Legendary inspiration for such greats as Bob Dylan , Bruce Springsteen , John Cougar Mellencamp and Steve Earle was born a century ago.It was fitting Glasgow hosted a illuminating and poignant musical showcasing of the life and times of the premier chronicler of the great cultural music and social heritage during the birth pangs and craven injustices of the worlds first global superpower.A story so censored , we can only really get to know it from great novels of the likes of Steinbeck ( there were more than one occasion when there were formal book-burning of his novel "Grapes of Wrath" in California alone) and the songs of the generation of Guthrie ( blacks , of which Leadbelly was a supreme inspiration to Woody himself , were more or less off the radar) whose fellow musicians , such as Pete Seeger , were more or less blacklisted for recording and performing under the blanket ban on suspected communists or people with even a mild suspicion of communistic leanings.You could rightly say , Guthrie spoke for a buried , suppressed and forgotten generation in the 20s and 30s in the US as Europe was deprived by the physical decapitation of a whole generation in the first World War.The common denominator was Capitalism going through the first steps of globalisation , treating the mass of humanity as either excess waste matter or expendable machine fodder.
The show is a precious and balanced mix of music and narrative , capturing the times and contexts of the have-nots plight in our modern age.Star David Lutken describes the background story to one of Woody Guthries most famous and profound songs , inspired by John Steinbecks character Tom Joad in the Book "Grapes of Wrath".Woody Guthrie had performed in Fundraiser for The John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Farm Workers , the Ballad perfectly captures the book , prompting John Steinbeck to say about the song " Woody has written my novel in 17 verses"
Though aligned with it , Woody was never a formal member of the Communist Party ( even though in the US it was perpetually in hiding , or had so many plants and infiltrators on behalf of the authorities they out-numbered bona fide members ) which allowed him to escape the absurd period during the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact when the Party could not overly criticise fascism.
Once the pact spectacularly collapsed with the nazi invasion of the Soviet Union , Woody could finally vent his contempt for all forms of fascism , he took to wearing a label of his guitar "This Machine Kills Fascists" and wrote a whole host of hard hitting songs , including this one titled " All You Fascists Bound To Lose" , what is odd about this and other songs he recorded at this time is the musical brotherhood contained in the recording line-up , Harmonica is played by Sonny Terry , this is at a time when the US had full segregation in the military ( with separate regiments for blacks) and the US Air Force failed to honour in any way the most successful flight squadron in the Second World war because it was composed of Black pilots , they were only given medals in the 1990s after a long campaign of publicity and recognition.
And last of all here is a full rendition of The ballad Of Tom Joad.
