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Another Woody Guthrie Weekend- VOM offering
This last weekend, the VOM options gave us holiday celebrations and a “Let’s all hav fun playing a classic.” “Wayfaring Stranger” was really fun, but I also offered other songs. I am 10/12 ths and 7 months through my “Learn Woody Guthrie Songs” pledge. More to come.
About this week’s offereings:
For SNL VOM, instead of a Holiday song, I played “The Sinking of the Reuben James,” that Guthrie wrote to protest war and facism. When he and Pete Seeger performed it, first, they were castigated in the Press for their politics and attempting to usurp the music of good, loyal Americans. I offered it because it is a telling of the loss of the first U.S. warship in WWII, even though it happened in October of 1941 during “Lend Lease” as the US was partially protecting the convoys headed to assist our allies.
https://soundcloud.com/user-903419652/tj-snl-vom-070321-reuben-james
Sunday, for the VwA, i offered a “children’s'” song Guthrie wrote and performed in 1944. Imagine what children singing about airplanes during wartime was like in this Country. “My Daddy Flies that Ship in the Sky.”
https://soundcloud.com/user-903419652/t-j-vwa-070421-ship-in-the-sky
Guthrie had to stop performing in 1948 due to Huntington’s Disease, and in his writing and performing career, many covers of old folk songs, labor protest songs, songs supporting the common man (and worker), anti-facism (and frequently not pro large corporations) and children’s’ songs were part of what he gave us.
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