Woody Guthrie and His Folk Tradition

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RICHARD
A. REUSS
WoodyGuthrieandHis FolkTradition'
IT IS IRONICTHATthe man who perhapswas the most creativeand dynamicfolk
artistof the past generationis so little knownto folklorists.The nameand works
of Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) are familiarto manyof us, at leastin a general
way, and occasionallycommentsare made aboutGuthriein recordreviewsor in
articlescontainingbrief illustrationsof small points. But Guthrieas yet has received no seriousattentionfrom scholars,folkloricor otherwise,with the exception of some essaysby John Greenwayand my recentlypublishedbibliographyof
printedmaterialsrelatingto his life.2 Manyrewardingand fascinatingstudiesof
Guthrieas a representativeof the folk and as a gifted re-creatorof folk materials
still awaitexplorationin detail,even thoughthe bulk of his writingsand recordings werecompletedsometwentyor moreyearsago.
That folkloriststhus far have failed to come to grips with one of the most
uniquepersonalitiesever to straywithin theirrangeis regrettablebutby no means
surprising.Guthrie'sown talentsas a writerand songmakerhavebeen so strongly
emphasizedthat his repertoryof traditionalsongs, stories,and sayingshas been
overshadowed.Friendsand associatessuch as Pete Seeger,who did most to publicize Woody Guthrie'snameover the years,with few exceptionsknew him after
1 This article is a revised version of a paper read at the annual meeting of the American Folklore
Society in Boston, November 20, 1966. I am grateful to Archie Green, John Greenway, Ellen
Stekert, Neil Rosenberg, Lisa Feldman, and Alan Lomax for their helpful comments and suggestions, and to Richard Hulan, Roger Abrahams, and Marjorie Guthrie and the Guthrie Children's
Trust Fund for permission to reprint materials quoted.
2 Except for the discussion in his chapter "The Song-Makers" in American Folksongs of Protest
(Philadelphia, 1953), 275-302, and "Woodrow Wilson Guthrie," JOURNALOF AMERICAN
FOLKLORE, 81 (1968), 62-64, Greenway's commentaries on Guthrie have appeared in popular and
folknik publications. See especially "Woody Guthrie: Modem Minstrel," This Trend (SpringSummer 1948), 22-28; "The Folk Informant," Good News, vol. I, no. 2 (May 1961), I-2; "The
Anatomy of a Genius: Woody Guthrie," Hootenanny, vol. i, no. 3 (May 1964), 16-17, 69-72;
and "Woody Guthrie: The Man, The Land, The Understanding," The American West, vol. 3,
no. 4 (Fall 1966), 25-30, 74-78. My own work is A Woody Guthrie Bibliography (New York,
1968).
RICHARD A. REUSS
274
he had severedhis ties with his early traditionalenvironment.Their published
reminiscencesaccentuateWoody's later activities,observedby them firsthand,
ratherthan his earlylife, which is of greaterinterestto folklorists.Guthrie'screative abilitiesreachedfull flowerjustas he was leavinghis folk milieufor good in
1940 and 1941. As Greenway has pointed out, Woody subsequently drew less and
less on his own traditionalfolk culturefor his workproducedin New York City.3
Thus, as scholars became familiar with his name in the I940s, Woody correspond-
ingly producedless of folkloristicinterest.
Nor did Guthrieemergeinto publicview as a resultof the effortsof some diligent field collectorwhose name becamelinked to his, as is often the case with
famousinformants.Leadbelly,for example,will inevitablybe associatedwith the
Lomaxes;but thereis no comparablescholaror collectorprimarilyresponsiblefor
bringing Woody Guthrieto the attentionof folklorists.In truth, Guthriefirst
becamewidely knownthroughfolknik and left-wingcirclesratherthanas a result
of academicconclaves.Alan Lomaxdid recordhim for the Libraryof Congressin
1940, but the recordingswere not widely publicizedand remainedgenerallyinaccessiblefor twenty-fiveyears. Lomax himself publishedvirtuallynothing on
Woody until I960.4
The brief noticesaccordedGuthriein folklorepublicationsin recentyearshave
done little to furtherresearchon his work, in part becauseof their brevity.No
folklore journal reviewed his autobiography Bound For Glory, published in 1943,
or even mentionedhim in passinguntil the firstissue of the New YorkFolklore
Quarterly appeared in 1945, where he is listed amongother folksingersappearing occasionallyon radio.5
The first meaningfulcommentof any kind by a scholarappearedin 1948, in
CharlesSeeger'simportant"Reviews"article,which noted Guthrie'srelatively
slow adoption of stylistic performancetraits characteristicof urban singers of
folksong.6The only detailedanalysisof Woody Guthriein an academicpublication is found in John Greenway's American Folksongs of Protest (i953).
