Woody Guthrie basics...

Home town-- Okemah Oklahoma
Father did land sales...coming of oil...
Their house--lost in tornado (described in Bound for Glory!)
Mother--songs; later, her illness
Sister Clara--the FIRE

Pampa Texas--his uncle Jeff--his mentor
Woody the Musician

"While in Pampa, as a young man, Woody formed his first musical groups, including "The Corn Cob Trio," with Matt Jennings and Cluster Baker, as well as a duded-up combo, complete with white fur chaps and moustaches, who played for such prestigious gatherings as the Pampa Chamber of Commerce.
Woody's musical tutor was his Uncle Jeff Guthrie, who, with his wife Allene, played for many gatherings in the Pampa area. Jeff worked as a patrolman for the Pampa Police Department when he wasn't playing music or doing magic tricks. Woody would practice what he had learned from his uncle Jeff, sitting in that front window of the HARRIS DRUGS, picking away at the guitar.
Musical ability for any number of instruments came naturally for Woody, and he became reasonably skilled at harmonica, stand-up bass (it was taller than he was), mandolin and fiddle as well as guitar.
Making up songs also seemed to come naturally, and that interest brought on an unusual revelation one day to his best friend. He told Matt Jennings that he hoped he could someday write a song that everyone around the world would know and sing. What a prophecy! But because he dropped out of Pampa High School and did not graduate, his internationally-known "This Land is Your Land" has never been accepted as a tradition to sing at high school functions, even though Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," written about the same time, is frequently on the program. " (from a Pampa, Texas website)

Dust Bowl years, 1935. The Okies. On the road to California--just like in the songs. "I've got to be drifting along..." See Carrie McWilliams books, An Island on the Land (about Los Angeles in the '30s) and Factories in the Fields.
The Okies.
Old cars, all their belongings, nowhere to go
Reviled here in the Golden State
Dorothea Lange's photos show it all

Woody in LA
Left-wing connections
Lefty Lou (his singing partner)
Radio program, getting known
Topanga, Cisco Houston

New York
Records Dust Bowl Ballads for Victor (They wanted to see if there was a market)

Alan Lomax--friendship & sponsorship both
Moe Asch (Folkways)
Leadbelly
Pete Seeger--for whom Woody was "the real thing"
Incipient folk scene--see my e-mail list
Early recording sessions for Folkways Records--Moe Asch in his closet-sized recording booth. Very spontaneous all around. Whoever was there joined in. Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, leadbelly, Cisco Houston of course. 30 some records--but not many released for lack of funds; these are the bulk of SGS archive (plus later Folkways recordings). Incredible cross sections off all the songs they knew--a kind of social history--in music...

Radio program: "Where I Come From" -- it's popularity.

Bound for Glory. Woody's autobiography, through about 1940. Prolix, and a classic...

Woody's voice--casual, direct--engaged. People sensed this. He 'd LIVED IT ALL. "Write songs about what you've seen."

First marriage, three kids, they make a go of it in New York; Mary back to Pampa, Texas, finally. Photo with the four of them, including an unplayed piano. (This was in the fat years--Woody had never seen as much money).

Reverence for leadbelly--who was a generation older. His LANGUAGE in particular. The "down homiest"...

Also, the month in Oregon/Washington--Columbia River. Roll On Columbia, Grand Coulee Dam. All the other songs of that set. WPA period. Recorded in NY.

WWII years. Merchant Marine--with Cisco Houston. Music part of the whole deal. Singing for the troops in the hold of a freighter--5000 men; one torpedo, and they'd all be lost. Bit Woody (and Cisco and Jimmy) were down there singing, to keep spirits ups. Same kids then out onto the beach at Normandy--many didn't make it. Ship itself blown out of the water by an acoustic mine--but Woody and the others survived.

Second marriage--Marjory. Dancer with Martha Graham. Strong woman in her own right. Arlo's mother. "He's just like you." Live in in Coney Island. Mermaid Avenue.

Incipient illness- Huntington's Chorea--same that affected his mother. Decline--gradual, and sometimes very difficult. Family separates...too much to handle. Woody back on the road, LA again. Will Greer, Topanga. Anneke--a third marriage... Another fire, Woody hurt this time--his arm. On the edge of a Florida swamp, Anneke expecting, no prospects...

Back to New York, New Jersey--the Gray Stone Hospital. ("In a month called April, a county called Gray"--Woody's line from from So Long It's Been Good to Know Yuh).

As always, so far from--and so close to--home...

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Note: for a somewhat more skeptical interpretation , see David Hajdu's review of a new biography of Woody Guthrie, in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/040329crbo_books?040329crbo_books