Editing Woody Guthrie

{{short description|American singer-songwriter (1912–1967)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Woody Guthrie
| image              = Woody Guthrie NYWTS.jpg
| alt                = Black-and-white photo of Guthrie looking up at an angle away from the camera and playing a guitar that says "This machine kills fascists" 
| caption            = Guthrie with a guitar labeled "[[This machine kills fascists]]" in 1943
| birth_name         = Woodrow Wilson Guthrie
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|mf=yes|1912|7|14}}
| birth_place        = [[Okemah, Oklahoma]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1967|10|3|1912|7|14}}
| death_place        = New York City, U.S.
| resting_place      = Highland Cemetery, Okemah, Oklahoma, U.S.
| spouse             = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Mary Jennings|1931|1940|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|[[Marjorie Guthrie|Marjorie Greenblatt]]|1945|1953|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|Anneke van Kirk|1953|1956|end=divorced}}
}}
| children           = 8, including [[Arlo Guthrie|Arlo]] and [[Nora Guthrie|Nora]]
| module             = {{infobox musical artist
| embed        = yes
| background   = solo_singer
| origin       = 
| instruments  = {{hlist
|Vocals|guitar|harmonica|[[mandolin]]|[[fiddle]]}}
| genre        = {{hlist|[[American folk music|Folk]]<ref name="Erlewine1997">{{cite book|author=Michael Erlewine|title=All Music Guide to Country: The Experts' Guide to the Best Recordings in Country Music|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Mo7xm-X1r4C&pg=PA188|year=1997|publisher=Miller Freeman|isbn=978-0-87930-475-1|page=188}}</ref>|[[Protest song|protest music]]<ref name="Gilmour2005">{{cite book |author=Michael J. Gilmour |title=Call Me the Seeker: Listening to Religion in Popular Music |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XeyoAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA28 |date=June 24, 2005 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4411-7284-6 |page=28}}</ref>|[[Country music|country]]<ref name="Campbell2012">{{cite book |author=Michael Campbell |title=Popular Music in America:The Beat Goes On |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cf0JAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT139 |date=January 1, 2012 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-1-133-71260-2 |page=139}}</ref>|[[talking blues]]<ref name="Kaufman2019">{{cite book |author=Will Kaufman |title=Mapping Woody Guthrie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-CCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA26 |date=January 24, 2019|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-6380-2 |page=26}}</ref>|[[Americana (music)|Americana]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theledger.com/story/news/2003/02/07/honoring-singer-woody-guthrie/26038755007/|title=Honoring Singer Woody Guthrie|author=Gerome, John|work=[[The Ledger]]|date=February 7, 2003|accessdate=June 3, 2024}}</ref>}}
| discography  = [[Woody Guthrie discography]]
| occupations  = {{hlist|Singer|songwriter|composer}}
| years_active = 1930–1956
| label        = 
}}
| module2            = {{Infobox military person
  | embed        = yes
  | allegiance   = United States
  | branch       = {{indented plainlist|
* [[United States Merchant Marine]]
* [[United States Army]]
}}
  | serviceyears = {{indented plainlist|
* 1943–1945 (Merchant Marine)
* 1945 (Army)
}}
  | rank         = 
  | unit         = 
  | battles      = [[World War II]]
  | awards       = {{indented plainlist|
* [[Merchant Marine Atlantic War Zone Medal]]
* [[Merchant Marine World War II Victory Medal]]
* [[American Campaign Medal]]
* [[World War II Victory Medal]]
}}
}}
}}

'''Woodrow Wilson Guthrie''' ({{IPAc-en|'|g|V|T|r|i|}}; July 14, 1912&nbsp;– October 3, 1967) was an American singer, songwriter, and composer widely considered to be one of the most significant figures in [[American folk music]]. His work focused on themes of [[American Left|American socialism]] and [[anti-fascism]] and has inspired many generations both politically and musically with songs such as "[[This Land Is Your Land]]" and "[[Tear the fascists down|Tear The Fascists down]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/bios/woody-guthrie/|publisher=PBS|title=Woody Guthrie: Journalist, Musician (1912–1967)}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.biography.com/people/woody-guthrie-9323949|work=biography.com|title=Woody Guthrie Biography.com: Guitarist, Songwriter, Singer(1912–1967)|date=December 2, 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/artist/woody-guthrie-mn0000577531/biography|publisher=AllMusic|title=Woody Guthrie|first=William|last=Ruhlmann}}</ref>

Guthrie wrote hundreds of [[Country music|country]], [[Folk music|folk]], and [[Children's music|children's]] songs, along with [[ballad]]s and improvised works. ''[[Dust Bowl Ballads]]'', Guthrie's album of songs about the [[Dust Bowl]] period, was included on ''[[Mojo (magazine)|Mojo]]'' magazine's list of 100 Records That Changed the World,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/bmi_songwriters_dominate_mojos_100_records_that_changed_the_world|title=BMI Songwriters Dominate Mojo's "100 Records That Changed The World"|date=July 3, 2007|work=bmi.com}}</ref> and many of his recorded songs are archived in the [[Library of Congress]].<ref>Library of Congress. [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?faid/faid:@field(DOCID+af001001)#Related%20Material%20-%20Woody%20Guthrie%20Sound%20Recordings%20at%20the%20American%20Folklife%20Center Related Material – Woody Guthrie Sound Recordings at the American Folklife Center.] Retrieved on November 27, 2007.</ref> Songwriters who have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence on their work include [[Steve Earle]], [[Bob Dylan]], [[Lou Reed]], [[Phil Ochs]], [[Johnny Cash]], [[Bruce Springsteen]], [[Donovan]], [[Robert Hunter (lyricist)|Robert Hunter]], [[Harry Chapin]], [[John Mellencamp]], [[Pete Seeger]], [[Andy Irvine (musician)|Andy Irvine]], [[Joe Strummer]], [[Billy Bragg]], [[Jerry Garcia]], [[Bob Weir]], [[Jeff Tweedy]], [[Tom Paxton]], [[Brian Fallon]], [[AJJ (band)|Sean Bonnette]], and [[Sixto Rodríguez]]. Guthrie frequently performed with the message "[[This machine kills fascists]]" displayed on his guitar.

Guthrie was brought up by middle-class parents in [[Okemah, Oklahoma]].<ref name="Ed Cray 2006 16">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8qzmNhQ2lkAC&pg=PA16|title=Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|author=Cray|first=Ed|date=2004|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393343083|location=New York|pages=8}}</ref> He left Okemah in 1929, after his mother, suffering from the Huntington’s disease that would later kill him too, was institutionalized. Guthrie followed his wayward father to [[Pampa, Texas]], where the elder Guthrie was running a seedy flophouse. "Pampa was a Texas oil boom town and wilder than a woodchuck," Guthrie wrote in his autobiography, and though he lived there for just eight years, the town’s influence on him and his music was undeniable.  He married at 19, but with the advent of the [[dust storm]]s that marked the [[Dust Bowl]] period, he left his wife and three children to join the thousands of [[History of Texas#Great Depression|Texans]] and [[Okie]]s who were migrating to California looking for employment. He worked at Los Angeles radio station [[KTNQ|KFVD]], achieving some fame from playing [[hillbilly music]], made friends with [[Will Geer]] and [[John Steinbeck]], and wrote a column for the [[communist]] newspaper ''[[People's World]]'' from May 1939 to January 1940.

Throughout his life, Guthrie was associated with [[CPUSA|United States communist]] groups, although he apparently did not belong to any.<ref name="Spivey">{{cite web |url=http://www.loyno.edu/history/journal/1996-7/Spivey.html |title=This Land is Your land, This Land is My Land: Folk Music, Communism, and the Red Scare as a Part of the American Landscape |publisher=Student Historical Journal 1996–1997, Loyola University New Orleans, 1996 |first=Christine A. |last=Spivey |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080625072313/http://www.loyno.edu/history/journal/1996-7/Spivey.html |archive-date=June 25, 2008 |access-date=July 12, 2012}}</ref> With the outbreak of World War II and the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact|Molotov–Ribbentrop]] non-aggression pact the [[Soviet Union]] had signed with Germany in 1939, the anti-Stalin owners of KFVD radio were not comfortable with Guthrie's political leanings after he wrote a song praising the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the [[Soviet invasion of Poland]].<ref name=Kaufman2010>{{cite journal |last1=Kaufman |first1=Will |title=Woody Guthrie's 'Union War' |journal=Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies |date=2010 |volume=16 |issue=1/2 |pages=109–124 |jstor=43921756 }}</ref> He left the station, ending up in New York, where he wrote and recorded his 1940 album ''[[Dust Bowl Ballads]]'', based on his experiences during the 1930s, which earned him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour".<ref>Alarik, Scott. [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/08/07/robert_burns_unplugged/ Robert Burns unplugged.] ''Boston Globe'', August 7, 2005. Retrieved December 5, 2007.</ref> In February 1940, he wrote his most famous song, "[[This Land Is Your Land]]". He said it was a response to what he felt was the overplaying of [[Irving Berlin]]'s "[[God Bless America]]" on the radio.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/2000/07/03/1076186/this-land-is-your-land |title=The Story Of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land' |last=Spitzer|first=Nick |date=February 15, 2012|website=NPR Music |publisher=National Public Radio (NPR) |access-date=September 3, 2018}}</ref>

Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children. His son [[Arlo Guthrie]] became nationally known as a musician. Guthrie died in 1967 from complications of [[Huntington's disease]]. His first two daughters also died of the disease.

==Early life==

[[File:OKMap-doton-Okemah.PNG|alt=A white map of Oklahoma with a red dot in the center|thumb|Okemah in Oklahoma]]
[[File:Guthrie house.jpg|thumb|alt=A simple house|Woody Guthrie's [[Okfuskee County, Oklahoma]], childhood home as it appeared in 1979]]

Guthrie was born July 14, 1912, in [[Okemah, Oklahoma|Okemah]], a small town in [[Okfuskee County, Oklahoma]], the son of Nora Belle (née Sherman) and Charles Edward Guthrie.<ref name="Reitwiesner">Reitwiesner, William Addams. [http://www.wargs.com/other/guthrie.html Ancestry of Arlo Guthrie.] Retrieved on November 7, 2007.</ref> His parents named him after [[Woodrow Wilson]], then Governor of New Jersey and the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] candidate who was elected as President of the United States in [[1912 United States presidential election|fall 1912]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8qzmNhQ2lkAC&pg=PA11|page=11|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2006|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393343083}}</ref> Charles Guthrie was an industrious businessman, owning at one time up to {{nowrap|30 plots}} of land in Okfuskee County.<ref name="Ed Cray 2006 16"/> He was actively involved in Oklahoma politics and was a conservative Democratic candidate for office in the county. Charles Guthrie was reportedly involved in the 1911 [[lynching of Laura and L. D. Nelson]].<ref name="Jackson136">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mJiFRoe04UMC&pg=PA136|page=136|title=Prophet Singer: The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie|author= Mark Allan Jackson|publisher= University Press of Mississippi|date= 2008|isbn=9781604731460}}</ref> (Woody Guthrie wrote three songs about the event in the 1960s. He said that his father, Charles, became a member of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] during its revival beginning in 1915.<ref name=Jackson136/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Dont_Kill_My_Baby_and_My_Son.htm|title= Lyrics: Don't Kill My Baby and My Son|work=woodyguthrie.org|first=Woody|last=Guthrie|year= 1966| access-date =August 25, 2010}}</ref>)

Three significant fires impacted Guthrie's early life. In 1909, one fire caused the loss of his family's home in Okemah a month after it was completed.<ref name="Ed Cray 2006 16" /> When Guthrie was seven, his sister Clara died after setting her clothes on fire during an argument with her mother,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8qzmNhQ2lkAC&pg=PA18|page=18|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2006|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393343083}}</ref> and, later, in 1927, their father was severely burned in a fire at home.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/30 30]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Guthrie's mother, Nora, was afflicted with [[Huntington's disease]],<ref name="Celebrity Diagnosis">{{cite web |url=http://www.celebritydiagnosis.com/2012/07/happy-100th-birthday-woody-guthrie/ |title=Happy 100th Birthday Woody Guthrie! |publisher=Celebrity Diagnosis |date=July 14, 2012 |access-date=December 18, 2012 |archive-date=September 23, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923201614/http://www.celebritydiagnosis.com/2012/07/happy-100th-birthday-woody-guthrie/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> although the family did not know this at the time. What they could see was [[dementia]] and muscular degeneration.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', pp.&nbsp;26,&nbsp;32,&nbsp;39</ref>

When Woody was 14, Nora was committed to the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane. At the time his father Charles was living and working in [[Pampa, Texas]], to repay debts from unsuccessful real estate deals. Woody and his siblings were on their own in Oklahoma; they relied on their eldest brother Roy for support. The 14-year-old Woody Guthrie worked odd jobs around Okemah, begging meals and sometimes sleeping at the homes of family friends.

