sang Guthrie tunes or cited his influence in interviews.

As social commentary and the folk music influence have faded in recent years, however, Guthrie’s music too has become unexplored territory for millions of young pop fans.

Billy Bragg and Wilco’s “Mermaid Avenue” album, which put music to previously unpublished Guthrie lyrics, was widely acclaimed last year, but sales were far from the blockbuster level. (Bragg will perform Tuesday at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, which is hosting (through Sept. 26) “This Land Is Your Land: The Legacy of Woody Guthrie,” a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution.)

“Woody Guthrie: The Asch Recordings Vol. 1-4,” a four-disc set that will be released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on Thursday, is such a satisfying retrospective of the late singer-songwriter’s work that it should be embraced with equal enthusiasm both by those who have long admired Guthrie’s work and those eager to explore it.

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**** Woody Guthrie, “Woody Guthrie: The Asch Recordings Vol. 1-4,” Smithsonian Folkways.

Guthrie isn’t a captivating singer. In the sparse style favored by folk purists, he sounds on most tracks more like a narrator than a vocalist, someone who tends to read the words rather than interpret them.

But there is such vitality and spirit in Guthrie’s lyrics and music that the best songs seem like national treasures, expositions about the country and its people that have led Guthrie to be compared, quite justifiably, to Walt Whitman and other great American voices.

Influenced by both country music and folk-music traditions, Guthrie wrote in a variety of styles, from western ballads to topical narratives, but he is most remembered for his commentaries about the country and the land that reflect his strong liberal beliefs--often seasoned with biting humor.

A longtime union activist, he was relentlessly patriotic, as reflected in his faith in the country and its working-class population, yet equally contemptuous of anyone in authority who misused their power.

Guthrie, who was born in 1912 in a small Oklahoma frontier town and died in 1967, was a restless man whose on-the-move lifestyle became such a model for urban folk-singers in the ‘50s that Bob Dylan, in his early interviews, made up stories to suggest he too traveled the rails and the land a la Woody.

“This Land Is Your Land,” which opens Vol. 1, is both Guthrie’s most famous song and the one that perhaps best showcases the underdog political slant that runs through so much of his music.

The song’s four best-known verses--the only ones contained in Guthrie’s original recording of the song--are such a celebration of the country that several commentators over the years have suggested it be adopted as a new national anthem.

In the opening verse, Guthrie sings:

This land is your land

This land is my land

From California to the New York island

From the redwood forest to the Gulfstream waters

This land was made for you and me.

But Guthrie’s protest side surfaced in three other verses, one of which he sang in an alternative, 1944 version of “This Land Is Your Land” which also appears on Vol. 1.

The added verse:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me

A sign was painted, said: Private Property

But on the bad side, it didn’t say nothing--

This land was made for you and me

Guthrie recorded all the music in the set for Folkways Records founder Moses Asch between 1944 and 1949. The four volumes, each of which comes with excellent liner notes that provide insight into Guthrie’s life and the songs, can be purchased separately but are packaged in this set at a discounted price.

Vol. 1 includes many of Guthrie’s best-known compositions, while Vol. 2 features versions of some of his favorite country and folk tunes. Vol. 3 is mostly topical songs by Guthrie, while Vol. 4 is various original and traditional songs with Western themes.

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