SBC: Lost Woody Guthrue recordings found . . .
Dick Waterman
I seem to recall that these Stinson masters include Woody, Cisco Houston,
Leadbelly and Sonny Terry doing a very druken version of "Stewball."
Lost recordings add to lure of folk legend
July 11, 2006
Two years ago Michael Creamer, a Boston-based artist manager, received a
call from his cousin Jim Farrow. Farrow was phoning to tell Creamer about a
friend of his who had unexpectedly inherited a long-dormant record label. In an act
of charity worthy of a Hollywood script, Irene Harris, the widow of Stinson
Records owner Bob Harris, bequeathed the label's entire catalog to her kindly
neighbor -- Farrow's friend.
Among the recordings that had been sitting for decades in a Brooklyn
basement were master recordings by Woody Guthrie -- between 150 and 160 of them,
including at least three that have never been released as well as the first
recording Guthrie made of ``This Land is Your Land."
``They didn't know where to turn, or how the industry works, so I helped her
out," says Creamer, whose management roster includes Kay Hanley, Todd Thibaud,
and Furvis.
``I started to dig in and find out more about Stinson. The first thing we did
was put together a history of the label and a timeline for ownership."
They also did a lot of listening. Impressed with the pristine quality of the
metal wire recordings -- an audio storage system that pre dates tape and was
used widely during the 1940s -- Creamer played some of the songs for a friend
who happened to work at WGBH. She told Creamer about Peter Frumkin, who was in
the final stages of work on his documentary ``Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No
Home."
The rest is serendipity.
``Everyone who hears them, their jaws drop," says Frumkin, who used six of
the Stinson recordings in his film. ``The sound is so clean. People have told me
that the only way to hear clearer versions of these songs would be to have
been sitting there in the studio 60 years ago."
Creamer, who is managing the Stinson Records project, is coordinating a team
of historians, archivists, representatives from the Woody Guthrie Foundation
and the Library of Congress, and record label executives to plot the future of
the Stinson catalog , which also includes recordings by Leadbelly, Burl Ives,
Josh White, Sonny Terry, James P. Johnson, Art Tatum, and Cisco Houston.
A multi-album deal is in the works with Cambridge-based Rounder Records,
which plans to release the first compilation in January.
``It's relevant not only to music but American culture," says Creamer. ``It's
huge. Finding this stuff was like finding a piece of history."
JOAN ANDERMAN
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Chas Winans
Woody himself was in and out of hospitals in the 1950s as Huntington's Disease slowly overtook him. To my recollection, he entered the hospital for the last time about 1958-59 and never left again unsupervised or for more than a day.
The photography eqivalent of this would be if the great-great-great grandchildren of famed Civil War photographer Matthew Brady found me and bequeathed to me never-seen images taken by Brady or his associate Alexander Gardner. Brady died in 1896, flat broke, having long since sold his collection of Civil War plates to the Smithsonian for $25,000.00.
Care for these recordings well, those who have them. And let the rest of us hear them as quickly as possible.
Chuck Winans, President
Portraits In Performance Photography, Inc.
Chicago, Illinois
www.pipphotography.com
Steven Harnar
s
Chas Winans <chuc...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
This find is nothing short of phenomenal. Nothing like this could even have been found in long forgotten Smithsonian archives. Not just because it's got never-released recordings of Woody Guthrie, but also because of who is singing with him. Cisco Houston died in 1961 from Stomach cancer. Leadbelly passed several years before that.
Woody himself was in and out of hospitals in the 1950s as Huntington's Disease slowly overtook him. To my recollection, he entered the hospital for the last time about 1958-59 and never left again unsupervised or for more than a day.
The photography eqivalent of this would be if the great-great-great grandchildren of famed Civil War photographer Matthew Brady found me and bequeathed to me never-seen images taken by Brady or his associate Alexander Gardner. Brady died in 1896, flat broke, having long since sold his collection of Civil War plates to the Smithsonian for $25,000.00.
Care for these recordings well, those who have them. And let the rest of us hear them as quickly as possible.