Guthrie had a natural affinity for music, learning old ballads and [[English folk music|traditional English]] and [[Scottish folk music|Scottish songs]] from the parents of friends.<ref name=Clay28/> Guthrie befriended an African-American [[Shoeshiner|shoeshine boy]] named George, who played blues on his harmonica. After listening to George play, Guthrie bought his own harmonica and began playing along with him.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Common Ground|title=Ear Players|last=Guthrie|first=Woody|year=1942|issue=Spring|page=32}}</ref><ref>Guthrie's interview with [[Alan Lomax]] at the [[Library of Congress]] Recording Sessions, as recorded in Cray, ''Ramblin Man'', p.&nbsp;28.</ref> He used to busk for money and food.<ref name="Clay28">{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/28 28]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Although Guthrie did not do well as a student and dropped out of high school in his senior year before graduation, his teachers described him as bright. He was an avid reader on a wide range of topics.<ref name="Clay44">{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/44 44]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref>

In 1929, Guthrie's father sent for Woody to join him in Texas,<ref>{{cite web|title=Guthrie, Woodrow Wilson (1912–1967)|url=http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=GU006|publisher=Oklahoma Historical Society|access-date=September 8, 2016}}</ref> but little changed for the aspiring musician. Guthrie, then 18, was reluctant to attend high school classes in Pampa; he spent most of his time learning songs by [[busking]] on the streets and reading in the library at Pampa's city hall. He regularly played at dances with his father's half-brother Jeff Guthrie, a fiddle player.<ref name=Clay44/> His mother died in 1930 of complications of Huntington's disease while still in the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane.

==Career==
===1930s===
During the [[Dust Bowl]] period, Guthrie joined the thousands of [[Okies]] and others who migrated to California to look for work, leaving his wife and children in Texas. Many of his songs are concerned with the conditions faced by working-class people.

During the latter part of that decade in [[Los Angeles]], he achieved fame with radio partner [[Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman]] as a broadcast performer of commercial [[hillbilly]] music and traditional folk music.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', pp.&nbsp;90–92,&nbsp;103–12</ref> Guthrie was making enough money to send for his family to join him from Texas. While appearing on the radio station [[KTNQ|KFVD]], owned by a populist-minded [[New Deal]] Democrat, [[Frank W. Burke]], Guthrie began to write and perform some of the protest songs that he eventually released on his album ''[[Dust Bowl Ballads]]''.

{{quote box
|width=45%
|align=right
|quote=This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.
|source= —Written by Guthrie in the late 1930s on a songbook distributed to listeners of his Los Angeles radio show ''Woody and Lefty Lou'', who wanted the words to his recordings.<ref name="curtis"/>}}

While at KFVD, Guthrie met newscaster Ed Robbin. Robbin was impressed with a song Guthrie wrote about political activist [[Thomas Mooney]], wrongly convicted in a case that was a [[cause célèbre]] of the time.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/139 139]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Robbin, who became Guthrie's political mentor, introduced Guthrie to socialists and Communists in Southern California, including Will Geer. (He introduced Guthrie to writer John Steinbeck.)<ref>{{cite book|last=Kaufman|first=William|title=Woody Guthrie: American Radical|year=2011|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana|isbn=978-0252036026}}</ref> Robbin remained Guthrie's lifelong friend, and helped Guthrie book benefit performances in the communist circles in Southern California.

Notwithstanding Guthrie's later claim that "the best thing that I did in 1936 was to sign up with the [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]]",<ref>Woody Guthrie Archives. "My Constitution and Me" [http://woodyguthrie.org/ Woody Guthrie Archives Collection]. Manuscripts Box 7 Folder 23.1, Unavailable online, link to Woody Guthrie Archives website for contact information.</ref> he was never a member of the party. He was noted as a [[fellow traveler]]—an outsider who agreed with the platform of the party while avoiding party discipline.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/151 151]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Guthrie wrote a column for the communist newspaper, ''[[People's World]]''. The column, titled "Woody Sez", appeared a total of 174&nbsp;times from May 1939 to January 1940. "Woody Sez" was not explicitly political, but it covered current events as observed by Guthrie. He wrote the columns in an [[eye dialect|exaggerated hillbilly dialect]] and usually included a small comic.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/153 153]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> These columns were published posthumously as a collection after Guthrie's death.<ref name="Spivey"/>

With the outbreak of World War II and publicity about the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact|non-aggression pact]] the [[Soviet Union]] had signed with Germany in 1939, the owners of KFVD radio did not want its staff "spinning apologia" for the Soviet Union. They fired both Robbin and Guthrie.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/160 160]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Without the daily radio show, Guthrie's employment chances declined, and he returned with his family to Pampa, Texas. Although Mary was happy to return to Texas, Guthrie preferred to accept Will Geer's invitation to New York City and headed east.<ref name=":1" />

===1940s: Building a legacy===

====New York City====
Arriving in New York, Guthrie, known as "the Oklahoma cowboy", was embraced by its folk music community.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.beachamjournal.com/journal/2014/07/woody-guthrie-was-born-102-years-old-today.html|title=After 102 Years, Woody Guthrie's Impact Still As Vital As Ever|website=Frank Beacham's Journal|access-date=January 12, 2018|archive-date=January 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180112160146/http://www.beachamjournal.com/journal/2014/07/woody-guthrie-was-born-102-years-old-today.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=GU006|title=Guthrie, Woodrow Wilson {{!}} The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture|website=www.okhistory.org|access-date=June 17, 2018}}</ref> For a time, he slept on a couch in [[Will Geer]]'s apartment. Guthrie made his first recordings—several hours of conversation and songs recorded by the folklorist [[Alan Lomax]] for the [[Library of Congress]]—as well as an album, ''[[Dust Bowl Ballads]],'' for [[Victor Records]] in [[Camden, New Jersey]].<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/174 174]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref>

{{Listen|filename=Woody Guthrie - This Land.ogg|title="This Land is Your Land"|description=Sample of Woody Guthrie's song, "This Land is Your Land"|format=[[Ogg]]}}

In February 1940, he wrote his most famous song, "[[This Land Is Your Land]]", as a response to what he felt was an overplaying of [[Irving Berlin]]'s "[[God Bless America]]" on the radio. Guthrie thought the lyrics were unrealistic and complacent.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;144.</ref> He adapted the melody from an old gospel song, "Oh My Loving Brother", which had been adapted by the country group the [[Carter Family]] for their song "Little Darling Pal Of Mine". Guthrie signed the manuscript with the comment, "All you can write is what you see."<ref name="Ed Cray 2004 165">{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/165 165]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Although the song was written in 1940, it was four years before he recorded it for [[Moses Asch]] in April 1944.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;287.</ref> Sheet music was produced and given to schools by [[Howie Richmond]] sometime later.<ref>Joe Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;375.</ref>

In March 1940, Guthrie was invited to play at a benefit hosted by the John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Farm Workers, to raise money for migrant workers. There he met the folk singer [[Pete Seeger]], and the two men became good friends.<ref name="Ed Cray 2004 165"/> Seeger accompanied Guthrie back to Texas to meet other members of the Guthrie family. He recalled an awkward conversation with Mary Guthrie's mother, in which she asked for Seeger's help to persuade Guthrie to treat her daughter better.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/188 188]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref>

From April 1940, Guthrie and Seeger lived together in the Greenwich Village loft of sculptor [[Harold Ambellan]] and his fiancée. Guthrie had some success in New York at this time as a guest on [[CBS]]'s radio program ''Back Where I Come From'' and used his influence to get a spot on the show for his friend [[Lead Belly|Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter]]. Ledbetter's Tenth Street apartment was a gathering spot for the musician circle in New York at the time, and Guthrie and Ledbetter were good friends, as they had busked together at bars in Harlem.<ref>{{cite book|pages=194–195|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref>

In November 1941, Seeger introduced Guthrie to his friend the poet [[Charles Olson]], then a junior editor at the fledgling magazine ''[[Common Ground (magazine)|Common Ground]]''. The meeting led to Guthrie writing the article "Ear Players" in the Spring 1942 issue of the magazine. The article marked Guthrie's debut as a published writer in the mainstream media.<ref name="Cray2006">{{cite book|first=Ed|last=Cray|title=Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l5OnliWZY0gC&pg=PA228|access-date=January 30, 2013|date=March 17, 2006|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=978-0-393-32736-6|page=241}}</ref>

In September 1940, Guthrie was invited by the Model Tobacco Company to host their radio program ''Pipe Smoking Time''. Guthrie was paid $180 a week, an impressive salary in 1940.<ref name="cray197">{{cite book|page=197|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> He was finally making enough money to send regular payments back to Mary. He also brought her and the children to New York, where the family lived briefly in an apartment on [[Central Park West]]. The reunion represented Woody's desire to be a better father and husband. He said, "I have to set {{sic}} real hard to think of being a dad."<ref name=cray197/> Guthrie quit after the seventh broadcast, claiming he had begun to feel the show was too restrictive when he was told what to sing.<ref name="Cray200">{{cite book|page=200|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Disgruntled with New York, Guthrie packed up Mary and his children in a new car and headed west to California.<ref>{{cite book|page=199|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref>

Choreographer [[Sophie Maslow]] developed ''[[Folksay]]'' as an elaborate mix of modern dance and ballet, which combined folk songs by Woody Guthrie with text from [[Carl Sandburg]]'s 1936 book-length poem ''[[The People, Yes]]''. The premiere took place in March 1942 at the Humphrey-Weidman Studio Theatre in New York City. Guthrie provided live music for the performance, which featured Maslow and her New Dance Group. Two and a half years later, Maslow brought ''[[Folksay]]'' to early television under the direction of Leo Hurwitz. The same group performed the ballet live in front of [[CBS]] TV cameras. The 30-minute broadcast aired on WCBW, the pioneer CBS television station in New York City (now [[WCBS-TV]]), from 8:15–8:45&nbsp;pm ET on November 24, 1944. Featured were Maslow and the New Dance Group, which included among others Jane Dudley, Pearl Primus, and William Bales. Woody Guthrie and fellow folk singer Tony Kraber played guitar, sang songs, and read text from ''The People, Yes''. The program received positive reviews and was performed on television over WCBW a second time in early 1945.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tvobscurities.com/2016/10/tales-of-lost-tv-folksay/|title=Tales of Lost TV: Folksay (1944)|first=Robert|last=Jay|date=October 20, 2016|website=Television Obscurities}}</ref>

====Pacific Northwest====
[[File:The Columbia.ogv|alt=A black-and-white image of a river|thumb|Video: In 1941 Guthrie wrote songs for ''The Columbia'', a documentary about the [[Columbia River]] released in 1949. Playing time 21:10.]]