Not
only have folkloristsgenerallyneglectedGuthrie;literarycritics,socialhistorians,
and other scholarsby and large have done the same. Woody's creativework as
literatureand art has yet to be evaluatedseriously.Certainlyhis songs and prose
are an eloquentchronicleof the Depressionand World War II generation,presentedfroma uniqueperspective,andmightprofitablybe studied.
I.
Guthrie'simportanceto the folkloristlies not in his negligiblecontributionto
oral traditionbut in his role as spokesmanfor variousfolk or folklikegroups.His
ability to communicate the life, feelings, attitudes, and culture of his people from
the inside-using their terms, concepts, and modes of expressionrather than
3 Greenway, American Folksongs of Protest, 281-282.
4 The Folk Songs of North America (Garden City, New York, I96o), 426-431; see also Lomax's
"Compiler's Postscript" to Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People (New York, 1967), 364-366,
and his notes in the brochure accompanying the Woody Guthrie Library of Congress Recordings,
(Elektra EKL 271/272), released in 1965.
5 Elaine Lambert Lewis, "City Billet," New York Folklore Quarterly, I (1945),
II3.
6 Charles Seeger, "Reviews," JOURNALOF AMERICAN FOLKLORE
6I (1948), 217.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION
275
those of elite Americansociety-renders him worthyof the attentionof the folklorist.In otherwords,Guthriewas a uniquedistillationof the culturalexperiences
of severalgroups possessingfolk elements,at once a mirrorin which they saw
themselvesandtheirmostarticulateandablechronicler.
In enumeratingGuthrie's"folk communities,"one is faced with the problem
of defining what constitutesa folk society.Classicalanthropologicaldefinitions
have equated folk groups with the land-tiedpeasantrythat historicallyhas no
comparableanaloguein the Americansociety-the smallfarmerandfrontiersman
pushingthe line of settlementcontinuallywestward,formingand re-formingthe
frontier,leaving in its wake a string of communitiesfashionedout of the conglomerationof elementsat hand.The older and moreisolatedof these communities solidifiedand becamemore or less homogeneousin character,that is to say,
"folk groups." The newer ones were affectedby more sophisticatedforms of
education,communication,and technologythat developedwithin an increasingly
urbanizedAmerican society and in varying degrees leveled or preventedthe
erectionof culturalbarriersseparatingeach communityand regionfrom the rest
of the nation.Thus, spatialisolationand relativelysimpletechnologicaland communicationssystemshave formed the basic criteriafor determiningfolk society
in the United States.My quarrelwith this traditionaldefinitionis that it is too
limited.Otherfactorsbesidesgeography,minimalformaleducationandindustrialization,and lack of mass media may combineto enablea groupto producelore,
as will be seenlaterin Guthrie'scase.
A folk group or societyis a relativeconcept,and absolutesare impossibleto
come by in the field, nor can they be unanimouslyagreed upon in the abstract
(muchas folkloristsin the pasthavefailed to agreeon the precisenumberof years
or versionsneeded to declarea song a "folksong"). The same holds true with
regardto the southwesternregionalculturein which Woody Guthriegrew up as
a youngman.The areawas settledand developedextensivelyby whitesas recently
as the early twentieth century,just as newspapers,high-schooleducation,and
industrialtechnologywere becomingfamiliarin most partsof the country.The
"LastWest," therefore,had no time to develop either a prolongedisolationor
narrowhomogeneity.But it was populatedby peoplewho had in commoncertain
broad culturalattitudesand traditions,predominantlysouthern,and a stock of
lore rootedin the Anglo-Americanexperience.If the settlementsin the partsof
Oklahomaand Texas whereWoody lived were not fully developedfolk cultures
in comparisonto others in America (the PennsylvaniaDutch and Ozark, for
example), theyperhapswerethe closestto be foundin white societyin thatregion,
and they certainlyapproachedthe notion of folk communitiesmore than most
othersin the United Statesin the secondthroughthe fourthdecadesof the present
century.
