Woody Guthrie's Birthday's got me thinking and remembering and listening

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My friend Daniel Bradley posted something on Facebook Today reminding us that today (July 14) is Woody Guthrie's birthday. This got me to thinking and remembering. And to commenting on his post, which I repeat here.

Have you been to his museum? I was a huge fan of Woody when I was a kid hitch-hiking around with my guitar. Learned to play all the songs I could including Tom Joad with all the verses. Woody had a special connection with the Pacific Northwest, where I grew up due to his once being hired by the Bonneville Power Administration to write songs ins support of their dam-building efforts (See his song "The Grand Coulee Dam.")




His song "Roll on Columbia Roll On," has a line "Other great rivers add power to you, Yakima, Snake and the Klickitat too." Well, much of my youth was lived in that stood on two of those rivers.




Read Bound for Glory and idealized the life described there.  I idealized sitting around with a bunch of old men playing guitar, singing and harmonizing. Listening to them sit around and BS each other.




Which was easy because all the songs they played were three cord wonders. And so were Woody's. I remember introducing one of these old guys, who happened to come Arkansas, to Woody's song "Dust Pneumonia Blues." In the song Woody repeats the phrase "There ought to be some yodeling in this song," three times, and then says, "But I cain't yodel, for the rattling in my lungs." When I got to that part and sang, "there ought to be some yodeling in this song." The old fella cut loose and stared yodeling. He thought I was signaling him with the line.



Funny more recent story involving Woody. When Midwestern let me go they wanted to give me a week from my return form my sabbatical in Europe to be out of both my on campus apartment and my office. Ultimately they relented and gave me three weeks, and so with a lot of help from friends we were just able to do it. But of course we really had no place to go. The former president Phil Roberts was trying to help find us a place to land at another college, but ultimately at the last minute it didn't pan out. So that on the day we loaded all are belonging in the truck we knew where they were going (South Carolina) but we still weren't sure where we were going. Ultimately we just got in our van and came back to Salt Lake City. Soon after that I thought, given the way I was feeling, that I'd like to hear Woody's old song "I Ain't got no home in this world any more," Just to sooth the sore spots and maybe cheer myself a little. So I typed it the title into youtube and up comes the video with a picture of Woody playing his guitar, and a big banner advertisement sponsored by....Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary!




Woody playing "I ain't got no home in this world anymore."

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