In May 1941, after a brief stay in Los Angeles, Guthrie moved to [[Portland, Oregon]], in the [[Lents, Portland, Oregon|neighborhood of Lents]], on the promise of a job. [[Gunther von Fritsch]] was directing a documentary about the [[Bonneville Power Administration]]'s construction of the [[Grand Coulee Dam]] on the [[Columbia River]], and needed a narrator. Alan Lomax had recommended Guthrie to narrate the film and sing songs onscreen. The original project was expected to take 12 months, but as filmmakers became worried about casting such a political figure, they minimized Guthrie's role. The [[United States Department of the Interior|Department of the Interior]] hired him for one month to write songs about the [[Columbia River]] and the construction of the federal dams for the documentary's soundtrack. Guthrie toured the Columbia River and the Pacific Northwest. Guthrie said he "couldn't believe it, it's a paradise",<ref>{{cite book|page=209|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> which appeared to inspire him creatively. In one month Guthrie wrote 26 songs, including three of his most famous: "[[Roll On, Columbia, Roll On]]", "[[Pastures of Plenty]]", and "[[Grand Coulee Dam (song)|Grand Coulee Dam]]".<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', pp.&nbsp;195, 196, 202, 205, 212</ref> The surviving songs were released as ''[[The Columbia River Collection (Woody Guthrie Album)|Columbia River Songs]]''. The film "Columbia" was not completed until 1949 (see below). At the conclusion of the month in Oregon and Washington, Guthrie wanted to return to New York. Tired of the continual uprooting, Mary Guthrie told him to go without her and the children.<ref>{{cite book|page=213|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Although Guthrie would see Mary again, once on a tour through Los Angeles with the Almanac Singers, it was essentially the end of their marriage. Divorce was difficult, since Mary was a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]], but she reluctantly agreed in December 1943.<ref>{{cite book|page=266|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref>

====Almanac Singers====
{{Main|Almanac Singers}}
[[Image:Woody Guthrie NYWTS.jpg|right|thumb|Woody Guthrie, 1943]]

Following the conclusion of his work in the Northwest, Guthrie corresponded with [[Pete Seeger]] about Seeger's newly formed folk-protest group, the [[Almanac Singers]]. Guthrie returned to New York with plans to tour the country as a member of the group.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.192-93,195–231</ref> The singers originally worked out of a loft in New York City hosting regular concerts called "[[hootenanny|hootenannies]]", a word Pete and Woody had picked up in their cross-country travels. The singers eventually outgrew the space and moved into the cooperative Almanac House in [[Greenwich Village]].

Initially, Guthrie helped write and sing what the Almanac Singers termed "peace" songs while the Nazi–Soviet Pact was in effect. After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, the group wrote anti-fascist songs. The members of the Almanac Singers and residents of the Almanac House were a loosely defined group of musicians, though the core members included Guthrie, [[Pete Seeger]], [[Millard Lampell]] and [[Lee Hays]]. In keeping with common utopian ideals, meals, chores and rent at the Almanac House were shared. The Sunday hootenannies were good opportunities to collect donation money for rent. Songs written in the Almanac House had shared songwriting credits among all the members, although in the case of "[[Union Maid]]", members would later state that Guthrie wrote the song, ensuring that his children would receive residuals.<ref>{{cite book|page=220|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref>

In the Almanac House, Guthrie added authenticity to their work, since he was a "real" working class Oklahoman. "There was the heart of America personified in Woody ... And for a New York Left that was primarily Jewish, first or second generation American, and was desperately trying to get Americanized, I think a figure like Woody was of great, great importance", a friend of the group, [[Irwin Silber]], would say.<ref>{{cite book|page=216|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Woody routinely emphasized his working-class image, rejected songs he felt were not in the country blues vein he was familiar with, and rarely contributed to household chores. House member [[Sis Cunningham|Agnes "Sis" Cunningham]], another Okie, would later recall that Woody "loved people to think of him as a real working class person and not an intellectual".<ref>{{cite book|page=231|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Guthrie contributed songwriting and authenticity in much the same capacity for Pete Seeger's post-Almanac Singers project ''[[People's Songs]]'', a newsletter and booking organization for labor singers, founded in 1945.<ref name="PS1">People's Songs Inc. ''People's Songs Newsletter, Vol 1. No 1.''. 1945. [[Old Town School of Folk Music]] resource center collection.</ref>

====''Bound for Glory''====
Guthrie was a prolific writer, penning thousands of pages of unpublished poems and prose, many written while living in New York City. After a recording session with Alan Lomax, Lomax suggested Guthrie write an autobiography. Lomax thought Guthrie's descriptions of growing up were some of the best accounts he had read of American childhood.<ref>{{cite book|page=201|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> During this time, Guthrie met Marjorie Mazia (the professional name of Marjorie Greenblatt), a dancer in New York who would become his second wife. Mazia was an instructor at the [[Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance|Martha Graham Dance School]], where she was assisting [[Sophie Maslow]] with her piece ''Folksay''. Based on the folklore and poetry collected by [[Carl Sandburg]], ''Folksay'' included the adaptation of some of Guthrie's ''Dust Bowl Ballads'' for the dance.<ref name=Cray200/> Guthrie continued to write songs and began work on his autobiography. The end product, [[Bound for Glory (book)|''Bound for Glory'']], was completed with editing assistance by Mazia and was first published by E.P. Dutton in 1943.<ref>Amazon.com. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0007E0CZ2 ''Bound for Glory'' (Unknown Binding).] Retrieved November 27, 2007.</ref> It is told in the artist's down-home dialect. The ''Library Journal'' complained about the "too careful reproduction of illiterate speech". However, Clifton Fadiman, reviewing the book in ''[[The New Yorker]]'', remarked that "Someday people are going to wake up to the fact that Woody Guthrie and the ten thousand songs that leap and tumble off the strings of his music box are a national possession, like [[Yellowstone]] and [[Yosemite]], and part of the best stuff this country has to show the world."<ref>Isserman, Maurice [https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2004-01-18-0401170325-story.html "Life of Woody Guthrie is thorough, if unoriginal"], ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', Chicago, January 18, 2004. Retrieved on March 9, 2021.</ref>

This book was the inspiration for the movie ''[[Bound for Glory (1976 film)|Bound for Glory]]'', starring [[David Carradine]], which won the 1976 [[Academy Award for Original Music Score]] for Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score, and the [[National Board of Review Award for Best Actor]], among other accolades.

In 1944, Guthrie met [[Moses Asch|Moses "Moe" Asch]] of [[Folkways Records]], for whom he first recorded "This Land Is Your Land". Over the next few years, he recorded "[[Worried Man Blues]]", along with [[Woody Guthrie discography#1944 & 1945, The Asch Recordings|hundreds of other songs]]. These recordings would later be released by Folkways and Stinson Records, which had joint distribution rights.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;417.</ref> The Folkways recordings are available (through the [[Smithsonian Institution]] online shop); the most complete series of these sessions, culled from dates with Asch, is titled ''[[The Asch Recordings (Woody Guthrie Album)|The Asch Recordings]]''.

===World War II years===
Guthrie believed performing his anti-fascist songs and poems in the United States was the best use of his talents.

<!-- Commented out: [[File:NBC Red Network.png|thumb|right|[[NBC Red Network]] logo]] -->
====Labor for Victory====
In April 1942, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine reported that the [[American Federation of Labor|AFL]] (American Federation of Labor) and the [[Congress of Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) had agreed to a joint radio production, called ''Labor for Victory''. NBC agreed to run the weekly segment as a "public service". The AFL and CIO presidents [[William Green (U.S. labor leader)|William Green]] and [[Philip Murray]] agreed to let their press chiefs, [[Philip Pearl]] and [[Len De Caux]], narrate on alternate weeks. The show ran on NBC radio on Saturdays 10:15–10:30&nbsp;pm, starting on April 25, 1942. ''Time'' wrote, "De Caux and Pearl hope to make the Labor for Victory program popular enough for an indefinite run, using labor news, name speakers and interviews with workmen. Labor partisanship, they promise, is out."<ref>
{{cite magazine
| title = Radio: Labor Goes on Air
| magazine = Time magazine
| url = https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,790387,00.html
| date = April 20, 1942
| access-date = July 27, 2017}}</ref><ref name="NBC">
{{cite book
| first = Michele
| last = Hilmes
| title = NBC: America's Network
| publisher = University of California Press
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=rovD3dy-vDoC
| page = 73
| place = Berkeley
| date = 2007
| access-date = July 27, 2017| isbn = 9780520250819
}}</ref> Writers for ''Labor for Victory'' included: Peter Lyon, a progressive journalist; [[Millard Lampell]] (born Allan Sloane), later an American movie and television screenwriter; and Morton Wishengrad, who worked for the AFL.<ref>
{{cite book
| editor-first = Christopher H.
| editor-last = Sterling
| title = Biographical Dictionary of Radio
| publisher = Routledge
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=XDB5mn0OMXoC
| page = 293
| date = May 13, 2013
| access-date = July 27, 2017| isbn = 978-1136993763
}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
| editor-first = Christopher H.
| editor-last = Sterling
| editor-first2 = Cary
| editor-last2 = O'Dell
| title = The Concise Dictionary of America Radio
| publisher = Routledge
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=dmmLAgAAQBA
| page = 563
| date = April 12, 2010
| access-date = July 27, 2017
}}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

For entertainment on CIO episodes, De Caux asked singer and songwriter Woody Guthrie to contribute to the show. "Personally, I would like to see a phonograph record made of your 'Girl in the Red, White, and Blue.{{' "}}<ref name=":1">
{{cite book
| editor-first = John S.
| editor-last = Partington
| title = The Life, Music and Thought of Woody Guthrie: A Critical Appraisal
| publisher = Routledge
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=QNIYDQAAQBAJ
| date = September 17, 2016
| access-date = July 27, 2017| isbn = 9781317025443
}}</ref> The title appears in at least one collection of Guthrie records.<ref>{{cite web
| title = Woodie Guthrie: American Radical Patriot
| publisher = WoodieGuthrie.org
| url = http://www.woodyguthrie.org/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TWGS&Product_Code=WGARP&Category_Code=
| access-date = July 27, 2017
| archive-date = January 11, 2018
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180111224247/http://www.woodyguthrie.org/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TWGS&Product_Code=WGARP&Category_Code=
| url-status = dead
}}</ref> Guthrie consented and performed solo two or three times on this program (among several other WWII radio shows, including ''Answering You'', ''Labor for Victory'', ''Jazz in America'', and ''We the People'').<ref>
{{cite journal
 |last=Jackson
 |first=Mark
 |date=2001
 |title=In Search of Woody Guthrie at the Library of Congress
 |journal=Folklife Center News
 |url=https://www.loc.gov/folklife/news/pdf/FCNxxiii2.pdf
 |volume=23
 |pages=7–9
 |access-date = August 2, 2017}}</ref><ref>
{{cite book
| first = R. Serge
| last = Denisoff
| title = Folk Consciousness: People's Music and American Communism
| publisher = Simon Fraser University
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_xDaAAAAMAAJ
| page = 241
| date = 1968
| access-date = July 27, 2017}}</ref><ref>
{{cite book
| editor-first  = Robert
| editor-last   = Santelli
| editor-first2 = Emily
| editor-last2  = Davidson
| title         = Hard Travelin': The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie
| publisher     = Wesleyan University Press
| url           = https://books.google.com/books?id=CJIp65eNkCUC
| page          = 241
| date          = 1999
| access-date   = July 27, 2017| isbn = 9780819563910
}}</ref> On August 29, 1942, he performed "The Farmer-Labor Train", with lyrics he had written to the tune of "[[Wabash Cannonball]]". (In 1948, he reworked the "Wabash Cannonball" melody as "The Wallace-Taylor Train" for the [[1948 Progressive National Convention]], which nominated former U.S. Vice President [[Henry A. Wallace]] for president.)<ref>
{{cite book
| first = Bill
| last = Nowlin
| title = Woody Guthrie: American Radical Patriot
| publisher = Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.
| page = 170
| date = 2013
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web
| title = Farmer-Labor Train
| publisher = Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.
| url = http://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Farmer-Labor_Train.htm
| access-date = September 5, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
| title = Woody Guthrie American Radical Patriot, 2013
| publisher = Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.
| url = http://www.woodyguthrie.org/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TWGS&Product_Code=WGARP&Category_Code=
| access-date = September 5, 2017
| archive-date = January 11, 2018
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180111224247/http://www.woodyguthrie.org/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TWGS&Product_Code=WGARP&Category_Code=
| url-status = dead
}}</ref> The [[Almanac Singers]] (of which Guthrie and Lampell were co-founders) appeared on ''The Treasury Hour'' and CBS Radio's ''We the People''. The latter was later produced as a [[We the People (U.S. TV series)|television series]].<ref>
{{cite book
| first = Will
| last = Kaufman
| title = Woody Guthrie, American Radical
| publisher = University of Illinois Press
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uQop2edOXrkC
| page = 84

