Woody Guthrie (1912 - 1967)

Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie or Woody Guthrie is an American folk and country singer and musician.

Guthrie was born in difficult economic times in the United States. At first, he earned a living as a sign painter in different cities, traveling by hitchhiking. At the age of 20, he began learning to play guitar, playing in saloons and labor camps during the Great Depression. In his travels, the musician absorbed and performed many of the old folk ballads he heard around him and wrote many new songs reflecting the everyday joys and hardships of the ordinary people he met in his travels.

Guthrie was a major influence on folk and rock musicians from Bob Dylan to Wilco. Among Guthrie's best-known songs are Pastures of Plenty, Bound for Glory, and This Land is Your Land, the latter of which, due to its popularity, has become something of an "alternative national anthem" in the United States. In 1940, he recorded four hours of songs and stories for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center). Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Guthrie had a high-profile career in radio broadcasting and recording.

Woody was a very prolific composer, writing thousands of songs. He also wrote an autobiographical novel, On the Road to Fame, and drew thousands of pen and ink drawings, many of which are now in the Ralph Rinzler Center's Folklife Archives and Collections.