Check out this new documentary in the library, Woodie Guthrie: Ain’t Got No Home. Here’s a summary:
Written by Woody Guthrie in 1940, “This Land Is Your Land” is one of the United States’ most famous folk songs. Its Oklahoma born author, Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie, was a complex, multi-talented man whose songs would come to exemplify that strain of American music. Yet his life was a tangle of unresolved contradictions: an indifferent guitar player yet an accomplished musician; three times married, but a perennially unfaithful husband; distant or doting father; acquainted with many yet well-known to few; a rambler who longed for home; the writer of as many as 1,400 songs, which he set to borrowed melodies. He recorded over 400 songs and enjoyed a great deal of success, but only became widely popular during the folk revival of the 1950s. This film chronicles the life and times of Woody Guthrie – populist poet, balladeer, rabble-rouser, and prototypical ramblin’ man.