| date = October 1, 2012
| access-date = August 2, 2017| isbn = 9780199977086
}}</ref> (Also, [[Marc Blitzstein]]'s papers show that Guthrie made some contributions to four CIO episodes (dated June 20, June 27, August 1, August 15, 1948) of ''Labor for Victory.''<ref>
{{cite book
| first = Howard
| last = Pollack
| title = Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World
| publisher = Oxford University Press
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uQop2edOXrkC
| place = London, New York
| date = July 31, 2017
| access-date = July 27, 2017| isbn = 9780199977086
}}</ref>) While ''Labor for Victory'' was a milestone in theory as a national platform, in practice it proved less so. Only 35 of 104 NBC affiliates carried the show.<ref name=NBC /><ref>
{{cite book
| first = Elizabeth A.
| last = Fones-Wolf
| title = Waves of Opposition: Labor and the Struggle for Democratic Radio
| publisher = University of Illinois Press
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=bABsxfphOM8C
| page = 103
| date = 2006
| access-date = July 27, 2017| isbn = 9780252073649
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite book
| first = Nathan
| last = Godfried
| title = WCFL, Chicago's Voice of Labor, 1926-78
| publisher = University of Illinois Press
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=wd_PDZkvS8cC
| page = 210
| date = 1997
| access-date = July 27, 2017| isbn = 9780252065927
}}</ref> Episodes included the announcement that the show represented "twelve million organized men and women, united in the high resolve to rid the world of Fascism in 1942". Speakers included [[Donald E. Montgomery]], then "consumer's counselor" at the [[U.S. Department of Agriculture]].<ref>
{{cite web
| title = Labor for Victory
| publisher = Pandora
| url = https://www.pandora.com/artist/woody-guthrie/american-radical-patriot/labor-for-victory/TR5VhxmjbZXZ39g
| access-date = July 27, 2017}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web
| title = Labor for Victory
| website = Amazon
| url = https://www.amazon.com/Labor-For-Victory/dp/B00FTU97CI
| access-date = July 27, 2017}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web
| title = Labor for Victory
| publisher = SoundCloud
| url = https://soundcloud.com/woody-guthrie-official/labor-for-victory
| access-date = July 27, 2017}}</ref>

====Merchant Marine====
Guthrie lobbied the United States Army to accept him as a [[USO]] performer instead of conscripting him as a soldier in the draft.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} When Guthrie's attempts failed, his friends [[Cisco Houston]] and Jim Longhi persuaded the singer to join the [[United States Merchant Marine|U.S. Merchant Marine]] in June 1943.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', pp.&nbsp;277–80,&nbsp;287–91.</ref> He made several voyages aboard merchant ships SS ''William B. Travis'', SS ''William Floyd'', and SS ''Sea Porpoise'', while they traveled in [[convoy]]s during the [[Battle of the Atlantic]]. He served as a mess man and dishwasher, and frequently sang for the crew and troops to buoy their spirits on transatlantic voyages. His first ship, ''William B. Travis'', hit a mine in the [[Mediterranean Sea]], killing one person aboard, but the ship sailed to [[Bizerte]], Tunisia under her own power.<ref>Robert Cressman, ''The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II'', Naval Institute Press (1999), p. 180.</ref>

His last ship, ''Sea Porpoise'', took troops from the United States to England and France for the [[D-Day]] invasion. Guthrie was aboard when the ship was torpedoed off [[Utah Beach]] by the [[German submarine U-390]] on July 5, 1944, injuring 12 of the crew. Guthrie was unhurt and the ship stayed afloat; Sea Porpoise returned to England, where she was repaired at [[Newcastle upon Tyne|Newcastle]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/3285.html|title=Sea Porpoise (American Steam merchant) - Ships hit by German U-boats during WWII - uboat.net|website=uboat.net}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=April 2023}} In July 1944, she returned to the United States.<ref>Ronald D. Cohen, ''Woody Guthrie: Writing America's Songs'', pp. 28–29.</ref>

Guthrie was an active supporter of the [[National Maritime Union]], one of many unions for wartime American merchant sailors. Guthrie wrote songs about his experience in the Merchant Marine but was never satisfied with them. Longhi later wrote about Guthrie's marine experiences in his book ''Woody, Cisco and Me''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Longhi |first=Jim |title=Woody, Cisco and Me |year=1997 |publisher=[[Random House]] |isbn=0-252-02276-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/woodyciscomeseam00long }}</ref> The book offers a rare first-hand account of Guthrie during his [[United States Merchant Marine|Merchant Marine]] service, at one point describing how Guthrie referred to his guitar as a "Hoping Machine". But later during duty aboard the troop ship, Guthrie built an actual "Hoping Machine" made of cloth, whirligigs and discarded metal attached to a railing at the stern, aimed at lifting the soldiers' spirits. In 1945, the government decided that Guthrie's association with communism excluded him from further service in the Merchant Marine; he was drafted into the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]].<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', pp.&nbsp;302–03.</ref>

While he was on [[Wiktionary:furlough|furlough]] from the Army, Guthrie married Marjorie.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;312.</ref> After his discharge, they moved into a house on Mermaid Avenue in [[Coney Island]] and over time had four children: daughters Cathy and [[Nora Guthrie|Nora]]; and sons [[Arlo Guthrie|Arlo]] and Joady. Cathy died as a result of a fire at the age of four, and Guthrie suffered a serious depression from his grief.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;344–351.</ref> Arlo and Joady followed in their father's footsteps as singer-songwriters.

When his family was young, Guthrie wrote and recorded ''[[Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child]]'', a collection of [[children's music]], which includes the song "Goodnight Little Arlo (Goodnight Little Darlin')", written when Arlo was about nine years old. During 1947, he wrote ''House of Earth'', an historical novel containing explicit sexual material, about a couple who build a house made of clay and earth to withstand the [[Dust Bowl]]'s brutal weather. He could not get it published.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/2013/02/05/170496691/woodie-guthries-house-of-earth-calls-this-land-home |title=Woody Guthrie's 'House of Earth' Calls 'This Land' Home |last1=Neary |first1=Lynn |date=February 5, 2013 |publisher=[[NPR]] |access-date=February 5, 2013}}</ref> It was published posthumously in 2013, by [[Harper (publisher)|Harper]], under actor [[Johnny Depp]]'s publishing imprint, [[Infinitum Nihil]].

Guthrie was also a prolific sketcher and painter, his images ranging from simple, impressionistic images to free and characterful drawings, typically of the people in his songs.

In 1949, Guthrie's music was used in the documentary film ''Columbia River'', which explored government dams and hydroelectric projects on the river.<ref>{{cite video
 | year =1949
 | title =Video: The Columbia (1949)
 | url =https://archive.org/details/gov.fdr.353.3.4
 | publisher =[[United States Department of the Interior]]
 | access-date =February 22, 2012
}}</ref> Guthrie had been commissioned by the US [[Bonneville Power Administration]] in 1941 to write songs for the project, but it had been postponed by World War II.<ref>{{cite news
 |title        = Ten Dollars a Song: Woody Guthrie Sells His Talent to the Bonneville Power Administration
 |work         = Columbia Magazine
 |date         =Spring 2001
 |volume       = 15
 |issue        = 1
 |first        = Robert C.
 |last         = Carriker
 |url          = http://columbia.washingtonhistory.org/anthology/fromwartowar/woodyGuthrie.aspx
 |access-date  = February 23, 2012
|archive-date = March 29, 2013
|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20130329193008/http://columbia.washingtonhistory.org/anthology/fromwartowar/woodyGuthrie.aspx
 |url-status   = dead
}}</ref>

===Post-war: Mermaid Avenue===
[[File:10 of the Woody Guthrie songs - contact details.png|alt=|thumb|This page from a collection of Guthrie's sheet music published in 1946 includes his Mermaid Avenue address and one of his [[anti-fascism|anti-fascist]] slogans]]
The years immediately after the war when he lived on Mermaid Avenue were among Guthrie's most productive as a writer. His extensive writings from this time were archived and maintained by Marjorie and later his estate, mostly handled by his daughter Nora. Several of the manuscripts also contain writing by a young Arlo and the other Guthrie children.<ref>{{cite web|last=WoodyGuthrie.org |title=Woody Guthrie Archives |url=http://www.woodyguthrie.org/archives/archivesindex.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060713144650/http://www.woodyguthrie.org/archives/archivesindex.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 13, 2006 |access-date=April 10, 2007 }}</ref>

During this time [[Ramblin' Jack Elliott]] studied extensively under Guthrie, visiting his home and observing how he wrote<!--wrote music or words?--> and performed. Elliott, like [[Bob Dylan]] later, idolized Guthrie. He was inspired by the singer's idiomatic performance style and repertoire. Because of the decline caused by Guthrie's progressive [[Huntington's disease]], Arlo Guthrie and Bob Dylan both later said that they had learned much of Guthrie's performance style from Elliott. When asked about this, Elliott said, "I was flattered. Dylan learned from me the same way I learned from Woody. Woody didn't teach me. He just said, If you want to learn something, just steal it—that's the way I learned from [[Lead Belly]]."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3495000026.html|title=Elliott, Ramblin' Jack|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia.com (quote from a 1984 [[Esquire magazine]] interview with Randy Sue Coburn)|access-date=June 3, 2016}}</ref>

==Later life and death==

=== Deteriorating health due to Huntington's ===
By the late 1940s, Guthrie's health was declining, and his behavior was becoming extremely erratic. He received various diagnoses (including [[alcoholism]] and [[schizophrenia]]). In 1952, it was finally determined that he was suffering from [[Huntington's disease]],<ref name="Celebrity Diagnosis"/> a genetic disorder inherited from his mother. Believing him to be a danger to their children because of his behavior, Marjorie suggested he return to California without her. They eventually divorced<!--or, they divorced in[year]-->.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;388–94,&nbsp;399.</ref>

Upon his return to California, Guthrie lived at the [[Theatricum Botanicum]], a [[Summer stock theatre|summer-stock type theatre]] founded and owned by [[Will Geer]]. Together with singers and actors who had been blacklisted by [[HUAC]], he waited out the [[anti-communist]] political climate.

As his health worsened, he met and married his third wife, Anneke van Kirk. They had a child, Lorina Lynn. The couple moved to [[Fruit Cove, Florida]], where they briefly lived. They lived in a bus on land called Beluthahatchee, owned by his friend [[Stetson Kennedy]]. Guthrie's arm was hurt in an accident when gasoline used to start the campfire exploded. Although he regained movement in the arm, he was never able to play the guitar again. In 1954, the couple returned to New York,<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;418–19.</ref> living in the Beach Haven apartment complex owned and operated by [[Fred Trump]] in [[Gravesend, Brooklyn]]; Guthrie composed there the song "[[Old Man Trump]]". Shortly after, Anneke filed for divorce, a result of the strain of caring for Guthrie. Anneke left New York after arranging for friends to adopt Lorina Lynn. Lorina had no further contact with her birth parents. She died in a car crash in California in 1973 at the age of 19.<ref name="Ed Cray 2006 16" /> After the divorce, Guthrie's second wife, Marjorie, re-entered his life and cared for him until his death.

