Image © 2004 by Charles Banks Wilson
This painting will be officially installed in the fourth floor rotunda of the Okla. State Capitol Building tomorrow. The artist is requesting an in-lieu commission; namely, donations to the Huntington's Disease Society of America (details here).
Today is Woody Guthrie's birthday. It is also, ironically, Bastille Day. Woody was on the side of freedom from the day he was born.
Oklahoma has been slow in recognizing its native son, primarily because so many thought he was a Communist. He was a union sympathizer, and wrote a column for the Daily Worker, but was never an official member of the Communist party. Woody was too much of an iconoclast to be a member of anything.*
Curiously, when the Oklahoma Gazette ran a feature article on the life of the musician, one letter to the editor claimed that Woody never did a hard day's work in his life. And, I suppose, it's true that Woody didn't hold a regular job for very long. If memory serves, his radio show lasted a couple of years; his service in the merchant marine lasted a few months.*
As Woody saw it, his job was sharing his music. Any musician can tell you that performing is a lot harder than it looks. To claim that Woody was a bum, or that his belief in the common worker was a sham because he didn't break rocks (or whatever) is unfair. Woody just didn't care about money all that much. He was more concerned with sharing his music with every day people. He performed on a street corner with the same enthusiasm he would for a union rally.
I'm pretty sure I read Woody's "autobiographical novel" Bound for Glory before I'd heard much of Bob Dylan. But it hardly matters. Both men have had a profound influence on music. Maybe all Woody did is write new words for existing folk tunes; but who do you know who has done it so well?
*See Joe Klein's Woody Guthrie: A Life
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