Chuck Winans, President
Portraits In Performance Photography, Inc.
Chicago, Illinois
www.pipphotography.com
Robert Johansen
That documentary, ``Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No
Home" will be broadcast Weds-July 12th at 9:00PM--(PST)Portland time on PBS
on the 'American Masters' program. Hope you get this in time to either
view/tape it for your pleasure.
Good to see you at Waterfront in Portland as always. Thank-you for
the post. I am a big fan of Woody Gutherie, and kin. Do you know the
original source of the article you cited here; as I would like to follow-up
on the upcoming recordings' release, etc...? Are these different from the
ones (lyrics) that his daughter/Arlos'-sister gave to Billy Bragg to put to
music a few years ago?? I own/enjoy those two CDs. The mix of other
players sounds like there will be some interesting sounds coming out of
there. Looking forward to it. 'nuf said, Thanks, Robert
Chas Winans
It would be exceedingly difficult to do a really good documentary on Woody, with enough interviews to fill a film from people who knew him. Certainly there are many still alive who had a ton of personal encounters with Woody, but many of the key people (i.e. his wife & widow, Marge), are now gone.
I've heard a ton of Woody Guthrie tales from the most interesting of sources. from Pete Seeger, of coutrse, with whom I spent a significant amount of time in the early 1980s. Also from Fred Hellerman, who was the guitar player in The Weavers. My most significant and reliable source of first-hand Woody Guthrie experience came from Jackie Alper, who is a dear friend, still going in her 80s. Jackie was the traveling secretary for the Roosevelt Bandwagon in 1944, during Franklin Roosevelt's re-election campaign. Woody was on that tour. So were Cisco Houston, Pete Seeger and many others associated with what would eventually become a group called The Almanac Singers in New York.
There are certain stories that Jackie Alper told me about Woody that I can only tell verbally. if I put them here, they are recorded forever, and I don't want them recorded forever. Oral history is a good thing that way. :-)
Chuck Winans, President
Portraits In Performance Photography, Inc.
Chicago, Illinois
www.pipphotography.com
Steven Harnar <chrfobl...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I believe i smell a documentary.
s
Steven Harnar
chefo
Chas Winans <chuc...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
It would be nice to see a Woody Guthrie documentary. The docu-book and docu-film taken from the book were done many years ago, actually during Woody's lifetime, called "Bound For Glory".
It would be exceedingly difficult to do a really good documentary on Woody, with enough interviews to fill a film from people who knew him. Certainly there are many still alive who had a ton of personal encounters with Woody, but many of the key people (i.e. his wife & widow, Marge), are now gone.
I've heard a ton of Woody Guthrie tales from the most interesting of sources. from Pete Seeger, of coutrse, with whom I spent a significant amount of time in the early 1980s. Also from Fred Hellerman, who was the guitar player in The Weavers. My most significant and reliable source of first-hand Woody Guthrie experience came from Jackie Alper, who is a dear friend, still going in her 80s. Jackie was the traveling secretary for the Roosevelt Bandwagon in 1944, during Franklin Roosevelt's re-election campaign. Woody was on that tour. So were Cisco Houston, Pete Seeger and many others associated with what would eventually become a group called The Almanac Singers in New York.
There are certain stories that Jackie Alper told me about Woody that I can only tell verbally. if I put them here, they are recorded forever, and I don't want them recorded forever. Oral history is a good thing that way. :-)
Chuck Winans, President
Portraits In Performance Photography, Inc.
Chicago, Illinois
www.pipphotography.com
Chas Winans
Bound For Glory is a far inferior look into the life of Woody Guthrie than is the 1980 book by Joe Klein, "Woody Guthrie - A Life". For that biography, his widow Marge did something she had never allowed any previous biographer to do. She gave Klein complete and total access to all of Woody's files - four filing cabinets full -- including unpublished song lyrics and never-before-seen cartoons. Yes, Woody could draw, too.