Increasingly unable to control his muscles, Guthrie was hospitalized at [[Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital]] in Morris County, New Jersey, from 1956 to 1961; at Brooklyn State Hospital (now Kingsboro Psychiatric Center) in [[East Flatbush, Brooklyn|East Flatbush]] until 1966;<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;433–39</ref> and finally at [[Creedmoor Psychiatric Center]] in [[Queens Village, Queens|Queens Village]], New York, until his death in 1967.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;460.</ref> Marjorie and the children visited Guthrie at Greystone every Sunday. They answered fan mail and the children played on the hospital grounds. Eventually, a longtime fan of Guthrie invited the family to his nearby home for the Sunday visits. This lasted until Guthrie was moved to the Brooklyn State Hospital, which was closer to [[Howard Beach, Queens|Howard Beach]], New York, where Marjorie and the children then lived.

During the final few years of his life, Guthrie had become isolated except for family. By 1965, he was unable to speak, often moving his arms or rolling his eyes to communicate.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/this-genetic-brain-disorder-turned-woody-guthries-life-from-songs-to-suffering |title=This genetic brain disorder turned Woody Guthrie's life from songs to suffering |date=July 14, 2019 |website=PBS NewsHour}}</ref> The progression of Huntington's threw Guthrie into extreme emotional states, causing him to lash out at those nearby and to damage a prized book collection of Anneke's.<ref>{{Cite book |title=DNA is Not Destiny |last=Heine |first=Steven |publisher=W.W. Norton and Co. |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-393-24408-3 |location=New York, NY |page=79}}</ref> Huntington's symptoms include uncharacteristic aggression, emotional volatility, and social disinhibition.<ref>Huntington's Outreach Project for Education,  [https://web.stanford.edu/group/hopes/cgi-bin/wordpress/2010/06/the-behavioral-symptoms-of-huntingtons-disease/#what-are-some-of-the-behavior-changes-that-occur-in-people-with-hd stanford.edu]. Retrieved January 4, 2015.</ref>

Guthrie's death increased awareness of the disease. Marjorie helped found the Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease, which became the [[Huntington's Disease Society of America]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Arévalo |first1=Jorge |last2=Wojcieszek |first2=Joanne |last3=Conneally |first3=P. Michael |title=Tracing Woody Guthrie and Huntington's Disease |journal=Seminars in Neurology |date=2001 |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=209–224 |doi=10.1055/s-2001-15269 |pmid=11442329 |s2cid=19299299 }}</ref> None of Guthrie's three surviving children with Marjorie have developed symptoms of Huntington's.

His son Bill (with his first wife Mary Guthrie) died in an auto-train accident in [[Pomona, California]], at the age of 23.<ref>Cray, pg 394.</ref> His two daughters with Mary, Gwendolyn and Sue, both inherited Huntington's disease and died at age 41.<ref>{{cite book |page=394 |first=Ed |last=Cray |date=2004 |title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie |url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr |url-access=registration |publisher= W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=9780393047592}}</ref>

===Folk revival and death===
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a new generation of young people were inspired by folk singers such as Guthrie. The [[American folk music revival|American Folk Revival]] was beginning to take place, focused on the issues of the day, such as the [[civil rights movement]] and [[Free Speech Movement]]. Pockets of folk singers were forming around the country in places such as [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], and the [[Greenwich Village]] neighborhood of New York City. One of Guthrie's visitors at Greystone Park was the 19-year-old [[Bob Dylan]],<ref>Dylan, ''Chronicles, Volume One'', p. 98.</ref> who idolized Guthrie. Dylan wrote of Guthrie's repertoire: "The songs themselves were really beyond category. They had the infinite sweep of humanity in them."<ref>Dylan, ''Chronicles, Volume One'', p. 244.</ref> After learning of Guthrie's whereabouts, Dylan regularly visited him.<ref>{{cite magazine | title = Let Us Now Praise Little Men | date=May 31, 1983|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896825,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001015114/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896825,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 1, 2007 | magazine=Time Magazine |access-date = April 10, 2007 }}</ref>

Woody Guthrie died at [[Creedmoor Psychiatric Center]] of complications of [[Huntington's disease]] on October 3, 1967.<ref>{{cite news |title=Woody Guthrie, Folk Singer and Composer, Dies; Rambler and Balladeer of the American Scene Was 55 His 1,000 Songs Told of Dust Bowls and Endless Skyways |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/10/04/archives/woody-guthrie-folk-singer-and-composer-dies-rambler-and-balladeer.html |access-date=August 19, 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=October 4, 1967}}</ref> According to a Guthrie family legend, he was listening to his son Arlo's "[[Alice's Restaurant]]", a recording of which Arlo had delivered to Woody's bedside, shortly before he died.<ref name=npr2005>[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5028273 Arlo Guthrie, Remembering 'Alice's Restaurant']. ''NPR Music'' (November 26, 2015). Retrieved October 24, 2015.</ref> His remains were cremated and scattered at sea.<ref>{{cite news |title=Long illness kills singer Woody Guthrie |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1967/10/04/Long-illness-kills-singer-Woody-Guthrie/3561507006753/ |access-date=August 19, 2022 |work=United Press International |date=October 4, 1967}}</ref> By the time of Guthrie's death, his work had been discovered by a new audience, introduced to them through Dylan, [[Pete Seeger]], [[Ramblin' Jack Elliott]], his ex-wife [[Marjorie Guthrie|Marjorie]], and other new members of the folk revival, including his son [[Arlo Guthrie]].

For a December 3, 1944 radio show, Guthrie wrote a script explaining why he sang the kinds of songs he did, reading it on air:

<blockquote>I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling.

I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it's hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.<ref>{{cite book|page=294|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref></blockquote>

==Personal life==
===Marriage and family===
At age 20, Guthrie met and married his first wife, Oklahoma-born Mary Jennings (1917–2014),<!--She took the surname Guthrie after her marriage, thus, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography#People_with_the_same_surname, is referred to as "Mary" to distinguish her from "Woody".--> in Texas in 1931. They had three children together: Gwendolyn, Sue, and Bill.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;62.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.arlo.net/lineage.shtml|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121117010420/http://www.arlo.net/lineage.shtml|url-status=dead|title=Guthrie Family tree|archive-date=November 17, 2012}}</ref>
Bill died at the age of 23 as the result of an automobile accident. The daughters both died of Huntington's disease at the age of 41, in the 1970s. Evidently the disease had been passed on from their father, although Guthrie himself was diagnosed with the condition later in life, in 1952, when he was 43 years old. Guthrie and Mary divorced in 1940.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024|reason=The article tells they were still together in 1941, and that Mary agreed to divorce only in 1943}}

On November 13, 1945, Guthrie married [[Marjorie Guthrie|Marjorie Greenblatt]].<!--She took the surname Guthrie after her marriage, thus, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography#People_with_the_same_surname, is referred to as "Marjorie" to distinguish her from "Woody".--> They had four children: sons [[Arlo Guthrie|Arlo]] and Joady and daughters [[Nora Guthrie|Nora]] and Cathy. After Guthrie was admitted to [[Kingsboro psychiatric centre|Brooklyn State Hospital]] in 1952, doctors advised Marjorie to divorce him and take custody of the children because of Woody's raging paranoia and occasional violent acts against family members. They were divorced in 1953. Despite the divorce, she remained close to Woody for the rest of his life and supervised all of his complex health needs.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-07-14 |title=This genetic brain disorder turned Woody Guthrie's life from songs to suffering |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/this-genetic-brain-disorder-turned-woody-guthries-life-from-songs-to-suffering |access-date=2025-03-24 |website=PBS News |language=en-us}}</ref>

After his discharge from the hospital, Guthrie had a romantic relationship with Anneke van Kirk from late 1952, marrying her in 1953 and having a daughter, Lorinna Lynn. However, due to his deteriorating condition, this relationship led to their divorce just one year later.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rambling Round: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie {{!}} Articles and Essays {{!}} Woody Guthrie and the Archive of American Folk Song: Correspondence, 1940-1950 {{!}} Digital Collections {{!}} Library of Congress |url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/woody-guthrie-correspondence-from-1940-to-1950/articles-and-essays/rambling-round-the-life-and-times-of-woody-guthrie/ |access-date=2025-03-24 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}</ref> Guthrie had a total of eight children over his three relationships.

===Political views and relation to the Communist Party===
[[Socialism]] had an important impact on the work of Woody Guthrie. In the introduction to Will Kaufman’s book ''Woody Guthrie an American Radical'', Kaufman writes, "Woody Guthrie spent his productive life on the warpath-against poverty, political oppression, censorship, capitalism, [[fascism]], racism, and, ultimately, war itself."<ref name="978-0-252-03602-6">{{cite book |last1=Kaufman |first1=Will |title=Woody Guthrie, American Radical |date=2011 |publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |location=[[Champaign, Illinois]] |url=https://archive.org/details/woodyguthrieamer0000kauf |isbn=978-0-252-03602-6 |language=en}}</ref> Guthrie would time and time again back these beliefs up in his lyrics, specifically against capitalism at the height of the depression in the United States.

Guthrie never publicly declared himself a communist, though he was closely associated with the Communist Party. Kaufman writes: {{Blockquote| As he once claimed: "If you call me a Communist, I am very proud because it takes a wise and hard-working person to be a Communist" (quoted in Klein, p. 303). Klein also writes that Guthrie applied to join the Communist Party, but his application was turned down. In later years, he'd say, "I'm not a Communist, but I've been in the red all my life." He took great delight in proclaiming his hopes for a communist victory in the Korean War and more than once expressed his admiration for Stalin. Unlike his musical protégé, Pete Seeger, Guthrie never offered any regret for his Stalinism.<ref name=Kaufman2010/>}}

The matter of Guthrie's membership in the Communist Party, however, remains controversial. Scholar [[Ronald Radosh]] has written:

{{Blockquote|[H]is friends Gordon Friesen and Sis Cunningham, the founders in the 1960s of Broadside, and former members of the Almanac Singers, told me in a 1970s interview that Woody was a member of the same CP club as they were, and was regularly given a stack of The Daily Worker which he had to sell on the streets each day.<ref name="Radosh">{{cite journal |last1=Radosh |first1=Ronald |title=The Communist Party's Role in the Folk Revival: From Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan |journal=American Communist History |date=2 January 2015 |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=3–19 |doi=10.1080/14743892.2015.1013301 |s2cid=159878868 }}</ref>}}

Similarly, writer and historian [[Aaron J. Leonard]], in an article detailing Guthrie's Party membership for the [[History News Network]], quoted [[Pete Seeger]]:

{{Blockquote|On the other hand, Sis Cunningham, who was a much more disciplined person than either me or Woody, was in a Greenwich Village Branch of the Party. She got Woody in. She probably said, I'll see Woody acts responsibly.' And so Woody was briefly in the Communist Party.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Leonard |first1=Aaron |title=Woody Guthrie's Communism and "This Land Is Your Land" |url=http://hnn.us/article/177412 |website=History News Network |date=September 20, 2020 |publisher=hnn.us |access-date=17 May 2021}}</ref>}}

Leonard, in his book ''[[The Folk Singers and the Bureau]]'' also documents how the FBI treated Guthrie as if he were a member, adding him to various iterations of their [[Security Index]] – and keeping him on it till well into the early 1960s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rosenberg |first1=Daniel |title=The Folk Singers and the Bureau: The FBI, Folk Artists and the Suppression of the Communist Party, USA – 1939–1956: By Aaron J. Leonard, London, Repeater Books, 2020, 322 pp., US $16.95 (Paperback), ISBN 9780717807697 |journal=American Communist History |date=April 3, 2021 |volume=20 |issue=1–2 |pages=115–118 |doi=10.1080/14743892.2021.1918526 |s2cid=235689230 }}</ref>

