Woody Guthrie was born 100 years ago this Saturday, July 14, 1912. Perhaps the best one-sentence summary of Guthrie’s work came from Bob Dylan. In the documentary No Direction Home, Dylan described when he first heard Woody Guthrie’s music, “You could listen to his songs and actually learn how to live.”
As regular Chimesfreedom readers know, we have been discussing Guthrie’s life and music for several months in anticipation of his centennial birthday. Check out some of the most recent posts about Guthrie below and watch for more upcoming posts the rest of the year too. Happy birthday Woody.
In the latest funny take on the Batman trailer for the upcoming Dark Knight Rises, Pee Wee Herman provides the voices. The video was put together for Late Knight with Jimmy Fallon. Check it out, as the short video is worth it for Pee-wee’s interpretation of Bane alone.
Another one of the film’s trailers previously was rendered in Legos. Who else would you like to see do a voice-over for The Dark Knight Rises? Leave your two cents in the comments.
As we celebrate the centennial of Woody Guthrie’s birthday this week, let us check in on what one of his disciples is doing. Bob Dylan, who visited Guthrie in New York before Guthrie passed away and who is rumored to be working on a new album, has been touring Europe. A few weeks ago on June 30 he performed at the Hop Farm Festival in Kent. Check out his performance of “Tangled Up in Blue” from his great Blood on the Tracks (1975) album below. [July 2014 Update: Unfortunately, the “Tangled Up in Blue” video is no longer available, so below is a video of Dylan singing part of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” at the same performance.]
As you can hear, Dylan continues to reinterpret his songs in performances. Although his European tour ends July 22 in France, there are rumors that he will continue touring in the U.S.
What do you think of Bob Dylan’s recent performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.
“Peace Call” is one of Woody Guthrie’s lesser-known songs, perhaps because it was lost for awhile. I discovered the song not too long ago on the excellent Guthrie tribute CD, Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway (2008).
The CD is a live recording of performances of Guthrie’s songs and songs in his spirit, inter-cut with some narration of quotes from Guthrie. And all of the performances are great, perhaps because the organizers sought out performers who capture Guthrie’s spirit instead of going for big-name artists, although there are names you may recognize like Pete Seeger, Ellis Paul, and Slaid Cleaves.
One of the many highlights on the CD is singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson‘s performance of “Peace Call.” Guthrie’s lyrics had survived in his archives. But if he wrote music for the song, it was lost when he died.
So Nora Guthrie, Woody Guthrie’s daughter, asked Gilkyson to put music to the words. And Gilkyson did an excellent job. The song contains some of Guthrie’s most beautiful lyrics, reminding us how he was a genius with the language.
I’ll clear my house of the weeds of fear, And turn to the friends around me; With my smile of peace, I’ll greet you one and all; I’ll work, I’ll fight, I’ll sing and dance, Of peace of the youthful spirit; Get ready for my bugle call of peace.
The artists from the Ribbon of Highway CD performed the songs on tour together. So, here is Gilkyson performing the song on December 12, 2008 at the University of Texas’ Union Ballroom in Austin, Texas. Other artists join her, including Joel Rafael, Ray Bonneville, Jimmy LaFave, Slaid Cleaves, Kevin Welch, and Michael Fracasso.
If you do not know this wonderful song, check it out below.
{Woody at 100 is our continuing series celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie on July 14, 1912. Check out our other posts on Guthrie and the Woody Guthrie Centennial too. }
What do you think of “Peace Call”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
When I first heard that Ernest Borgnine passed away today at the age of 95, my first thoughts were of his great film roles in The Wild Bunch (1969), From Here to Eternity (1953), and Marty (1955), for which he won a Best Actor Academy Award. But as the news sunk in, I began to think more and more about the way I first saw him when I was a kid. Before I watched any of those movies, I knew him as Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale on McHale’s Navy. The series ran from 1962-1966, overlapping with The Andy Griffith Show. Borgnine and Griffith, who also passed away in the last week, had the great talent to play the heart of their respective shows amidst a sea of wacky characters. Neither show would be so fondly remembered without the fine work by the two actors.
Borgnine also appeared in two spin-off movies with the characters from the show, and he also had a small role in the 1997 film McHale’s Navy with Tom Arnold. Below is the first part of the first episode of the first season of McHale’s Navy, originally broadcast in 1962.
In this clip, Borgnine remembers how he became involved in McHale’s Navy, which started out from a drama called Seven Against the Sea.
Both Sheriff Taylor and Lt. Commander McHale were both men in uniform, but each know sometimes you had to work against an unfair system. Sheriff Taylor would dispense his own kind of fairness and justice, while McHale regularly found ways to protect his men from the often inept authority figure Captain Wallace Burton Binghamton (played by Joe Flynn). While neither comedy was revolutionary, looking back, one sees a little of the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s seeping out of these characters from early in the decade. Although McHale’s Navy was set during World War II, Ernest Borgnine knew how to give a heart to a character surrounded by craziness during a decade that saw the country getting deeper into another war in Asia. Rest in peace.
Woody Guthrie was born 100 years ago this Saturday, July 14, 1912. Perhaps the best one-sentence summary of Guthrie’s work came from Bob Dylan. In the documentary No Direction Home, Dylan described when he first heard Woody Guthrie’s music, “You could listen to his songs and actually learn how to live.”