Marjorie Guthrie was the second, and probably the most important, of Woody's wives. This is Arlo's mother. When she was in her 20s, Marge was a dancer with the Martha Graham dance troupe, and she was an absolute knockout. But she was smart in many ways in understanding early on that her occasionally ne-er-do-well husband was the stuff that legends are made of. She kep every song lyric, every scrap of paper, everything Woody ever wrote down or drew, and put it in his files.
As far as I'm concerned, the Joe Klein biography is THE definitive biography about Woody Guthrie. It even surpasses Bound For Glory and shows Woody for the occasional cheating scoundrel that he could be. Again, I have first-hand oral history knowledge of some tales about Woody, from people who knew him personally and very well, that are not in that book. Some of it is absolutely not pretty.
I doubt that the Joe Klein book is still in print but, if you can find a copy for sale on eBay or something, pick it up. It's an absolutely fascinating read.
Chuck
Steven Harnar <chrfobl...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I think you are right Chuck, i saw that movie with David Carradine as Woody a few weeks ago. I think a lot of that era has kinda been lost from a historical perspective. I think maybe people today need to be reminded of some of the things that were going on back then. Seems it doesn't get the press it should.
chefo
Sandor Gulyas
Concerning Joe Klein's biography on Woody, had to laugh, purchased a copy of that book at a LSU book sale 2 years back $5. Though I've only gotten up to chapter 2 or 3. It's in a stack of 10-15 books I keep finding excuses not to read.
Sandor Gulyas
Graduate Student - Louisiana St. University
Dept. of Geography & Anthropology
"Nobody left to do the crazy things we used to do before
Nobody left to run with anymore"
No One To Run With -- (Performed by) Allman Brothers Band (1995)
Chas Winans
Pete Seeger is the only remaining member of the Almanac Singers still living. Millard Lampill died in 1997, Sis Cunningham passed in 2004 after a lengthy illness. Pete, of course, is still active as a performer in his mid-80s.
Shortly after the publication of Bound For Glory, Woody and fellow musician Cisco Houston joined the Merchant Marines together. After the war, Huntington's Disease began to show its disasterous effects on Woody. He checked himself into a sanatarium in New Jersey in 1954, and was in and out of hospitals for the next 13 years.
There are only three or four living people I know of who have first-hand accounts of Woody from the 1940s. Ramblin' Jack Elliott is one. He was traveling with Woody immediate post-war, around 1946. Pete Seeger is obviously another. Bess Hawes, who is the sister of the late Alan Lomax, I believe is still alive as well. She was the youngest member of the Almanac Singers. My friend Jackie Alper (whose husband Joe photographed many of the early Newport Folk Festivals) knew Woody extremely well.
I strongly urge anyone interested in Woody Guthrie to read Joe Klein's book. It's outstanding, and the only definitive account of Woody's life.
Sandor Gulyas <sgu...@cox.net> wrote:
Much of what Chas mentions below was referenced within the 90 minute movie last night. I'll have to double check the tape as to who said it, but in the PBS version someone described 'Bound For Glory' as part fiction, part travelogue, part (something else that I can't think of now) and part auto-biography, just don't look at it as a straight up biography.
Concerning Joe Klein's biography on Woody, had to laugh, purchased a copy of that book at a LSU book sale 2 years back $5. Though I've only gotten up to chapter 2 or 3. It's in a stack of 10-15 books I keep finding excuses not to read.
Sandor Gulyas
Graduate Student - Louisiana St. University
Dept. of Geography & Anthropology
"Nobody left to do the crazy things we used to do before
Nobody left to run with anymore"
No One To Run With -- (Performed by) Allman Brothers Band (1995)
----- Original Message -----
From: Chas Winans
To: BLU...@LISTS.NETSPACE.ORG
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: SBC: Lost Woody Guthrue recordings found . . .
The movie role as performed by Carradine and the book as written by Guthrie in the 1940s (before the onset of Huntington's Disease began to seriously affect him), is an overglorified version of Woody's life to that point. Woody Guthrie's life was anything but glorified.
