> the National Cowboy and Western Heritage
> Museum, located in Oklahoma City, refused the Smithsonian's proposal to
> launch a Guthrie exhibit there.
> Woody Guthrie has not been inducted into the museum's honorees. During the
> fifteen years at the height of his popularity he was never invited to
> perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Maybe he wasn't "white" enough for them?
During Woody Guthrie's height of popularity, he never really sold very many records, certainly not to country music fans. (Didn't Asch brag that he really didn't want hit records.) Only the most well informed country fan would have some inkling of Woody, and then only as the cousin of Jack Guthrie, who was a very popular country musician. And one who might have become even more influential if he hadn't died early from TB. Jack Guthrie did perform for two weeks at the Grand Ole Opry before his death.
(There are Capital and Bear Family collections of Jack Guthrie's music. Arlo deserves special credit for making special efforts to keep JG's music alive as well as his dad's.)
If Woody had continued his early southern California trajectory, it is quite likely that he might have would have been a very different musician. There's a good chance that like his cousin Jack he would have been open to Western swing and honky tonk. He might not even have been particularly interested in performing at the Opry. Woody, whether isolated geographically and socially or under the ideological sway of the CP's elevation of "folk" and disdain for commercial music , sounds quaint and old-fashioned compared to the exciting, electric music made by transplanted Okies in the 1940s and beyond. Listen not only to Bob Wills, but also to Billy Jack Wills, John Lee Wills, and Spade Cooley, Jimmie Rivers and you might understand that Woody was a musical reactionary. (That's not to say he didn't write and steal some nice songs,)
"Oklahoma Hills," the song co-written by the two Guthries was a huge hit in the 1940s and in 2001 became the official Oklahoma folk song. There is also an official state song. Oklahoma, of course. And an official country and western song: Bob Wills' "Faded Love." A western swing classic to be sure, but a better choice would have been "Take Me Back to Tulsa."
It has these lyrics which just might be relevant to the recent discussion here about art, persuasion, and propaganda.
"Little bee sucks the blossom, big bee gets the honey, Dark man picks the cotton, White man gets the money."
George Strait, and probably others, sanitize it to "poor man/rich man"
While the Cowboy and Western Heritage museum may have slighted Woody, a new a new portrait of Guthrie was unveiled in the State Capital this year. His hometown of Okemah has, for the last eight years, celebrated his birthday with a free music festival http://www.woodyguthrie.com/. It's a very nice affair, well worth attending. Arlo has performed most years. This year Arlo's daughter Sarah Lee Guthrie performed with her band.
The sign above the Rocky Road Tavern in Okemah says "Home of Woody Guthrie and the common folks. God Bless America."
As far as Woody being not "white" enough , one of the leading Opry performers in the early years both on the radio and in live tours was an African-American Deford Bailey. There's a PBS site on Bailey http://www.pbs.org/deford/. To be sure, there was racism in the early Opry, just like in all of American society. But we should try to have the full picture. There is a good discussion of this and much more in Bill Malone's excellent Don't Get above Your Raisin': Country Music and the Southern Working Class.
Stuart Elliott http://newappeal.blogspot.com/ www.ksworkbeat.org