{"id":203,"date":"2013-12-20T15:28:37","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T20:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/?p=203"},"modified":"2025-05-12T16:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T20:25:11","slug":"guthrie-nowlin-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/2013\/12\/20\/guthrie-nowlin-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Woody Guthrie the Commonist: An Interview with Bill Nowlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"American_Radical_Patriot_Cover_Art_Product_Shot\"<\/a>Woody Guthrie: American, Radical, Patriot<\/i>, gathers together the complete Library of Congress recordings in one place for the very first time, including the interviews done by Alan Lomax, the VD demos, and the BPA songs written to help celebrate the power of the Bonneville Power Administration as it powered up the Pacific Northwest. In the 1940s, Guthrie sang songs about Hitler for the war effort and donned a soldier\u2019s uniform. He was a man of the people, singing for them and their causes. He was a \u201ccommonist\u201d, celebrating the power of the individual, and, in these recordings, the government as well.\u00a0 All of this makes for a complex character, and a wonderful new set of music, courtesy of Rounder Records.<\/p>\n

I spoke with Bill Nowlin, co-founder of Rounder Records and producer of the new set. We talked about Guthrie\u2019s position here as he worked for the government, his lasting influence, and what may still remain in the vaults for our future enjoyment.<\/p>\n

In your liner notes, you call Woody Guthrie a \u201ccommonist\u201d.\u00a0 Can you explain what you mean by that?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s kind of a play on words, but it\u2019s his play on words, and not mine. (I wish I could take credit for it!) Some people called him a Communist, but one of his witty rejoinders was to call himself a \u201ccommonist\u201d \u2013 essentially, someone who was sympathetic to the \u201ccommon man.\u201d<\/p>\n

You start your notes with the sentence, \u201cWoody Guthrie loved his country.\u201d How does his involvement with the government complicate our idea of Woody Guthrie as a political songwriter?<\/b><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t necessarily complicate our idea \u2013 but that depends on the person. We all have a tendency to see things through the prism of our own beliefs and mindset. Someone who themselves was an anti-government radical (or at least one highly suspicious of government) might tend to see Woody as one, too. That might leave them with the comfortable feeling that Woody endorsed their views. That person might find it complicating to realize how much Woody wanted to work with <\/i>or for <\/i>the government, at least on some matters.<\/p>\n

One can still be political as a songwriter, of course, regardless of one\u2019s politics.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing to prevent a songwriter today from writing a song about how wonderful John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are.<\/p>\n

How did Rounder Records first get involved with these recordings?<\/b><\/p>\n

Rounder first got involved with these recordings back in the 1980s. It was in August 1987 that we released the Columbia River Collection<\/i> (Rounder 1036) as an LP and CD.\u00a0 Those were the songs Woody recorded for the Bonneville Power Administration, and which are again presented in Woody Guthrie: American Radical Patriot, <\/i>along with an additional track. We had started on that project around 1985.<\/p>\n

In October 1988 that we released the Library of Congress recordings on 3-LP and 3-CD sets.\u00a0 What we released than was the same material which Elektra had first released in 1964, but which had gone out of print (and, of course, never been on CD).<\/p>\n

It was more or less around 2010 that we started working on this set – the complete Library of Congress recordings, with the additional two hours of song and spoken word material which was not on either the Elektra or Rounder packages from the 1980s.<\/p>\n

What surprised you most while digging through all of these songs and interviews?<\/b><\/p>\n

Not a lot, really. It was a true pleasure, though, to take the time to hear Woody recount his life to Alan (and Elizabeth) Lomax \u2013 just to hear him talk and play the songs in the context of that conversation. It was also nice to hear \u2013 for the first time \u2013 the radio dramas he recorded for the war effort and in the fight against venereal disease. I can\u2019t say they were a surprise, but they were definitely new to me.<\/p>\n

I guess the biggest \u201csurprise\u201d of a sort was to be able to locate and talk on the phone with a survivor of the Reuben James. <\/i>As best I can tell, Earl Jaeggi is the only remaining survivor, so it was really nice to be able to talk with him, and to learn that he definitely knew Woody\u2019s song.<\/p>\n

Alan Lomax could almost rightly be co-credited with this set.\u00a0 Can you talk a little bit about his efforts to document these stories and forms of music in the 1940s and beyond?<\/b><\/p>\n

This set would never have happened without the foresight and dedication of Alan Lomax. That is true for a lot of other American music as well, and some traditional folk music of a number of other countries that he helped record and preserve.\u00a0 It was Alan\u2019s particular inspiration to record what he called \u201cmusical autobiographies\u201d of some outstanding performers of his day \u2013 Jelly Roll Morton, Lead Belly, Aunt Molly Jackson, and Woody Guthrie. Had he not done so, the world might not really have heard of a couple of these artists.\u00a0 Alan not only recorded the Library of Congress recordings of Woody but he helped arrange for Woody to get the job writing songs in the Pacific Northwest for the BPA (Bonneville Power Administration).\u00a0 And we know that the Office of War Information songs, and the public health service songs also had his active involvement \u2013 he even wrote the script for the \u201cLonesome Traveler\u201d, for instance.<\/p>\n

