Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land

Woody Guthrie was the most important figure in the history of American folk music. Guthrie was more than a singer and musician. He was a real-life incarnation of John Steinbeck’s character of Tom Joad from The Grapes of Wrath and a committed left-wing political activist.

Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, in 1912. When he was 14, he began playing the guitar and harmonica and learned the English and Scottish folk songs from the parents of his friends. Despite being a bright student, Guthrie dropped out of high school and started busking on the streets. When he was eighteen, his father called for him to come to Texas to attend school, but Guthrie spent his time busking and reading in the library. By 1930, Guthrie joined thousands of other “Okies” (Oklahomans) who were migrating to California to search for work and escape the “Dust Bowl” drought that plagued Oklahoma.

In California, Guthrie worked odd jobs, and by the end of the thirties, he had managed to land a job playing folk and “hillbilly” music on the radio. At this time, he would write the songs about his experiences during the Dust Bowl era migration to California that would later become his legendary collection of Dust Bowl ballads. In 1936, he began to perform at Communist Party events in California, and although he never joined the party, he would later be tagged as a communist.

By the 1940s, Guthrie was in New York City, and his “Oklahoma cowboy” nickname and reputation endeared him to the leftist folk music community in the city. He would record his album, “Dust Bowl Ballads” (1940), for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey, shortly after his arrival. The album has long been hailed as a superb document of an episode of American history told by a man who lived it. Guthrie would also record for Alan Lomax of the Library of Congress, singing and speaking about his adventures during the Dust Bowl period of ten years before.

Guthrie would land another radio job in New York, this time as the host of the “Pipe Smoking Time” show, which was sponsored by a tobacco company. He also appeared on CBS radio on the program “Back Where I Came From.” He managed to get a spot on the show for his friend, the legendary Black folk singer, Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter. By 1941, Guthrie was off to Washington State to write and perform songs about the construction of Grand Coulee Dam in the employ of the American Department of the Interior. Guthrie wrote 26 songs for a film that was to be produced about the project, but the film never came to fruition. The songs, “Pastures of Plenty” and “Grand Coulee Dam,” would become well known nonetheless.

In 1944, Guthrie met Moses Asch of Folkways Records, for whom Guthrie would record hundreds of songs, including the first recording of perhaps his best-known tune, “This Land is Your Land.” 

Folkways would later release these songs in various collections: "Long Ways to Travel," "Struggle," and others.

By the mid-1950s, Guthrie’s health was deteriorating with the onset of Huntington’s disease. He was eventually bedridden in Bellevue Hospital and, in 1960, was visited by a very young and awestruck admirer, Bob Dylan.

Technical Catalog Spotlight: Dust Bowl Ballads (1940)

An early concept album capturing the hardships of Great Depression migration through sparse production and direct storytelling.

• Released: July 1940
• Label: Victor Records
• Producer: Alan Lomax, R.P. Wetherald
• Core Personnel: Woody Guthrie (Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Harmonica)
• Key Tracks: Tom Joad, Dust Bowl Refuge, I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore

Technical Catalog Spotlight: Struggle (1946)

A powerful collection from his sessions with Moses Asch focusing on organized labor and the working class.

• Released: 1946
• Label: Asch Records / Folkways Records
• Producer: Moses Asch
• Core Personnel: Woody Guthrie (Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Harmonica), Cisco Houston (Backing Vocals, Guitar)
• Key Tracks: Buffalo Skinners, Pretty Boy Floyd, Ludlow Massacre

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The Byrds: Eight Miles High

The Byrds: The Architectural Innovators of Folk-Rock and Country-Rock Traditions

The Byrds stand out as one of the most culturally significant, brilliantly innovative, and influential bands in the history of American popular music. Serving as the primary sonic bridge between traditional acoustic folk circles and the high-voltage arena rock world, they single-handedly mapped the architectural framework for multiple generations of roots-driven alternative rock groups. Guided by iconic, layered vocal harmonies and a highly distinct, chiming string instrumentation, they successfully took the raw poetic structures of contemporary troubadours and engineered them into massive, chart-topping pop anthems. Though their career was marked by turbulent internal personality clashes and a revolving door of elite personnel, their uncompromising willingness to experiment with psychedelia and country idioms permanently reshaped the trajectory of rock history.

