Album: Dust Bowl Ballads
Artist: Woody Guthrie
Born: Okemah, Oklahoma
Released: August 1940
Genre: Folk
Influenced: Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, Joe Strummer, Bruce Springsteen
There's perhaps no better place to start my list of 365 favourite albums than Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads. Not only did he inspire the work of Bob Dylan and many others (including Joe Strummer, who once called himself Woody Mellor), but this collection of songs about the dust storms upturning the lives of American farmers in the 1930s is the first "concept album", in the sense of songs with a unifying theme, ever released.
Many people will be familiar with misery of the dust storms from reading John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. I remember reading the book for A-Level English and finding it really tough-going, not just the subject matter but also the number of pages. If only I'd listened to this album at the time, it would have been much easier to connect with the themes. The Grapes of Wrath and Dust Bowl Ballads are completely interwoven; Tom Joad, the main character in the book, is also at the heart of the album with two songs about his fight for the rights of workers and to get food in the bellies of children affected by the storms. Steinbeck himself said that the endurance that Woody Guthrie, and by extension Tom Joad and many other "Okies", showed throughout the storms is the best of the "American spirit".
If I had to pick one song from the album that I love most it would have to be Talkin' Dust Bowl Blues. Guthrie popularised this talking blues style and it was highly influential on Bob Dylan, and others like Billy Bragg, who have written their own versions over the years. There's a sense of fun in the lyrics but the seriousness remains as a subtext, and the beauty of it is that you don't need a great singing voice to perfect it. In fact, this is one thing that really unites Dylan and Guthrie; both have raspy, nasal voices that are a barrier for some. But oh, what a loss for them. I've actually acquired a taste for this style of singing but, more importantly, I think it helps to switch the focus to the words. This is the power of the best folk music, giving voice to the oppressed and the underclass, allowing Guthrie to "kill fascists" with just a guitar and a song.
Artist: Woody Guthrie
Born: Okemah, Oklahoma
Released: August 1940
Genre: Folk
Influenced: Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, Joe Strummer, Bruce Springsteen
There's perhaps no better place to start my list of 365 favourite albums than Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads. Not only did he inspire the work of Bob Dylan and many others (including Joe Strummer, who once called himself Woody Mellor), but this collection of songs about the dust storms upturning the lives of American farmers in the 1930s is the first "concept album", in the sense of songs with a unifying theme, ever released.
Many people will be familiar with misery of the dust storms from reading John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. I remember reading the book for A-Level English and finding it really tough-going, not just the subject matter but also the number of pages. If only I'd listened to this album at the time, it would have been much easier to connect with the themes. The Grapes of Wrath and Dust Bowl Ballads are completely interwoven; Tom Joad, the main character in the book, is also at the heart of the album with two songs about his fight for the rights of workers and to get food in the bellies of children affected by the storms. Steinbeck himself said that the endurance that Woody Guthrie, and by extension Tom Joad and many other "Okies", showed throughout the storms is the best of the "American spirit".
If I had to pick one song from the album that I love most it would have to be Talkin' Dust Bowl Blues. Guthrie popularised this talking blues style and it was highly influential on Bob Dylan, and others like Billy Bragg, who have written their own versions over the years. There's a sense of fun in the lyrics but the seriousness remains as a subtext, and the beauty of it is that you don't need a great singing voice to perfect it. In fact, this is one thing that really unites Dylan and Guthrie; both have raspy, nasal voices that are a barrier for some. But oh, what a loss for them. I've actually acquired a taste for this style of singing but, more importantly, I think it helps to switch the focus to the words. This is the power of the best folk music, giving voice to the oppressed and the underclass, allowing Guthrie to "kill fascists" with just a guitar and a song.
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