Woodrow Wilson Guthriewas born July 14, I912, in Okemah,Oklahoma,
then a town of about a thousand people located some fifty miles southwest of
Tulsa. In Woody's childhood years, Oklahoma was scarcely removed from its
frontier stage of development. The white population consisted largely of settlers
who had emigrated from nearby southern and prairie states, most of them having
lived in the territory no more than a generation. Significant numbers of Indians
and Negroes also resided in Oklahoma and often were in close contactwith whites.
276
RICHARD A. REUSS
Woody later reckonedthe populationof Okemahin his youth to be half white,
one-fourthIndian, and one-fourthNegro.' Oil was discoveredin the vicinityof
Okemah,and the influx of oil workersand the motleyassortmentof individuals
who followed in theirwakeinfusedyet anotherelementinto the town'sdiversified
setting. Not surprisingly,Woody absorbedtraditionalmaterialfrom manyparts
of his society.His mothersang old balladsas well as "heart"and religiousnumbers; his father performedcowboy songs, dance pieces, and blues. Negro boys
taughthim jigs andharmonicatunes,andthe day-to-daylife of the towninstructed
him in the tales,saltysayings,and picturesquelanguagecommonto the regionand
its peoples. He earlyexhibitedan uncommontalentfor makingmusic,or at least
noise, as is well attestedby old-timeOkemahresidents,8who recallhis dexterity
with the harmonica,Jew's harp, and bones and less frequentlyhis attemptsat
pickingout tunes on the mandolin,guitar,and family piano. Woody performed
regularly for high-school assemblies,the boys in the schoolyard,and casual
listenerson the street cornersof Okemah,but his musicalbent was primarily
instrumentalratherthan vocal. There is no evidencefrom this periodof his life
to suggestthathe would laterbecomea balladmakeror a prolificwriter.Few longterm residentsof Okemahclaimthat Woody madeup songs as a youngster;only
one, Colonel Martin,a boyhoodfriend, is specificin this respect.Martinasserts
that Woody,while in his earlyteens,createdthe chorusof whatbecame"SoLong,
Its Been Good to Know You" from a phraseused as a cliche.9No corroboration
of Martin'saccount,however, has yet come to light. Similarly,what evidence
thereis for an earlymanifestationof talentin the youngWoody Guthriesuggests
that it lay primarilyin the field of drawingratherthan songmakingor writing.
The few songswith an OklahomasettingthatWoody composed-such as "Pretty
Boy Floyd" and "OklahomaHills,"-and his detailed sketches of latter-day
Okemahfrontierlife in nine chaptersof BoundFor Gloryand elsewhereall were
writtenafterhe movedfromthe state.
In 1929 Woody left Okemahand followed the oil boom to Texas, eventually
the
settling with relativesin Pampa. The Texas Panhandleculturewas much
associates
his
in
that
in
left
behind
he
one
the
same as
Oklahoma,except
Pampa
were more often drawnfrom the roustaboutand bootleggersegmentsof society
than had been the casein Okemah.It was in the Panhandlethat Woody received
his principalexposureto the earlycommercialhillbillymedium.He now learned
to play the guitar,mandolin,tenor banjo, fiddle, and drumssufficientlywell to
travel aboutthe countrysideas a memberof pick-upcountrydancebandsand in
his Uncle Jeff'smagic show. He begancomposinghis own songs, thoughhe still
sang only infrequentlyin public, and there is abundanttestimonythat his uncle
and aunt (Jeff and Allene Guthrie) were in far greaterdemandlocallyas musical
specuentertainers.His prose at this time was limited largelyto "psychological"
lations,now lost. His descriptionsof life on the TexasPlainswerewrittenlater.x0
7Woody Guthrie, Library of Congress Recordings (Elektra), Side i.
residents by Rosan A. Jordan and Richard A. Reuss, August
s Field data collected from Okemah
15-18, 1966.
