Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie was a folk singer whose music told the stories of the migrant and agricultural workers during America's Great Depression (1929–41), a period of high unemployment that began with the stock market crash in 1929. Of the hundreds of songs he wrote and recorded, he is probably best known for “This Land Is Your Land,” which he wrote in 1940 and recorded in 1944.

Born on July 14, 1912, Guthrie's full name was Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, and he spent his childhood in various regions of Oklahoma and Texas . He married his best friend's sister in 1933 at the age of twenty-one. Always restless, Guthrie took to the road in search of work. He found a job in Los Angeles, California , as part of a singing duo, and his popularity grew along with his political awareness.

Americans across the nation could relate to the songs Guthrie wrote and performed. He often sang about the plight of the migrant workers who had left the Dust Bowl , a large area covering several Great Plains states that suffered severe drought and relentless dust storms during the 1930s.

Activist musician

Guthrie released his first record album in 1940. Called Dust Bowl Ballads, its songs described the woes of farm labor employees and the exploits of the Oklahoma outlaw.

Guthrie's reputation as a spokesman for the poor rural population was reinforced through his friendship with another politically active folk singer, Pete Seeger (1919–). Together the two men joined a protest group called the Almanac Singers. With folklorist Alan Lomax (1915–2002), who interviewed and recorded numerous musicians, they recorded a collection of folk songs in 1967.

As a solo artist, Guthrie wrote and performed protest songs throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He also began writing songs for children. In all his music, Guthrie expressed his belief in justice, and he was convinced that it would prevail if people would be moved to action. He saw his role in music as that of a crusader for the oppressed and less fortunate.

Guthrie's influence on folk music was evident from the 1950s onward. Folk musician Bob Dylan (1941–) was a huge fan of Guthrie's, and he visited him in 1961 as Guthrie was dying from a genetic disorder called Huntington's disease, which he had inherited from his mother and passed along to two of his children. Guthrie's influence on Dylan can be heard particularly on the younger musician's early albums. Other modern musicians who have been influenced by Guthrie include rock singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen (1949–), country singer Emmylou Harris (1947–), and Irish rock band U2.

Guthrie died in 1967, and his son Arlo (1947–) continued in his footsteps as a folk singer. In 1998, a new collection of the elder Guthrie's songs was released and contained lyrics written by him in the late 1940s and early 1950s. By the time he died, Guthrie had married three times and had recorded more than one thousand songs. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.