Bound For Glory is a far inferior look into the life of Woody Guthrie than is the 1980 book by Joe Klein, "Woody Guthrie - A Life". For that biography, his widow Marge did something she had never allowed any previous biographer to do. She gave Klein complete and total access to all of Woody's files - four filing cabinets full -- including unpublished song lyrics and never-before-seen cartoons. Yes, Woody could draw, too.
Marjorie Guthrie was the second, and probably the most important, of Woody's wives. This is Arlo's mother. When she was in her 20s, Marge was a dancer with the Martha Graham dance troupe, and she was an absolute knockout. But she was smart in many ways in understanding early on that her occasionally ne-er-do-well husband was the stuff that legends are made of. She kep every song lyric, every scrap of paper, everything Woody ever wrote down or drew, and put it in his files.
As far as I'm concerned, the Joe Klein biography is THE definitive biography about Woody Guthrie. It even surpasses Bound For Glory and shows Woody for the occasional cheating scoundrel that he could be. Again, I have first-hand oral history knowledge of some tales about Woody, from people who knew him personally and very well, that are not in that book. Some of it is absolutely not pretty.
I doubt that the Joe Klein book is still in print but, if you can find a copy for sale on eBay or something, pick it up. It's an absolutely fascinating read.
Chuck
Joel Fritz
like Mezz Mezzrow's "Really the Blues." Both books are long on
metaphorical truth and use facts as needed. I enjoyed them both very
much. I'm not sure I'd like to read a factual Guthrie biography. I
learned a lot of good songs from listening to him and still have the
Stinson red translucent lp I bought when I was in high school. I'm
satisfied with that. YMMV.
I mean if Woody Guthrie isn't safe what's next, Chuck Berry? <g>
"A gun wheeled out of an overcoat and played that old one two. And Red
was dead when the other two men sat down to eat their stew."--Woody
Guthrie, "East Texas Red"
Chas Winans wrote:
> Bound For Glory was published in 1943. It is as described in the PBS story, but mostly travelogue and a whole lot of fiction. Aside from some key times and places Woody visited during his travels in that time period (pre-World War Two, Depression era), it's highly glorified. It did turn Woody, briefly, into the darling of the early folk music community and lent a tremendous amount of creedence to him and his musician friends of the era -- including Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Cisco Houston, Sis Cunningham and the rest of the performers who made up the original Almanac Singers.
>
> Pete Seeger is the only remaining member of the Almanac Singers still living. Millard Lampill died in 1997, Sis Cunningham passed in 2004 after a lengthy illness. Pete, of course, is still active as a performer in his mid-80s.
>
> Shortly after the publication of Bound For Glory, Woody and fellow musician Cisco Houston joined the Merchant Marines together. After the war, Huntington's Disease began to show its disasterous effects on Woody. He checked himself into a sanatarium in New Jersey in 1954, and was in and out of hospitals for the next 13 years.
>
> There are only three or four living people I know of who have first-hand accounts of Woody from the 1940s. Ramblin' Jack Elliott is one. He was traveling with Woody immediate post-war, around 1946. Pete Seeger is obviously another. Bess Hawes, who is the sister of the late Alan Lomax, I believe is still alive as well. She was the youngest member of the Almanac Singers. My friend Jackie Alper (whose husband Joe photographed many of the early Newport Folk Festivals) knew Woody extremely well.
>
> I strongly urge anyone interested in Woody Guthrie to read Joe Klein's book. It's outstanding, and the only definitive account of Woody's life.
>
>
--
It's never too late to do something your parents didn't want you to do.
When that time comes Barrelhouse Solly will be there for you. He cares.
Tunes: http://www.soundclick.com/barrelhousesolly
Fractious felines: http://ratemykitten.com/my/?gallery=willie_mctell
Blue Stew
songs, Seeger, Springsteen ....oh yea, and ("the New York thru-way is
closed man!!") ARLO!!
mike,
I don't want a nickel I just wanna ride my motorcycle...
Steven Harnar wrote:
>I think you are right Chuck, i saw that movie with David Carradine as Woody a few weeks ago. I think a lot of that era has kinda been lost from a historical perspective. I think maybe people today need to be reminded of some of the things that were going on back then. Seems it doesn't get the press it should.