9 Interview, August i8, 1966.
See Bound For Glory (New York, 1943), chs. 9-12; American Folksong (New York, 1947),
o10
3-5; and Hard Hitting Songs For Hard-Hit People, 21-26.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION
277
It was also in Texas, not Oklahomaas is frequentlyasserted,that Woody encounteredthe Dust Bowl-still a vivid regionalfolk memorytoday-which he
was to depict so graphicallyin his songs and in his autobiographyBound For
Glory.
In summingup Guthrie'sformativeyearsandthe environmentthatmoldedthe
directionshis talentswould takehim, it maybe saidthatthe culturalmilieusof the
Oklahomaand Texas periods accomplisheddifferentfunctions. The Okemah
yearswere essentiallya time of passiveabsorption,not just in termsof repertory,
but of style, form, and idiomaticexpression.The Texasyears,on the otherhand,
saw the crystallizationof Guthriethe performer,as he was generallyto be in his
best years.As a writerWoody did not reachcreativematurityuntil 1940, but as
a performerthe only significantelement missing by the time he left the Texas
Panhandlewas his radicalcommitment,which he acquiredon the West Coastin
1938 and 1939.
In March1937 Woody hoboedto California.For the next five yearshe led a
nomadic life, simultaneouslymoving in three cultures: hobo, migratory,and
labor-radical.He had been exposed to the first two while still in the Pampa
vicinity but becamepart of them only after moving to the West Coast.Woody
witnessedthe Okie exodusas it passedthroughthe Texas Panhandle,chieflyover
Highway66, and also madeseveraltripsaroundthe Southwestby himself in hobo
style before migratingto California.It was in this latterstate, however,that his
contactswith both Okie and hobo groups were sustainedto the point that he
actuallybecamea temporarymemberof each. For the betterpart of two years
(I937-1939),
Woody sang on radio station KFVD, Los Angeles, at first with
Missouri-bornMaxine Crissmanas "Woody and Lefty Lou," later alone as
"Woodythe Lone Wolf." His listening audiencewas comprisedmostlyof Okie
migrantsand other transientswho preferredthe sentimentalfolksongs and hillbilly humorhe dispensedas a singer,yarnspinner,and down-homephilosopher.
His recurrentwanderingsthroughthe length and breadthof Californiaand the
PacificNorthwest broadenedhis personalcontactswith the life and hard times
of the Dust Bowl refugees, with whom he found a deep culturaland spiritual
identity and aboutwhom he would write with compassionand a gentle humor.
The extremetraumaof theiruprootaland theirstrugglefor survivalin the hostile
Californiaatmospherebound the Okies togetherin commonspirit and cultural
experience.In the few years that the Okie communityexisted as a discernible
entity in California(having been absorbedby the war industriesduringWorld
War II), it producedlore born of its traumaticlife to supplementthe older
materialsbroughtalong in the trek west. Traditionalformsof folksong and folk
expressionwere retained,but lyric and prose contentfrequentlywere alteredto
reflectcontemporaryexperience,as amply demonstratedin Todd and Sonkin's
collectionof more than two hundredOkie songs-now in the Archiveof American Folk Song, Library of Congress.11Woody Guthrie was in no way a stranger
11 For published
examples see Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin, "Ballads of the Okies," New
York Times Magazine (November 17, 1940), 6-7, 18; reprinted in American Folk Music Occasional, No. I (Berkeley, California, 1964), 87-91. Migrant mimeographed publications such
as The Towsack Tattler (Arvin, California) also contained songs and versification by the Okies
about their experiences.
278
RICHARD A. REUSS
to this milieu, and his talentsmade him by far the greatestspokesmanproduced
by the Okie migrantcommunity.