After the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]], Guthrie took an antiwar U-turn and wrote one song describing the Soviet invasion of Poland as a favor to Polish farmers, and another attacking President Roosevelt's loans to Finland to help it defend against the Soviet Union's invasion in the 1939 [[Winter War]]. His attitude switched again in 1941 after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.<ref name=Kaufman2010/>

==Musical legacy==
===Woody Guthrie Foundation===
{{Main|Woody Guthrie Foundation}}

The Woody Guthrie Foundation is a non-profit organization that serves as administrator and caretaker of the Woody Guthrie Archives. The archives house the largest collection of Guthrie material in the world.<ref>BMI News. [http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/535470 3rd Annual Woody Guthrie Fellowship Program Opens]. September 21, 2007. Retrieved November 13, 2007.</ref> In 2013, the archives were relocated from New York City to the [[Woody Guthrie Center]] in [[Tulsa, Oklahoma]], after being purchased by the Tulsa-based [[George Kaiser]] Foundation.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/arts/music/woody-guthrie-gets-a-belated-honor-in-oklahoma.html?ref=arts&_r=0 ''New York Times''], December 28, 2011. Retrieved April 22, 2013.</ref> The Center officially opened on April 27, 2013.<ref>Tulsa World. [http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Woody_Guthrie_Center_in_Brady_Arts_District_grand_opening/20130421_272_D1_CUTLIN859146]. April 21, 2013. Retrieved April 22, 2013.</ref> The Woody Guthrie Center features, in addition to the archives, a museum focused on the life and the influence of Guthrie through his music, writings, art, and political activities. The museum is open to the public; the archives are open only to researchers by appointment. The archives contains thousands of items related to Guthrie, including original artwork, books, correspondence, lyrics, manuscripts, media, notebooks, periodicals, personal papers, photographs, scrapbooks, and other special collections.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://woodyguthriecenter.org/archives/ |title=Archives |publisher=Woody Guthrie Center |access-date=April 18, 2014}}</ref>

Guthrie's unrecorded written lyrics housed at the archives have been the starting point of several albums including the [[Wilco]] and [[Billy Bragg]] albums ''[[Mermaid Avenue]]'' and ''[[Mermaid Avenue Vol. II]]'', created in 1998 sessions at the invitation of Guthrie's daughter Nora.<ref>DVD Talk. [http://www.dvdtalk.com/noraguthrieinterview.html Nora Guthrie Interview] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090924073443/http://www.dvdtalk.com/noraguthrieinterview.html |date=September 24, 2009 }}. Retrieved January 28, 2008.</ref> [[Blackfire (American band)|Blackfire]] interpreted previously unreleased Guthrie lyrics.<ref>CD Baby. [http://cdbaby.com/cd/blackfire2 CD Release Announcement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111027174935/http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/blackfire2 |date=October 27, 2011 }}. Retrieved June 15, 2009.</ref> Jonatha Brooke's 2008 album, ''[[The Works (Jonatha Brooke album)|The Works]]'', includes lyrics from the Woody Guthrie Archives set to music by Jonatha Brooke.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jonathabrooke.com/music/the-works/?url=music/the-works |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080919114919/http://www.jonathabrooke.com/music/the-works/?url=music%2Fthe-works |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 19, 2008 |title=The Works |publisher=Jonatha Brooke |access-date=January 13, 2012 }}</ref> The various artists compilation ''Note of Hope: A Celebration of Woody Guthrie'' was released in 2011. [[Jay Farrar]], [[Will Johnson (musician)|Will Johnson]], [[Anders Parker]], and [[Jim James|Yim Yames]] recorded her father's lyrics for ''[[New Multitudes]]'' to honor the 100th anniversary of his birth and a [[Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions|box set of the Mermaid Avenue sessions]] was also released.

===Folk Festival===
{{Main|Woody Guthrie Folk Festival}}

The [[Woody Guthrie Folk Festival]], also known as "WoodyFest",<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.woodyfest.com/history/|title=History of the Festival|date=March 31, 2018|publisher=Woody Guthrie Folk Festival|access-date=July 3, 2020}}</ref> has been held annually since 1998 in mid-July to commemorate Guthrie's life and music. The festival is held on the weekend closest to Guthrie's birth date (July 14) in Guthrie's hometown of [[Okemah, Oklahoma]]. Planned and implemented annually by the Woody Guthrie Coalition, a non-profit corporation, its goal is to preserve Guthrie's musical legacy.<ref>WoodyGuthrie.com. [http://www.woodyguthrie.com/ Woody Guthrie Coalition Board of Directors]. Retrieved September 27, 2007.</ref><ref name="DirtyLinen103">Eshleman, Annette C. [http://www.dirtylinen.com/103/concerts.html Concert Review – Woody Guthrie Folk Festival] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071019131905/http://www.dirtylinen.com/103/concerts.html |date=October 19, 2007 }}. ''Dirty Linen'', No. 103, December 2002/January 2003. Retrieved September 21, 2007.</ref> The Woody Guthrie Coalition commissioned a local Creek Indian sculptor to cast a full-body bronze statue of Guthrie and his guitar, complete with the guitar's well-known message reading, "This machine kills fascists".<ref name="DunbarOrtiz">Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. FindArticles.com. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_10_56/ai_n16126173 Bound for Glory – Indeed!] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071017150204/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_10_56/ai_n16126173 |date=October 17, 2007 }} Review of ''Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie'' by Ed Cray. March 2005. Retrieved September 17, 2007.</ref> The statue, sculpted by artist Dan Brook, stands along Okemah's main street in the heart of downtown and was unveiled in 1998, the inaugural year of the festival.<ref name="3rdannual">3rd Annual Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival. July 12–16, 2000 (Program booklet).</ref>

===Jewish songs===
Guthrie's second wife, [[Marjorie Guthrie|Marjorie Mazia]], was born Marjorie Greenblatt, and her mother [[Aliza Greenblatt]] was a well-known Yiddish poet. Guthrie wrote numerous Jewish lyrics that can be linked to his close collaborative relationship with Aliza Greenblatt, who lived near Guthrie and his family in Brooklyn in the 1940s. Guthrie, the Oklahoma [[troubadour]], and Greenblatt, the Jewish wordsmith, often discussed their artistic projects and critiqued each other's works, finding common ground in their shared love of culture and social justice. Their collaboration flourished in 1940s Brooklyn, where Jewish culture was interwoven with music, modern dance, poetry, and anti-fascist, pro-labor, socialist activism. Guthrie was inspired to write songs that arose from this unlikely relationship; he identified the problems of Jews with those of his fellow [[Okies|Oklahomans]] and other oppressed peoples.

These lyrics were rediscovered by [[Nora Guthrie]] and were set to music by the Jewish [[Klezmer]] group [[The Klezmatics]] with the release of ''Happy Joyous Hanukkah'' on JMG Records in 2007. The Klezmatics also released ''Wonder Wheel&nbsp;– Lyrics by Woody Guthrie'', an album of spiritual lyrics put to music composed by the band.<ref>WoodyGuthrie.org. [http://www.woodyguthrie.org/merchandise/klezmatics.htm Happy Joyous Hanukkah & Wonder Wheel.] Retrieved October 13, 2008.</ref> The album, produced by [[Danny Blume]], was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.<ref name="cdbaby-klez">{{cite web|url=http://cdbaby.com/cd/klezmatics |title=CD Baby: THE KLEZMATICS: Wonder Wheel&nbsp;— lyrics by Woody Guthrie |publisher=CD Baby |access-date=December 26, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006202335/http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/klezmatics |archive-date=October 6, 2008 }}</ref>

===Legacy===
Since his death, artists have paid tribute to Guthrie by [[Cover versions|covering]] his songs or by dedicating songs to him. On January 20, 1968, three months after Guthrie's death, [[Harold Leventhal]] produced ''A Tribute to Woody Guthrie'' at New York City's [[Carnegie Hall]].<ref>WoodyGuthrie.org. [http://www.woodyguthrie.org/harold.htm Harold Leventhal: The Fifth Weaver.] Retrieved on November 14, 2007.</ref> Performers included Jack Elliott, [[Pete Seeger]], [[Tom Paxton]], [[Bob Dylan]] and [[The Band]], [[Judy Collins]], [[Arlo Guthrie]], [[Richie Havens]], [[Odetta]], and others. Leventhal repeated the tribute on September 12, 1970, at the [[Hollywood Bowl]]. Recordings of both concerts were eventually released as LPs and later combined into one CD.<ref>The Band's website. [http://theband.hiof.no/albums/tribute_to_woody_guthrie.html ''Various Artists: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie, Part 1.''] Retrieved on November 14, 2007.</ref> A film of the Hollywood Bowl concert was discovered and issued as a DVD in 2019: "Woody Guthrie All-Star Tribute Concert 1970"—(MVD Visual. MVD2331D, 2019).

The Irish folk singer [[Christy Moore]] was also strongly influenced by Woody Guthrie in his seminal 1972 album ''[[Prosperous (album)|Prosperous]]'', giving renditions of "[[Ludlow Massacre (song)|The Ludlow Massacre]]" and Bob Dylan's "[[Song to Woody]]". Dylan also penned the poem ''[[Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie]]'' as a tribute.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/last-thoughts-woody-guthrie |title=Official Bob Dylan Site &#124; The Official Bob Dylan Site |publisher=Bobdylan.com |date=January 23, 2012 |access-date=March 23, 2012 |archive-date=December 1, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091201105001/http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/last-thoughts-woody-guthrie |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Andy Irvine (musician)|Andy Irvine]]—Moore's bandmate in Irish folk group [[Planxty]] and lifelong admirer of Guthrie—wrote his tribute song "[[Andy Irvine (musician)#Tribute song to Woody Guthrie: "Never Tire of the Road"|Never Tire of the Road]]" (released on the album ''[[Rain on the Roof (Andy Irvine album)|Rain on the Roof]]''), which includes the chorus from a song Guthrie recorded in March 1944: "[[Woody Guthrie discography#The Martins and the Coys: A Contemporary Folk Tale|You Fascists Are Bound to Lose]]". In 1986, Irvine also recorded both parts of Guthrie's "The Ballad of Tom Joad" together as a complete song—under the title of "Tom Joad"—on the first album released by his other band, [[Patrick Street]]. [[Bruce Springsteen]] also performed a cover of Guthrie's "[[This Land Is Your Land|This Land is Your Land]]" on his live album ''[[Live 1975–1985]]''. In the introduction to the song, Springsteen referred to it as "just about one of the most beautiful songs ever written".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.fretbase.com/fretbase/2008/07/play-woody-guth.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081001231225/http://www.fretbase.com/fretbase/2008/07/play-woody-guth.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 1, 2008|title=Fretbase: Play Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land|date=October 1, 2008}}</ref>

In 1979, [[Sammy Walker (singer)|Sammy Walker]]'s LP ''Songs From Woody's Pen'' was released by Folkways Records. Though the original recordings of these songs date back more than 30 years, Walker sings them in a traditional folk-revivalist manner reminiscent of Guthrie's social conscience and sense of humor. Speaking of Guthrie, Walker said: "I can't think of hardly anyone who has had as much influence on my own singing and songwriting as Woody."<ref name="SWSongs">{{cite web
| first = Sammy
| last = Walker
| title = Songs From Woody's Pen
| url = http://www.folkways.si.edu/sammy-walker/songs-from-woodys-pen/american-folk-struggle-protest/music/album/smithsonian
| website = folkways.si.edu
| publisher = Folkways
| access-date = April 9, 2016}}</ref>

