CAIRO – 3 October 2017: October 3 marks the day legendary American folk musician Woody Guthrie passed away in 1967. He wrote well over a thousand songs in his lifetime, the most famous of which is the anthem, “This Land is Your Land,” and was known for using his music to fight hate.
Born on July 14, 1912 in Oklahoma, Guthrie came from a family that was devastated by personal tragedy. Guthrie suffered through the death of his sister, the loss of his house to a fire, and his mother being hospitalized for an incurable disease. Guthrie and his remaining siblings were on their own after their father left to Texas to find work, and the young singer did his best to support himself by playing music on the streets.
After the Great Depression hit in 1930 and a series of severe dust storms rendered the plains of Oklahoma into a dust bowl, he left to the west to find a better life and left behind his wife and children. It was this period of time that Guthrie spent travelling across America, hitchhiking on trains and living as a hobo, with only his music to support himself.
By 1937, he had arrived in to California, though he and the other refugees were greeted with scorn and hatred by the Californians. He managed to find work in Los Angeles however, at the KFVD radio, where Guthrie’s music managed to speak to all the migrants nostalgic for their lost lives in Oklahoma. Yet the biggest influence Guthrie’s music would have came after he moved to New York in 1939, where he began recording for the Library of Congress and helped pioneer a new genre of music; protest folk.
As World War II rolled around, Guthrie joined up with the merchant marines to help the war effort, his music slanting towards an antifascist message. Upon leaving the war, he settled down with a new family after his old marriage fell apart, and began composing children’s albums as well.
Unfortunately, Guthrie began to fall ill, and was eventually diagnosed with Huntington’s chorea, the same disease that his mother might have suffered from. He spent the last 12 years of his life in mental institutions being treated for the illness, though it was in one of them that he met Bob Dylan, who he considered a worthy heir.
Guthrie passed away having inspired entire generations of musicians to follow in his footsteps, combining political protests with music to help inspire social change.
Comments
Leave a Comment