Woody belongedboth to hobo and Okie groupsat varioustimes. In the long
run, however, he probablyspent more calendartime with hoboes, tramps,and
bums than with displacedOkies. But there can be no doubt which of the two
groups is more importantinsofar as his overall creativework is concerned.His
Dust Bowl ballads, the ramblinglyrics like "Hard Traveling,""This Land Is
Your Land,"and "RamblingRound,"and the triumphantColumbiaRiversongs
all stem principallyfrom his migrant experiences.By contrast,only his great
ballad "East Texas Red," part of four chapters of Bound For Glory-nos.
I, 13,
14, and I8-and a few other incidentalwritings directlyreflect his contacts
with the hoboworld.
The last importantsubculturefor whichWoody actedas spokesmanwas chiefly
distinguishedfrom the othergroupsby its ideology-the labor-radical
syndrome
createdby the militantrise of the CIO and the communistmovementduringthe
depressionof the 1930s. Broadlyspeaking,anygrouphavinga continuousexistencein time is boundto developtraditionsas an outgrowthof its isolatingfeatures,
with quantityand formto be determinedby localcircumstances.
The Depression's
labor-radical
movementwas no exception.Thoughits impacton the nationalscene
of the 1930s was profound,its lore paradoxicallywas the end productof a largely
self-imposedisolationfrom the broaderAmericanculture.
The same radio broadcastson KFVD that broughtWoody local fame among
Okie migrantsin Californiaeventuallybroughthim to the attentionof political
radicals.Ed Robbinhas told how he introducedWoody to left-wing audiencesin
1939, beginning with a Tom Mooney rally early in the year.12For many "progressive" intellectuals,Guthrie was the living incarnationof social issues they
had grappledwith eitherin the abstractor at firsthand.The timing of his emergence on the scene hardlycould have been more auspicious.John Steinbeckhad
justpublishedThe Grapesof Wrath,the La FolletteCommitteewas investigating
crooked labor practicesagainst migratoryfarm workersin California,and the
Okies were very much a part of the nationalconsciousness.The suddenpresence
of a dynamic,articulatespokesmanfrom the Dust Bowl community,not only
issuesin the vernacular
sociallyconsciousbut ableto verbalizeaboutcontemporary
of the "folk,"produceda substantialimpacton manyurbanindividualspolitically
left-of-center.Ed RobbinremarkedaboutGuthrie'sinitial debutbefore a radical
audience:
There was this skinny lad on the stage, the very embodiment of these people [the Okies],
speaking their language and in their voice, in bitter humor and song, with the dust of his
hard traveling still on him, a troubadour, a balladeer, a poet, who had ridden the rails
and the jallopies, worked the orchards and the fields, lain in the jails, faced the cops and
the clubs of the vigilantes-here he was drawing out his hard, bitter, humorous songs.13
Not every left-winger took to Woody or his idiom, then or later, but enough who
did were so imbued with the spirit of proletarian romanticism that a natural
tendency developed to drape Woody in the venerable garb of the Noble Savage
12
Edward Robbin, "This Train Is Bound For Glory,' " People's World, October 28, 1967, 6-7.
13 Robbin, 6.
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WOODY
GUTHRIE (1942)
t
RICHARD A. REUSS
280
stereotype.He was quicklyidealizedas a "rusty-voicedHomer"14 and "the best
folk balladcomposerwhoseidentityhas everbeenknown."•5He becamea radical
prototypeof the democraticand enlightenedwhite "folk,"muchas Leadbellyand
Josh White were left-wing symbolsof the Negro "folk"duringthe sameperiod.