In September 1996, [[Cleveland]]'s [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame|Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum]] and [[Case Western Reserve University]] cohosted ''Hard Travelin': The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie'', a 10-day conference of panel sessions, lectures, and concerts. The conference became the first in what would become the museum's annual American Music Masters Series conference.<ref>Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. [http://www.rockhall.com/public/american-music-masters American Music Masters Series.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080201221133/http://www.rockhall.com/public/american-music-masters/ |date=February 1, 2008 }} Retrieved February 12, 2008.</ref> Highlights included [[Arlo Guthrie|Arlo Guthrie's]] [[Keynote|keynote address]], a Saturday night musical jamboree at Cleveland's Odeon Theater, and a Sunday night concert at [[Severance Hall]], the home of the [[Cleveland Orchestra]].<ref>Barden, Tom. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's American Masters Series: Woody Guthrie, 1996-Jimmie Rodgers, 1997-Robert Johnson, 1998. ''Journal of American Folklore'', Vol. 112, No. 446, (Autumn 1999), p.551-4. Retrieved February 12, 2008.</ref> Musicians performing over the course of the conference included [[Arlo Guthrie]], [[Bruce Springsteen]], [[Billy Bragg]], [[Pete Seeger]], [[Ramblin' Jack Elliott]], the [[Indigo Girls]], [[Ellis Paul]], [[Jimmy LaFave]], [[Ani DiFranco]], and others.<ref>Robicheau, Paul. Ellis Paul's got Woody Guthrie under his skin. ''Boston Globe'', September 20, 1996.</ref> In 1999, [[Wesleyan University Press]] published a collection of essays from the conference<ref>Santelli, Robert. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0819563919 ''Hard Travelin': The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie''], Wesleyan University Press, 1999. {{ISBN|0-8195-6391-9}}</ref> and [[Ani DiFranco|DiFranco]]'s record label, [[Righteous Babe Records|Righteous Babe]], released a compilation of the Severance Hall concert, ''Til We Outnumber 'Em'', in 2000.<ref>Righteous Babe Website. [http://www.righteousbabe.com/store/prod_albums.asp?id=350 ''Till we Outnumber 'Em'' track listing.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071108214836/http://www.righteousbabe.com/store/prod_albums.asp?id=350 |date=November 8, 2007 }} Retrieved on April 9, 2007.</ref>

From 1999 to 2002, the [[Smithsonian Institution|Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service]] presented the traveling exhibit, ''This Land Is Your Land: The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie''. In collaboration with [[Nora Guthrie]], the Smithsonian exhibition draws from rarely seen objects, illustrations, film footage, and recorded performances to reveal a complex man who was at once poet, musician, protester, idealist, itinerant hobo, and folk legend.<ref>Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. [http://www.sites.si.edu/exhibitions/exhibits/archived_exhibitions/woody_gutherie.htm Archive: Past Exhibitions] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090122120629/http://www.sites.si.edu/exhibitions/exhibits/archived_exhibitions/woody_gutherie.htm |date=January 22, 2009 }}. Retrieved November 13, 2007.</ref>

In 2003, [[Jimmy LaFave]] produced a Woody Guthrie tribute show called ''Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway''. The ensemble show toured around the country and included a rotating cast of singer-songwriters individually performing Guthrie's songs. Interspersed between songs were Guthrie's philosophical writings read by a narrator. In addition to LaFave, members of the rotating cast included [[Ellis Paul]], [[Slaid Cleaves]], [[Eliza Gilkyson]], [[Joel Rafael]], husband-wife duo [[Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion|Sarah Lee Guthrie]] (Woody Guthrie's granddaughter) and [[Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion|Johnny Irion]], [[Michael Fracasso]], and [[The Burns Sisters]]. Oklahoma songwriter [[Bob Childers]], sometimes called "the Dylan of the Dust", served as narrator.<ref name="PropagandaMedia">Propaganda Media Group, Inc. [http://www.propagandamediagroup.com/artists/ribbon_of_highway_endless_skyway/bio.htm Ribbon of Highway&nbsp;– Endless Skyway: Concert in the Spirit of Woody Guthrie] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060112091818/http://www.propagandamediagroup.com/artists/ribbon_of_highway_endless_skyway/bio.htm |date=January 12, 2006 }}. Retrieved February 6, 2007.</ref><ref>RibbonofHighway.com. [http://www.ribbonofhighway.com/ Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway website.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029204518/http://www.ribbonofhighway.com/ |date=October 29, 2013 }} Retrieved on January 25, 2007.</ref>

When word spread about the tour, performers began contacting LaFave, whose only prerequisite was to have an inspirational connection to Guthrie. Each artist chose the Guthrie songs that he or she would perform as part of the tribute. LaFave said, "It works because all the performers are Guthrie enthusiasts in some form".<ref name="Conroe Courier">Martinez, Rebekah. [http://www.hcnonline.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=6963646&BRD=1574&PAG=461&dept_id=532207&rfi=8 "Tribute to Woody Guthrie Tour makes a stop in Conroe Feb. 16"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927011658/http://www.hcnonline.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=6963646&BRD=1574&PAG=461&dept_id=532207&rfi=8 |date=September 27, 2007 }}, ''The Courier'' (Conroe, TX.), February 7, 2003. Retrieved February 7, 2007.</ref> The inaugural performance of the Ribbon of Highway tour took place on February 5, 2003, at the [[Ryman Auditorium]] in [[Nashville]]. The abbreviated show was a featured segment of ''Nashville Sings Woody'', yet another tribute concert to commemorate the music of Woody Guthrie held during the Folk Alliance Conference. The cast of ''Nashville Sings Woody'', a benefit for the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives, also included [[Arlo Guthrie]], [[Marty Stuart]], [[Nanci Griffith]], [[Guy Clark]], [[Ramblin' Jack Elliott]], [[Janis Ian]], and others.<ref name="2003FolkAlliance">{{cite web |url=http://alpha.fdu.edu/wfdu/Folk%20Alliance.htm |title=15th Annual Folk Alliance Conference: Nashville Sings Woody |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060522042339/http://alpha.fdu.edu/wfdu/Folk%20Alliance.htm |archive-date=May 22, 2006 |access-date=July 12, 2012}}</ref>

[[File:New Multitudes at Webster Hall.jpg|alt=New Multitudes onstage with red lighting|thumb|As a part of Guthrie's centennial celebrations, the ''[[New Multitudes]]'' performers played compositions including his lyrics at Webster Hall in New York City (from left to right: [[Anders Parker]], [[Will Johnson (musician)|Will Johnson]] [drumming], [[Jay Farrar]], and [[Jim James|Yim Yames]])]]

Woody and Marjorie Guthrie were honored at a musical celebration featuring [[Billy Bragg]] and the band [[Brad (band)|Brad]] on October 17, 2007, at [[Webster Hall]] in New York City. [[Steve Earle]] also performed. The event was hosted by actor/activist [[Tim Robbins]] to benefit the Huntington's Disease Society of America to commemorate the organization's 40th&nbsp;Anniversary.<ref>BrooklynVegan.com.[http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2007/09/a_woody_guthrie.html Woody Guthrie Benefit @ Webster Hall]. Retrieved November 8, 2007.</ref>

In ''[[I'm Not There]]'', a 2007 biographical movie about [[Bob Dylan]], one of the characters introduced in the film as segments of Dylan's life is a young African-American boy who calls himself "Woody Guthrie". The purpose of this particular character was a reference to Dylan's youthful obsession with Guthrie. The fictional Woody also reflects the fictitious autobiographies that Dylan constructed during his early career as he established his own artistic identity. In the film there is even a scene where the fictional Woody visits the real Woody Guthrie as he lies ill and dying in a hospital in New York (a reference to the times when a nineteen-year-old Dylan would regularly visit his idol, after learning of his whereabouts, while he was hospitalized in New York in the 1960s). Later, a sketch on ''Saturday Night Live'' would spoof these visits, alleging that Dylan stole the line, "They'll stone you for playing your guitar!" from Guthrie.

[[File:Okemah mural.jpg|alt=|thumb|Guthrie has continued to remain popular decades after his death; this mural was painted in his hometown of Okemah in 1994]]

[[Pete Seeger]] had the [[Sloop Woody Guthrie|Sloop ''Woody Guthrie'']] built for an organization he founded, the [[Hudson River Sloop Clearwater]].<ref>[http://www.beaconsloopclub.org/Sloop.html Beacon Sloop Club] Retrieved August 28, 2008.</ref> It was launched in 1978. Now operated by the Beacon Sloop Club, it serves to educate people about sailing and the history and environs of the [[Hudson River]].

In 1988, Woody Guthrie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,<ref>Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website. [http://www.rockhall.com/inductees/woody-guthrie Woody Guthrie biography] Retrieved on November 3, 2007.</ref> and, in 2000, he was honored with the [[Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award]].<ref>Grammy Foundation website. [http://www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Awards/Lifetime_Awards/ Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards – Past Recipients.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070213065421/http://www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Awards/Lifetime_Awards/ |date=February 13, 2007 }} Retrieved on November 3, 2007.</ref> Guthrie was inducted into the [[Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame]] in 1997. In 2006, Guthrie was inducted into the [[Oklahoma Hall of Fame]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oklahomaheritage.com/HallofFame/ByName/tabid/89/Default.aspx|title=Oklahoma Hall of Fame|access-date=November 16, 2012}}</ref> In 1987, "[[Roll on Columbia]]" was chosen as the official Washington State Folk Song,<ref>Netstate.com. [http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/song/wa_roll_on_columbia.htm The Washington State Folk Song.] Retrieved on November 27, 2007.</ref> and in 2001 Guthrie's "[[Oklahoma Hills]]" was chosen to be the official state folk song of Oklahoma.<ref name="curtis">{{Cite news|url=http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/only-in-oklahoma-this-man-was-our-man/article_324f81ed-f406-566c-97f3-d82c37e3b28e.html|title=Only in Oklahoma: This man was our man|last=Curtis|first=Gene|date=March 17, 2007|newspaper=Tulsa World|access-date=January 29, 2017}}</ref>

On June 26, 1998, as part of its Legends of American Music series, the [[United States Postal Service]] issued 45 million 32-cent stamps honoring folk musicians [[Huddie Ledbetter]], Guthrie, [[Sonny Terry]] and [[Josh White]]. The four musicians were represented on sheets of 20&nbsp;stamps.<ref>United States Postal Service. [http://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10152&storeId=10001&productId=17017&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=13383 Legends of American Music.] June 26, 1998. Retrieved January 7, 2008.</ref>

In July 2001, [[CB's Gallery]] in New York City began hosting an annual Woody Guthrie Birthday Bash concert featuring multiple performers. This event moved to the [[Bowery Poetry Club]] in 2007 after CB's Gallery and [[CBGB]], its parent club, closed. The final concert in the series took place on July 14, 2012, Guthrie's 100th birthday.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.stevesuffet.com/wgbb.html|title=Woody Guthrie Birthday Bash Annual Round Robin Songfest|website=stevesuffet.com}}</ref>

In January 2005, Canadian hip-hop artist [[Buck 65]] released ''[[This Right Here Is Buck 65]]''. Track 8 is a cover of "Talking Fishing Blues".

