Broadway Revisited

(8/28/08) 08-35

Gypsy overture-- 1; fades under)

Hi, this is Art Hilgart and this is Broadway Revisited, a weekly exploration of the songs and shows, composers and lyricists, and performers who created the American musical theater.

(Music up, then fade)

1. This Land Is Your Land 2:18

That was Woody Guthrie, singing one of his hundreds of songs. Woody had a lot of jobs in his life, and most of his songs were about hard working people, and we find it fitting for our Labor Day Weekend program to feature the off-Broadway show, Woody Guthrie's American Song. Here's the opening number.

2. Hard Travelin' 3:01

Woody Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma. During the Depression of the 1930s his family had hard times, and Woody had many jobs, including farm labor, sign painting, and art work. He also learned guitar and harmonica, and when he made his way to California in 1937, he got a daily program on a local radio station playing his own songs.

3. Oklahoma Hills 2:38 / Do Re Mi 2:18 Total 4:56

Woody made a lot of friends in Los Angeles, and one suggested that he go east to New York, and with introductions supplied by the friend, Woody made the trip in 1939.

4. Talkin' Subway 2:20 / I Don't Feel at Home on the Bowery 2:19 Total 4:39

We've been playing selections from the original cast record of the off-Broadway show Woody Guthrie's American Song, but the next few Guthrie songs will be sung by others. In the song we just heard, two of the cast played Woody and "Cisco". Cisco Houston was one of Woody's new friends, and they made some records together. Here's one of them, followed by another Guthrie song sung by Cisco alone.

5. Hard Ain't It Hard 2:46 / Jesus Christ 2:28 Total 5:14

Before we heard Cisco Houston with that Woody Guthrie song we heard Cisco and Woody with another. In New York, Woody also met up with Pete Seeger, and with others they formed the Almanac Singers, which later evolved into the Weavers-- Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman, and Lee Hays. Their recording of this Guthrie song made it to number three on the Billboard charts.

6. So Long 3:03 / Roll on Columbia 3:00 Total 6:03

There's a story about Roll on Columbia, the song the Weavers sang after their hit record of Woody's So Long. Soon after Woody came to New York, he met Alan Lomax, who had a CBS radio program, and Lomax featured Woody on the air and made some private recordings. About that time, Victor records asked Lomax for suggestions, which led to Woody's first fourteen commercial sides, in albums called "Dust Bowl Ballads". Which gets us back to Roll on Columbia. Officials of the federal government's Bonneville Power Administration heard the Victor albums and hired Woody to write and record songs for a documentary they were filming about the Columbia river project. Guthrie provided seventeen of them. Here's another, sung by Woody.

7. Grand Coulee Dam 2:11

In World War Two, Woody Guthrie served in the merchant marine. After his discharge he wrote his autobiography and made dozens of records for Moe Asch's Folkways label, and all of those are now available on CD from the Smithsonian. By the early 'fifties, advancing symptoms of Huntington's Corea, a devastating debilitating inherited disease, ended his career. After a long hospitalization, he died in 1967. You've probably noticed the influence Woody's recordings had on the style of young Bob Dylan. As he tells it, when he left Minnesota for New York it was to meet Woody. By then Guthrie was too ill to sing or to talk much, so Dylan played Woody's songs for him. Here's one he recorded.

8. Pretty Boy Floyd 4:22 / Great Historical Bum 1:37 Total 5:59

After Bob Dylan, we heard Tom Paxton, just one of the dozens of singers who keep Woody Guthrie's songs alive. Now, on our Labor Day Weekend visit with Woody, we'll return to the original cast of the off-Broadway show, Woody Guthrie's America. As you've figured by now, most of Woody's songs reflected his feelings about the poor and working people. From his radio days in California on, he performed at union meetings and political rallies.

9. Union Maid 3:28

As a young man, Guthrie had spent time as a migrant farmer, and they were the subjects of several of his songs.

10. Pastures of Plenty 4:56 / Deportee 6:39 Total: 11:35

The performers we've heard in these original cast recordings of the 1998 off-Broadway show, Woody Guthrie's America, were Mimi Bassette, Neil Friedman, David Lurkin, Helen Russell, and James Stein. The complete album has about twice as much music as you've heard today. We'll end this Labor Day special as the show ended, with the Woody Guthrie song that's been nominated as a replacement of our national anthem. Sounds good to me.

11. This Land Is Your Land 4:06

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Join us again next week for another Broadway Revisited. National distribution is funded by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it's produced with the assistance of Martin Klemm, in the WMUK studios of Western Michigan University. Our website with playlists, program schedules and stuff is broadwayrevisited.com. Our website with program schedules and stuff is broadwayrevisited.com. "broadwayrevisited" is all one word. My e-mail address is Art@broadwayrevisited.com. And I'm Art Hilgart.