In whatbecamea widelyquotedpassage,JohnSteinbeckwrote:
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 will listen. There is the will of a people
to endure and fight against oppression.I think we call this the American spirit.16
The Left's romanticvision of Guthrie also flourishedin the communistpress
of those years.One early Daily Workerfeatureon Woody displayedhis photographand caughtthe essenceof the Noble Savagestereotypeneatlyin the caption:
"'Woody,' that's his name. He's a native of Oklahoma,who's come East for a
time. He can tell you all about the Dust Bowl, the original charactersof 'The
Grapesof Wrath'and of the latestletterhe got from John Steinbeck.He strums
a guitar,singspeople'ssongsandwritescolumnsfor the Daily Worker.'"•No one,
however,ever contributedto buildingGuthrie'simagewith moreexuberanceand
gustothanMike Quin,popularcolumnistfor the People'sWorld.On one occasion
he woundup an extravagantreviewpraisingGuthrie'sappearanceon CBSradio's
"Pursuitof Happiness"in a stateof lyriceuphoria."Singit Woody, sing it!" he
exhorted."KarlMarxwrote it and Lincolnsaid it and Lenindid it. You sing it,
Woody.And we'll all laughtogetheryet."'8
Such simplistic characterizationof the vagabond people's minstrel was, of
course,an illusion. Friendsand close associatesrealizedthat Guthriewas a far
more complex personalitythan the image projectedby the mass media would
suggest.Yet, encounterswith Woody'serraticbehaviorandunorthodoxutterances
often proved disquietingto many leftists. Irwin Silber wrote a fiery partisan
critiqueon the subjectfor the radicalNationalGuardian.
Like most revolutionaries, Woody was, at best, only partially understood by the revolutionary movements of his time. The puritanical, nearsighted left of the forties and early
fifties didn't quite know what to make of this strange bemused poet who drank and
bummed and chased after women and spoke in syllables dreadful strange. They loved
his songs and they sang "Union Maid" or "So Long" or "Roll On Columbia" or "Pastures
of Plenty"... on picket lines and at parties, summer camps and demonstrations. But they
never really accepted the man himself-and many thought that as a singer, he was a
pretty good songwriter, and they'd just as soon hear Pete Seeger sing the same songs.... 19
14 Olin Downes and Elie Siegmeister, A Treasury of American Song (New York, 1940), 338.
Alan Lomax as quoted by John Greenway in American Folksongs of Protest, 275.
15
16
Steinbeckwrote these words in
1940.
They may have been intendedfor the liner notes of
Guthrie's Victor Dust Bowl Ballads or for the anthology of Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit
People, publishedin 1967 after a twenty-fiveyear postponement.In any event the statementwas
being quoted in feature articles on Woody (see A Woody Guthrie Bibliography, nos. 152 and
153) by September 1940o.
17
"Sings People's Ballads," Daily Worker, April 2, 1940, p. 7.
18s "Double Check," People's World, April 25, 1940, p. 5.
19Irwin Silber,"Woodie [sic] Guthrie:He Never Sold Out,"The National Guardian,October
14, 1967, p. o10.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION
281
For many,indeed, the Noble Savageimage was less threatening.The stereotype
in the leftof the Dust Bowl troubadourgavewayto a moreurbanerepresentation
was
Left
never
but
as
a
whole
the
the
as
reallyable
1940s progressed,
wing press
to fathomWoodyGuthrienorseriouslywantedto tryto do so.
Recent academiccriticism,notablythat by John Greenwayand Ellen Stekert,
hasemphasizedthe negativeinfluenceof the left-wingmilieuon WoodyGuthrie.20
It does not, however,give proportionateconsiderationto the positive featuresof
the relationship,for it was the communist-dominated
labor-radicalatmosphere
that providedWoody with the spiritualnourishmentand raisond'etrehe needed
to producehis best work. For nearlya decadeprior to his initial contactswith
urban radicals,Guthrie had sought a rationalefor his existence.He had read
avidly and sometimesdabbledin the occult sciences:popularpsychology,hypnotism,astrology,spiritualism,faith healing,fortunetelling,and Orientalphilosophy and mysticism.He was at varioustimesa memberof the Churchof Christ,a
practicingfaith healer,an authorof a book on "psychology,"a collectorof Rosicrucianliterature,and an admirerof Lao-tseand Omar
None of these
Khayy.m.21
interestsproved sustainingintellectualprops or capable
of guiding his energies
into meaningfulchannelsof productivity.It was the radicalsocialgospel of the
New Deal era that finallyfilled his spiritualvoid and elevatedhis hillbillyversificationto quiteanotherplaneof socialcommentary,
wherehe spokefor the national
traumasand triumphsas well as for regionalconditions.One mayplausiblyargue
thatGuthrie'scommunismwaspoliticallynaiveandhumane,in largemeasurerooted in frontieragrarianradicalismratherthan in Marxor the Partyline; but only
sheer bias and anticommunistfervorwill permitthe criticalobserverto deny the
emotionalsolace,socialdirection,and organicsynthesisthe Left gave to Guthrie's
workin the dayswhen both the Movementand he were dynamicand young.