In 2006, [[The Klezmatics]] set Jewish lyrics written by Guthrie to music. The resulting album, ''[[Wonder Wheel (album)|Wonder Wheel]]'', won the Grammy award for best contemporary world music album.<ref name="cdbaby-klez"/>

On February 10, 2008, ''[[The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949]]'', a rare live recording released in cooperation with the Woody Guthrie Foundation,<ref>Himes, Geoffrey. [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/arts/music/02himes.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=732c25c27d89715f&ex=1346299200&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink "Dead 40 Years, Woody Guthrie Stays Busy"], ''The New York Times'', September 2, 2007. Retrieved February 8, 2008.</ref> was the recipient of a [[Grammy Award]] in the category [[Best Historical Album]].<ref>Wilk, Tom. [http://njmonthly.com/articles/best-of-Jersey/best-of-jersey-woody-guthrie.html Woody: Wired in Newark.] ''New Jersey Monthly'', March 10, 2008. Retrieved December 11, 2009.</ref> Less than two years later, Guthrie was again nominated for a Grammy in the same category with the 2009 release of ''My Dusty Road'' on Rounder Records.<ref>Tackett, Travis. [http://www.bluegrassjournal.com/2009/12/03/rounder-recording-artists-garner-6-grammy-nominations Rounder Recording Artists garner 6 Grammy Nominations.] Bluegrass Journal.com. December 3, 2009. Retrieved December 11, 2009.</ref>

In the centennial year of Guthrie's birth, another album of newly composed songs on his lyrics has been released: ''[[New Multitudes]]''. On March 10, 2012, there was a tribute concert at the Brady Theater in [[Tulsa, Oklahoma]]. [[John Mellencamp]], [[Arlo Guthrie]], [[Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion]], the [[Del McCoury Band]] and the [[Flaming Lips]] performed.<ref name="Billboard12">{{cite magazine | url=http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/502545/jay-farrar-tackles-woody-guthrie-in-new-multitudes | title=Jay Farrar Tackles Woody Guthrie in 'New Multitudes' | magazine=Billboard | date=March 9, 2012 | access-date=March 14, 2012 | first=Phil| last=Gallo}}</ref>

The [[Grammy Museum at L.A. Live|Grammy Museum]] held a tribute week in April 2012<ref>{{cite web |title=Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration Los Angeles |url= http://www.grammymuseum.org/programs/woody-guthrie-centennial-celebration-la |website=Grammy Museum at L.A. Live |access-date=August 2, 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160417201854/http://www.grammymuseum.org/programs/woody-guthrie-centennial-celebration-la |archive-date=April 17, 2016 |location=Los Angeles}}</ref> and the [[Songwriters Hall of Fame]] a tribute in June. A four-disc box ''Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions'' by [[Billy Bragg]] and [[Wilco]], with 17 unreleased songs and a documentary, was planned for April release.<ref name="Billboard12" />

On July 10, 2012, [[Smithsonian Folkways]] released ''Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection'', a 150-page large-format book with three CDs containing 57 tracks. The set also contains 21 previously unreleased performances and six never before released original songs, including Woody's first known—and recently discovered—recordings from 1937.<ref>{{cite news|first=Joe |last=Heim |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/woody-guthrie-at-100-american-struggles-and-dreams/2012/07/09/gJQAI82MYW_story.html |title=Woody Guthrie at 100: American struggles and dreams |newspaper=The Washington Post|date=July 9, 2012 |access-date=December 18, 2012}}</ref> The box set received two nominations for the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, including Best Historical Album and Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package. It also won an Independent Music Award for Best Compilation Album in 2013.<ref>[http://www.independentmusicawards.com/ima/2013/12th-annual-independent-music-awards-winners-announced "12th Annual Independent Music Awards Winners Announced!"] Independent Music Awards, June 11, 2013. Retrieved September 4, 2013.</ref>

From February 18 through May 22, 2022, the [[Morgan Library & Museum]] in [[Manhattan]] held an exhibition titled [https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/woody-guthrie "Woody Guthrie: People Are the Song"]

On September 30, 2022, [[Dropkick Murphys]] released ''[[This Machine Still Kills Fascists]]''. The acoustic album consists of ten songs featuring unused lyrics by Guthrie. [[Nora Guthrie]], Woody's daughter, reached out to the band giving them exclusive access to her father's archives. "I collected lyrics on all kinds of topics … lyrics that seemed to be needed to be said — or screamed — today. [[Ken Casey]] is a master at understanding Woody's lyrics, which can be complicated, long, deadly serious, or totally ridiculous. DKM is capable of delivering them all" Nora Guthrie said.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dropkick-murphys-announce-album-tour-150416109.html|title=Dropkick Murphys Announce New Album and Tour Featuring the Words of Woody Guthrie|website=dropkickmurphys.com|access-date=June 22, 2022}}</ref>

==Selected discography==
{{Main|Woody Guthrie discography}}
* ''[[Dust Bowl Ballads]]'' (1940) (The only non-compilation album of Guthrie's career)
* ''[[Nursery Days]]'' (1951)
* ''[[Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child]]'' (1956)
* ''[[Bound for Glory (album)|Bound for Glory]]'' (1956)
* ''[[Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti]]'' (1960)
* ''[[Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs]]'' (1962)
* ''Hard Travelin''' (1964)
* ''[[Library of Congress Recordings]]'' (1964)
* ''[[Columbia River Collection]]'' (1987)
* ''[[The Asch Recordings|This Land Is Your Land, The Asch Recordings, Vol.1]]'' (1997)
* ''[[The Asch Recordings|Muleskinner Blues, The Asch Recordings, Vol.2]]'' (1997)
* ''[[The Asch Recordings|Hard Travelin', The Asch Recordings, Vol.3]]'' (1998)
* ''[[The Asch Recordings|Buffalo Skinners, The Asch Recordings, Vol.4]]'' (1999)
* ''[[The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949]]'' (2007)
* ''[[My Dusty Road]]'' (2009)
* ''[[Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection]]'' (2012)

== See also ==
* [[:Category:Woody Guthrie songs|List of songs by Woody Guthrie]]
* [[:Category:Woody Guthrie albums|List of albums by Woody Guthrie]]
* [[List of peace activists]]

== Citations ==
{{Reflist}}

=== General sources ===
* {{Cite book |last=Cray |first=Ed |title=Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie |year=2004 |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]] |isbn=0-393-32736-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinmanlifeti00cray }}
* Jackson, Mark Allan (2007).  Prophet Singer:  The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie.  University Press of Mississippi.
* {{Cite book |last=Kaufman|first=Will |title= Woody, Guthrie: American Radical |year=2011|publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |isbn=978-0-252-03602-6}}
* {{Cite book |last=Longhi |first=Jim |title=Woody, Cisco and Me |year=1997 |publisher=[[Random House]] |isbn=0-252-02276-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/woodyciscomeseam00long }}
* {{Cite book |last=Klein |first=Joe |author-link= Joe Klein |title= Woody Guthrie: A Life |year=1980 |publisher=[[Random House]] |isbn=0-385-33385-4 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Santelli| first=Robert |title=Hard Travelin: The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie|publisher=[[Wesleyan University Press]]|year=1999 |isbn=0-8195-6391-9 }}

==Further reading and listening==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* Down Home Radio Show. LeadBelly & Woody Guthrie live on WNYC Radio, Dec. 1940. Audio re-broadcast of a 1940 radio show. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* Earle, Steve. Woody Guthrie. ''The Nation'', July 21, 2003. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* Electronic Frontier Foundation. Scanned images of some of Woody Guthrie's original works. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* Guthrie, Mary Jo. Woody's Road: Woody Guthrie's Letters Home, Drawings, Photos, and Other Unburied Treasures Paradigm Publishers, 2012. {{ISBN|978-1-61205-219-9}}
* Hogeland, William (March 14, 2004), "Emulating the Real and Vital Guthrie, Not St. Woody", ''New York Times''.
* Jackson, Mark Allen. ''Prophet Singer: The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie''. University Press of Mississippi, January 2007. {{ISBN|978-1-60473-102-6}}
* {{cite book|last=Kaufman|first= Will|year=2011|title= Woody Guthrie, American Radical|location=Urbana, Chicago and Springfield|publisher= The University of Illinois Press|isbn= 978-02-5203-602-6}} 
* La Chapelle, Peter. Is Country Music Inherently Conservative? History News Network. November 12, 2007. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* La Chapelle, Peter. ''Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California''. University of California Press, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-520-24888-5}} (hb); {{ISBN|978-0-520-24889-2}} (pb)
* Library of Congress. Timeline of Woody Guthrie (1912–1967). Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* Library of Congress. Woody Guthrie and the Archive of American Folk Song: Correspondence, 1940–1950. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* Marroquin, Danny. Walking the Long Road. PopMatters.com. August 4, 2006. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* Pascal, Rich. "Celebrating the Real America", Canberra ACT news, sport and weather | The Canberra Times.
* Public Broadcasting Service. ''Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home''. Documentary from PBS' [[American Masters]] series, July 2006. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* Symphony Silicon Valley Concert Recordings. David Amram's ''Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie'' Recorded September 30, 2007. Audio recording. Retrieved January 11, 2008.
* University of Oregon. ''Roll on Columbia: Woody Guthrie and the Bonneville Power Administration''. Video documentary. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* University of Virginia. Guthrie singing "This Land Is Your Land". MP3 recording. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
* WoodyGuthrie.de. Woody Guthrie Related Audio. Miscellaneous Real Audio files featuring Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Alan Lomax and others. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{External links|section|date=June 2017}}
{{Sister project links|Woody Guthrie|b=no|wikt=no|v=no|s=Author:Woody Guthrie|d=y|species=no|m=no|mw=no|n=no|voy=no|c=Category:Woody Guthrie}}
* [http://woodyguthriecenter.org/ The Woody Guthrie Center]
* [http://www.woodyguthrie.org/ The Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwghtml/wwghome.html ''Woody Guthrie and the Archive of American Folk Song: Correspondence, 1940–1950''], [[Library of Congress]], [[American Folklife Center]]. [[American Memory]] presentation of archival correspondence written by Woody Guthrie to the staff of the [[Archive of American Folk Song]]. Retrieved August 31, 2009
* [http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/49591/woody-guthrie-in-nyc-1943 Woody Guthrie in NYC, 1943] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101006005247/http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/49591/woody-guthrie-in-nyc-1943 |date=October 6, 2010 }})&nbsp;– slideshow by [[Life magazine|''Life'' magazine]]
* [http://www.gettyimages.com/collaboration/boards/s26xpqKFwE2Ocp2qUmnfiQ Folksay (1945) Board – Getty Images] Photographs of Woody Guthrie on early television in 1945 at [[CBS]] New York in a production of ''Folksay''.
* [http://www.folkways.si.edu/searchresults.aspx?sPhrase=woody%20guthrie&sType='phrase'/ Woody Guthrie's Discography on Smithsonian Folkways] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140716013046/http://www.folkways.si.edu/searchresults.aspx?sPhrase=woody%20guthrie&sType=%27phrase%27%2F |date=July 16, 2014 }})
* [http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/G/GU006.html Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture&nbsp;– Guthrie, Woody] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227224311/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/G/GU006.html |date=December 27, 2014 }})
* {{Find a Grave|431}}
* {{Discogs artist}}
* {{IMDb name|349313}}
* [http://www.voicesofoklahoma.com/interview/guthrie-woody/ Voices of Oklahoma interview with Nora Guthrie]. First person interview conducted on October 10, 2010, with Nora Guthrie, daughter of Woody Guthrie. 
* {{Internet Archive short film|id=gov.archives.arc.1234|name=The Fight for Life|description=(1940)}}
* [http://voicesofoklahoma.com/interview/guthrie-mary-jo/ Voices of Oklahoma interview with Mary Jo Guthrie]. First person interview conducted on May 9, 2013, with Mary Jo Guthrie talking about her brother Woody Guthrie. 
* [http://www.voicesofoklahoma.com/interview/logsdon-guy/ Voices of Oklahoma interview with Guy Logsdon]. First person interview conducted on February 16, 2010, with Guy Logsdon, Woody Guthrie historian.
* {{IMSLP|Category:Guthrie, Woody}}
* [https://truthout.org/articles/newly-released-fbi-files-expose-red-baiting-of-woody-guthrie/ Newly Released FBI Files Expose Red-Baiting of Woody Guthrie, Published in Truthout]

{{Woody Guthrie|state=expanded}}
{{1988 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame}}
{{Arlo Guthrie}}
{{Authority control}}

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[[Category:Woody Guthrie| ]]
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