Woodie Guthrie was, and is still regarded today as one of the greatest musical pioneers to ever come out of the United States. Born in Oklahoma on July 14 1912, he had a rough childhood that left him disillusioned with life, starting with the death of his sister Clara, his family’s financial ruin, and finally, the institutionalization and death of his mother. This rough start would later  be a great source of inspiration for his songs, in which he sided with the poor, and highlighted the social inequalities that were plaguing the United States at the time.

 

Living through the dust-bowl years that affected parts of the country, forcing people looking for work out of their homes heading to California. These people, being pejoratively refered to as “Okies”, were seen as invasive and undesirable by Californians, as there were a great many of them, all looking for work and without anything to their name. Guthrie sang for and about them. Steinbeck also wrote about them, giving them a voice they would not have had otherwise. Singing traditional songs from his native region gave them something to hold on to, from the land they had fled, but still dearly missed. As they did not have any way to get work and were out of money, they lived together in camps where their main objective was to survive.

 

Guthrie being a free spirit and a relentless traveler, got bored of his job at a Los Angeles radio station and in 1940, hitchhiked his way to New York City where he also sang for a radio station. There, he began to experience censorship, as his bosses did not like the reality he portrayed in his songs, often asking him to remove part of the lyrics of some of them. His song This Land is Your Land is a good example of said censorship, since it was made into a patriotic song taught to children in elementary school, omitting the verses where he talks about social inequalities and poverty.

 

During World War II, he wrote a lot of anti-Hitler songs, even joining the war effort. During those years, he had a sign on his guitar that said: This Machine Kills Facism. Towards the end of his life, he moved to Coney Island, New York, where he married for a third time. He then was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, the same ailment that had killed his mother years before. He eventually was confined to his hospital bed, where a lot of folk musicians came to pay their respect before he finally passed away on October 3 1967. In his lifetime, he wrote more than 3000 songs, two novels, and a great number of poems. Through his music and writings, he gave a voice to those who did not have any, and fought for social justice and against censorship. He did not settle for any compromise, and stayed true to his beliefs until the end of his life. His travelling and day – to - day lifestyle did take its toll on his life, since he was married three times, and often had trouble providing for his family. He could not stay in one place for too long, hence the trouble keeping a steady gig. Despite those personal setbacks, there is no denying the legacy he has blessed us with as one of the first protest singer, paving the way for giants like Bob Dylan, or his own son Arlo Guthrie.

 

Today, more than 40 years after his death, events and exhibitions are still held in his honnor. In 2012, the year of his 100th birthday, a Centennial Tour was organized, which saw popular artists such as John Mellencamp, Rosanne Cash, Jackson Browne, Tom Morello, and many others performing Woody’s songs in various cities in the United States, including one in his home state of Oklahoma. In 2013, the Woody Guthrie Center was opened in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It hosts a permanent exhibit on his life and legacy, and is home to all his archives. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, and received the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999 to name a few. What would be more fitting in order to truly understand the power of his songs, than a quote from the 1962 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, John Steinbeck, which he wrote in the liner note of Guthrie’s first album in 1944:

 

“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 still listen. There is the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit.”