The years 1939-1941 were a transitionalperiod in Woody's life, as he continuedto move easilyin and out of his earliersouthwestern,hobo, and Dust Bowl
environments;but he graduallyforsookall of them for the urbanleft-wingmilieu
in which he largelyfunctionedthereafterto the end of his activecareer.It probably would be accurateto say that the first significantbreakwith his earlierenvironmentscamein FebruaryI940, when he made his firsttrip to and prolonged
stay in New York. In the next yearand a half he made two extensivejourneys
back to old familiar scenes in the Southwestand on the West Coast and then
touredsome of these sameareasagainwith the AlmanacSingers.But duringthis
time he consistentlyused his talents to describeconcepts,events, and political
causesthat were not centralto the experienceof the groups he had previously
representedin Californiapriorto his going East.By the fall of 1941, when Woody
settled in New York more or less permanently,the separationfrom his earlier
folk milieu was complete.BoundFor Gloryand occasionalsongs like "EastTexas
Red"-drawn from his life in the southwestern,hobo, and migrantfolk complexes-continued
to come from his pen in the next year or so; but from the time
20
Greenway,"The Anatomyof a Genius" and "Woody Guthrie: The Man, The Land, The
Understanding";Ellen Stekert,"Centsand Nonsense in the Urban Folksong Movement:19301966," in Folkloreand Society,ed. BruceJackson(Hatboro,Pa., 1965), I61-164.
21 Data collected from Pampa, Texas, residentsand Maxine CrissmanDempsey, June I968.
See also BoundFor Glory,ch. 12.
RICHARD A. REUSS
282
he entered the merchant marine in 1943, the great mass of his voluminous writings, personal reminiscences, and songs ceased in most instances to reflect his
former traditional environments.
It would be hard to underestimate the importance of these transition years for
Woody Guthrie, for in them he produced the bulk of his greatest work: most of
the Dust Bowl ballads, all of the Columbia River songs, the long ballads "Pretty
Boy Floyd," "East Texas Red," and "Tom Joad," the lyric songs "This Land Is
Your Land" and "Hard Traveling," most of his best labor and war verse, Bound
For Glory, and several of his finest essays. All were written between 1939 and
I942. This material is a creative fusion of Guthrie's folk heritage with a leftwing social consciousness. The rural Southwest of Woody's youth gave him an
instinctive knowledge of ballad structure, folksong style, and the folk idiom.
Migrant and hobo wanderings of his early manhood provided crucial themes for
his pen, drawn from first-hand observation, to mold into verse and prose. Contacts with Communists and other radicals sharpened and focused an innate sense
of social concern developed out of the experiences of his early life. His own
artistic abilities enabled him to weld these diverse strands into a unique synthesis
of folk-styled poetry and social gospel.
Prior to the time Woody encountered the Left, he held no special status within
society other than that of another "good" hillbilly songwriter. Later, after radical
publicity brought him to the attention of urban intellectuals, he became a symbol
of the Okie trauma and the turmoil experienced by anonymous millions of Americans during the depression. The folksong revival ultimately enshrined him as one
of its culture heroes, admiring or worshipping him not only for his songs and
prose, but for his "free" life-style, uncompromising honesty, and spiritual independence. Guthrie's most unique and viable period as a creative artist, however,
lies during those years of his life when he belonged exclusively to no one group,
when he was able to effectively blend old forms and new experiences and draw
freely on the varied esthetic and intellectual material his several worlds had to
offer him. Much of his voluminous output is unworthy of remembrance, but his
more lasting creations have made no small contribution to the American heritage.
