Pete Seeger, June 1967:
When Woody Guthrie was singing hillbilly songs on a little Los Angeles radio station in the late 1930s, he used to mail out a small mimeographed songbook to listeners who wanted the words to his songs, On the bottom of one page appeared the following:

"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."

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CONTACT WOODY GUTHRIE PUBLICATIONS

• to be put on the mailing list for announcements, performances and upcoming events
• for an order form for books, songbooks, recordings

Woody Guthrie Publications
250 West 57th Street, Suite 1218
New York, NY 11201
tel.: (212) 541-6230
fax: (212) 459-9035
email: THISLAND@aol.com

Woody is just Woody. Thousands of people do not know he has any other name. He is just a voice and a guitar. He sings the songs of a people and I suspect that he is, in a way, that people. Harsh voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. But there is something more important for those who will listen. There is the will of the people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit.

John Steinbeck; quoted in Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life, London, 1981, p. 160.

OUTLAWS & BADMEN (AND -WOMEN)

VD SONGS (1940s)

I suppose I taught Bobby a few of my songs. Those old VD songs by Woody that nobody wanted the young kids to know, he picked them up from me....

quoted in Robert Shelton, No Direction Home, London 1987, p. 104.

LINKS TO REAL AUDIO SOUNDFILES

• OLDTIME RADIO BROADCASTS (contains three complete broadcasts featuring Woody Guthrie)

  (Real) Audio (contains several Woody Guthrie songs performed by Bob Dylan)

WOODY GUTHRIE as part of THE ALMANAC SINGERS

SOME OF WOODY'S PROSE

• MY LIFE (1947)

  NOTES ABOUT MUSIC (1940s)

  ON JIM GARLAND (1940s)

  ON THE "GRAPES OF WRATH" MOVIE (1939-'40)

  ON SARAH OGAN GUNNING (1940s)

  ON AUNT MOLLY JACKSON (1940s)

TRIBUTES

QUESTION:
So then you heard of Guthrie and he changed your life?
BOB DYLAN: I heard of Odetta first...
QUESTION:
Then you heard of Guthrie and he changed your life?
BOB DYLAN: Then I heard of Josh White...
QUESTION:
Then you heard of Guthrie...
BOB DYLAN:
Then I heard about those riots in San Francisco... an' I missed out on meeting James Dean so I decided to go meet Woody Guthrie.

J. R. Goddard Interview, Village Voice, Mar 1965.

SOME WOODY GUTHRIE LINKS

• 1972 New York Times article
• The Clancy Brothers remember Woody Guthrie
• Woody Guthrie -- Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame Inductee
• 1995 Pittsburgh Post Gazette article
  (Peter Glazer's "Woody Guthrie's American Song")
• David Arkush's The Woody Guthrie Pages

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