The Byrds are among the greatest bands in the history of American pop music. The band is the original folk-rock outfit and was the first band to play country-rock. Pioneered by folk singer turned rocker, Roger McGuinn, the Byrds saw many lineup changes throughout the years, but despite the turnover of musicians, the band always produced original and inspired music. Originally called the “Beefeaters,” the Byrds formed in early 1964 with members McGuinn on guitar, David Crosby on guitar, Gene Clark on guitar, Michael Clarke on drums, and Chris Hillman on bass.

The Byrds’ “jangly” sound was derived from McGuinn’s 12-string Rickenbacker guitar. This trademark sound was in full evidence on their first album, "Mr. Tambourine Man" (1965). The album opens with the title track, a rocking hit version of the Bob Dylan classic. Dylan songs would often be covered by the Byrds and be infused with that unmistakable Byrds sound.

The Byrds next recorded the very solid Turn! Turn! Turn! album in 1965. The title track of this album also became a big hit.

Two excellent albums came next: "Fifth Dimension" (1966) and "Younger Than Yesterday" (1967), spawning hits with “Eight Miles High” and “So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star,” respectively.

It was at this point, seemingly at the peak of the band’s commercial and critical success, that Gene Clark and David Crosby departed to pursue solo careers. For their next project, "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" (1968), the band was reduced to a trio. No matter, it seems, when listening to the result, a brilliant album of stunning experimental music. The album is inspired from start to finish, especially on numbers like “Draft Morning,” “Wasn’t Born To Follow,” “Natural Harmony Bars,” and “Get to You.”

Now a trio, the Byrds added new members, country-hippie Gram Parsons from the International Submarine Band and the superb country guitarist Clarence White. With the overt country influence of its new members, the Byrds produced the first true country-rock album, the excellent "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" (1968). Parsons soon left the band to form the Flying Burrito Brothers.

The Byrds had reached the peak of their creative powers and would continue to record until 1973, but only the “Untitled” album released in 1970 would approach the heights they achieved in the Sixties.

Technical Catalog Spotlight: Mr. Tambourine Man (1965)

This monumental debut studio album represents the official birth of the international folk-rock phenomenon. The technical production seamlessly blends the poetic, lyrical depth of the urban folk movement with the electrifying rhythmic drive of the British Invasion bands. Built around signature, jangly twelve-string guitar tracking and rich, pristine three-part vocal counterplay, the album became an instant commercial smash hit and established a permanent cultural blueprint for cross-genre acoustic-electric music.

• Released: June 1965
• Label: Columbia Records
• Producer: Terry Melcher
• Core Personnel: Jim McGuinn (Lead Guitar, Vocals), Gene Clark (Tambourine, Vocals), David Crosby (Rhythm Guitar, Vocals), Chris Hillman (Bass), Michael Clarke (Drums)
• Key Tracks: Mr. Tambourine Man, Feel a Whole Lot Better, All I Really Want to Do

Technical Catalog Spotlight: The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968)

Widely regarded by musicologists as a staggering masterpiece of studio audio engineering, this late-sixties long-playing record highlights an era of bold experimentation. Recorded amidst intense internal band fractures, the production incorporates advanced phasing, electronic synthesizer treatments, brass sections, and complex jazz rhythms. The tracking effortlessly moves between pastoral folk-pop, political commentaries, and pastoral psychedelia, serving as an authoritative reference work for late-sixties avant-garde pop.

• Released: January 1968
• Label: Columbia Records
• Producer: Gary Usher
• Core Personnel: Roger McGuinn (Guitars, Vocals), Chris Hillman (Bass, Vocals), Michael Clarke (Drums)
• Key Tracks: Goin' Back, Draft Morning, Wasn't Born to Follow

Technical Catalog Spotlight: Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968)

This landmark studio compilation is universally single-handedly credited with introducing the raw, revolutionary sounds of country-rock to the mainstream rock audience. Stripping away the heavy psychedelic electronic effects of their previous efforts, the band traveled to Nashville to record a flawless, organic audio time capsule utilizing pedal steel guitars, banjos, and traditional bluegrass instrumentation. The record serves as an essential historical text that fundamentally redefined the cultural interactions between rural Southern heritage and modern counterculture rock.

• Released: August 1968
• Label: Columbia Records
• Producer: Gary Usher
• Core Personnel: Roger McGuinn (Guitars, Vocals), Chris Hillman (Bass, Vocals), Gram Parsons (Vocals, Guitar), Clarence White (Electric Guitar), Lloyd Green (Pedal Steel)
• Key Tracks: Hickory Wind, You Ain't Goin' Nowhere, Christian Life

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