An appreciative national government tendered him official recognition for his
efforts to awaken the American people to "their heritage and the land" in ceremonies sponsored by the Department of Interior on April 6, 1966.22
II.
The folk tradition Woody Guthrie inherited from the Southwest is usually
evaluated in terms of the songs he acquired there, but it should be noted that
Guthrie's folk repertory was by no means limited to songs alone. He knew large
numbers of anecdotes, jokes, toasts, proverbial phrases, and witty sayings, which
he effectively utilized in his varied roles as raconteur, soothsayer, humorist, and
writer. Many of these were clearly traditional; others might prove to be so with a
little investigation. His language, for example, was studded with colorful neologisms and idiomatic expressions: "colder'n old Billyhell," "out like Lottie's
22
Robert B. Semple, Jr., "U.S. Award Given to Woody Guthrie," New York Times, April 7,
1966, p. 47.
WOODY GUTHRIE AND HIS FOLK TRADITION
283
eye" (went kaput), "That boy don't care if school keeps or not," "Take it easy,
but take it," and endless others. Apparently no one made any effort to collect these,
or his yarns and other witticisms; and such as are extant must be culled from his
writings and the memories of friends. A more detailed record, however, does exist
for the traditional songs in his memory.
At the time he was singing on Los Angeles radio (1937-1939), Woody drew
his song material almost entirely from his southwestern cultural experiences. His
repertory consisted of folksongs, hillbilly pieces, and compositions of his own
based on folk and hillbilly models. His contacts with the few popular singers of
folksongs of that period were almost nonexistent; yet, within two years after
leaving California for New York City, he had absorbed numerous songs alien to
his own musical tradition from the small clique of urban folksingers gathering in
the East during the early forties.
No folklorist ever tried systematically to collect Guthrie's traditional song
repertory. The Lomax recordings for the Library of Congress in March 1940
were conceived of as a documentary word-portrait rather than as a folkloristic
probe.23Moses Asch recorded a large number of traditional songs from Woody,
frequently in conjunction with Leadbelly, Sonny Terry, Cisco Houston, and others;
but, in the absence of external documentation and control data, it is often difficult
to tell whether Guthrie is singing a song from his own tradition or one he learned
from the early folksong revival milieu. For instance, his version of "Buffalo Skinners" has been praised by scholars as an excellent example of American folksong
style, which it is; yet I know of no evidence indicating that Woody knew the song
prior to the mid-i94os, when it was released on the Asch album Struggle (Asch
36o). Indeed, his lyrics closely follow the text published in Cowboy Songs and
Other Frontier Ballads.
It is largely through surviving manuscript collections kept by Guthrie himself,
and the fortuitous actions of Alan Lomax, that there is any clear delineation of
Woody Guthrie's "pre-revival" folksong repertory. Lomax recorded Guthrie for
the Library of Congress scarcely a month after the latter arrived in the East in
1940, and before Woody had much chance to absorb new material from other
singers. Lomax, however, was not interested in the hillbilly songs that comprised
a significant portion of Guthrie's repertory; hence there is little trace of such material in the Archive of American Folk Song recordings. Far more significant than
these recordings was a manuscript collection Lomax procured from Woody shortly
thereafter and had copied for the Libraryof Congress. Entitled "Songs of Woody
Guthrie," typed copies of the collection are on deposit in the Archive of American
Folk Song. A photocopy of the original manuscript in Woody's hand and typescript is on microfilm in the Music Division of the Libraryof Congress. This collection contains texts of two hundred songs Woody sang over the radio in California to his Okie and political audiences on the West Coast. A breakdown shows
half of the songs to be of Guthrie's own authorship, the rest being divided roughly
into 6o percent folksongs and 40 percent hillbilly items, parlor ballads, or sentimental religious pieces. Among the traditional songs are versions of three Child
ballads ("Barbara Allan," "Gypsy Davy," and "The Golden Vanity") and more
23
Interview with Alan Lomax, August
29,
1966.