woody appreciation

The last thing Woody Guthrie recorded before his health made it impossible to continue writing and recording were children's songs. The last thing he recorded before that was a proto-concept album about two Italian anarchists who had been wrongfully-convicted and executed 20 years earlier.

I don't have any children's songs for you, but I do have a few from "Ballads of Sacco and Vanzetti," because it's probably the most interesting collection of songs by him that I've heard. He mangles his words and fumbles over guitar chords frequently, tells their story several different ways and from some different perspectives, gets Pete Seeger to sing a Sacco's death row letter to his son, and generally gives the impression that he had to get these songs out there and out there fast... which is weird, because of the time between the trial (1920) and this recording(1945-6). Maybe he thought that the Democracy-uber-alles mood of 1946 America required an historical slap in the back of the head from the very recent past, I don't know. In any case, I think it's what real music reviewers usually call "urgency."

Red Wine
We Welcome to Heaven

-matt h

22-HOUR EDIT: S&V were executed in 1927. Trial was in 1920. Changes made to post, because history majors should care about such things and not fly fast and loose with the facts.