>
> chefo
>
>Chas Winans <chuc...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> It would be nice to see a Woody Guthrie documentary. The docu-book and docu-film taken from the book were done many years ago, actually during Woody's lifetime, called "Bound For Glory".
>
>It would be exceedingly difficult to do a really good documentary on Woody, with enough interviews to fill a film from people who knew him. Certainly there are many still alive who had a ton of personal encounters with Woody, but many of the key people (i.e. his wife & widow, Marge), are now gone.
>
>I've heard a ton of Woody Guthrie tales from the most interesting of sources. from Pete Seeger, of coutrse, with whom I spent a significant amount of time in the early 1980s. Also from Fred Hellerman, who was the guitar player in The Weavers. My most significant and reliable source of first-hand Woody Guthrie experience came from Jackie Alper, who is a dear friend, still going in her 80s. Jackie was the traveling secretary for the Roosevelt Bandwagon in 1944, during Franklin Roosevelt's re-election campaign. Woody was on that tour. So were Cisco Houston, Pete Seeger and many others associated with what would eventually become a group called The Almanac Singers in New York.
>
>
>
Blues-L web site: http://www.netspace.org/~blues-l/
Steven Harnar
Even still, i think the younger generations may not be cognizant of those "grape of wrath" days and the struggles poor Americans of all colors and back rounds have suffered over the years.
s
Blue Stew <ma...@bluestew.com> wrote:
Well at least we got the Steinbeck novels, all those Merle Haggard
songs, Seeger, Springsteen ....oh yea, and ("the New York thru-way is
closed man!!") ARLO!!
mike,
I don't want a nickel I just wanna ride my motorcycle...
Steven Harnar wrote:
>I think you are right Chuck, i saw that movie with David Carradine as Woody a few weeks ago. I think a lot of that era has kinda been lost from a historical perspective. I think maybe people today need to be reminded of some of the things that were going on back then. Seems it doesn't get the press it should.
>
> chefo
>
Steve Hoffman
would be Jelly Roll Morton's "Mister Jelly Roll." That being the
transcribed autobio of Jelly Roll Morton based on interviews with Alan
Lomax and thus usually filed under Lomax as author (which is ridiculous,
really! it should be listed as being by Jelly Roll Morton as told to
Alan Lomax!). Anyway, it is another book that mixes fact and fancy and
really pulls you into its world. My impression is that the book is true
in the sense of conveying what Morton remembered and how he felt about
things even if not 100% factually accurate. And it's a great read. I
read it when I was about 20 and it thrilled me no end.
-Steve Hoffman
Joel Fritz wrote:
Blues-L web site: http://www.netspace.org/~blues-l/
Steven Harnar
s
Steve Hoffman <st...@goodnote.com> wrote:
Comparable to Woody's "Bound for Glory" and Mezz' "Really the Blues"
would be Jelly Roll Morton's "Mister Jelly Roll." That being the
transcribed autobio of Jelly Roll Morton based on interviews with Alan
Lomax and thus usually filed under Lomax as author (which is ridiculous,
really! it should be listed as being by Jelly Roll Morton as told to
Alan Lomax!). Anyway, it is another book that mixes fact and fancy and
really pulls you into its world. My impression is that the book is true
in the sense of conveying what Morton remembered and how he felt about
things even if not 100% factually accurate. And it's a great read. I
read it when I was about 20 and it thrilled me no end.
-Steve Hoffman
Joel Fritz wrote:
> I read "Bound for Glory" several times when I was in high school.
> It's like Mezz Mezzrow's "Really the Blues." Both books are long on
> metaphorical truth and use facts as needed. I enjoyed them both very
> much. I'm not sure I'd like to read a factual Guthrie biography. I
> learned a lot of good songs from listening to him and still have the
> Stinson red translucent lp I bought when I was in high school. I'm
> satisfied with that. YMMV.
>
> I mean if Woody Guthrie isn't safe what's next, Chuck Berry?
>