Following in his father\u2019s footsteps and broadening his work, Alan was a genius at his work and one could easily argue did more for American roots music that any other person, with evident influences to this very day in the second decade of the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve released a handful of Guthrie recordings in the past.\u00a0 Why this set, why now?\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

We\u2019d always thought \u2013 since releasing the edited LOC set back in 1988 \u2013 of putting out the full Library of Congress recordings. When Nora Guthrie was visiting Rounder, and talked about gathering all of Woody\u2019s \u201cgovernment recordings\u201d into one set, with liner notes discussing this aspect of his work, it was a natural \u2013 and in particular for me, a former political science student and professor.\u00a0 Why now?\u00a0 We just got around to it.\u00a0 We had hoped to aim for his 100th<\/sup> birthday in mid-2012, but when we saw that Smithsonian Folkways had a boxed set in the works, we deferred to them and held ours over to this year.<\/p>\n

In the set, Jesus sits right alongside Jesse James and Pretty Boy Floyd\u2014can you talk a little bit about Guthrie\u2019s vision of outlaws and those who challenged authority?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure I can give the best answer to your question \u2013 simply because I haven\u2019t studied it as much. It would be a good subject for someone to research. I have the sense that he romanticized some of the outlaws a bit, though I don\u2019t think that was uncommon at the time, particularly in Oklahoma where there was apparently a little bit of a subculture of \u201coutlawdom\u201d in the hill country in the 1920s and 1930s. Wanting the outlaw to have some noble characteristics wasn\u2019t unique to Woody; we see it in a number of books and films.<\/p>\n

And of course there\u2019s the great \u201cJolly Banker\u201d song\u2014taking aim at the bankers in Oklahoma.<\/b><\/p>\n

Bankers were certainly easy targets at the time, and maybe (if we include financiers as well) ought to not be as exempt as they appear to be today. With foreclosures in the thousands, many Oklahomans had to leave their homes during the Depression. It\u2019s not surprising that Woody felt strongly on the subject.<\/p>\n

The folk tradition was also important to Guthrie, as it was for blues artists in the south and other musicians.\u00a0 Can you talk about the oral tradition of these songs\u2014where Guthrie picked them up, and how they were transformed by future folk artists like Bob Dylan.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t do this nearly as well as others could. In listening to Woody talk with the Lomaxes about the songs he sang \u2013 even some that are listed as written by Woody \u2013 we hear him talk himself about where he got the songs from.\u00a0 Most of them weren\u2019t from one person or another, or if they were from someone, they were just songs Woody heard and made his own. He definitely picked up songs along the way, and added to them. Later singers have tended more to replicate songs sung by others, rather than simply sing them their own way.<\/p>\n

Can you talk a little bit about the VD recordings?\u00a0 What was the impetus for them, and where did these songs go?<\/b><\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t really go anywhere. They were basically demos, but Woody wasn\u2019t commissioned to sing them.\u00a0 I\u2019d really love to learn just how Bob Dylan learned four of them so early on \u2013 1961 \u2013 in his own career, and what fascinated him enough to have recorded four of them in his \u201cMinnesota hotel tapes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Woody<\/a>Do you think it is fair to say that the Dust Bowl helped to create Woody Guthrie as an artist?\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking about how Steinbeck, similarly, must be looked at through the lens of the Great Depression, and how Woody Guthrie seems to be the other towering artist of that era.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

Well, certainly that was where Woody\u2019s muse first matured, dealing in his songs and stories with the Dust Bowl, the displacement, and the migration westward of so many people from his part of the country. Steinbeck, of course, had something to say about Woody \u2013 you\u2019ll read that in the notes to this set.<\/p>\n

What was the decision process behind putting a 78 in the box set?\u00a0 The physical aspect of an new\/old 78 seems like a fascinating choice, given the fact that it might be hard to actually play it.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

It just seemed like a good idea. When Woody was first recording, and when all of the tracks on his package were cut, the recorded medium was the 78 rpm record.\u00a0 It was only later that 45s first appeared. And later still that we developed the long-playing 33rpm record, then the cassette, the CD, etc.<\/p>\n

An increasing number of people are turning back to vinyl these days, which is an interesting counter-trend (I\u2019m not sure how far it will go). I\u2019m told that today\u2019s record players can handle 78s. But I\u2019d venture a guess that of the 5,000 people who buy this limited edition package, less than a thousand will ever hear the tracks on the 78 by actually playing the 78 itself.<\/p>\n

Guthrie material keeps emerging, with his novel House of Earth even finding release earlier this year.\u00a0 What else is out there that we don\u2019t know about?\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

I guess we\u2019ll find out! Nora Guthrie and her staff now count over 3,000 songs Woody wrote, and most of them have never been recorded by anyone.\u00a0 My guess is that we\u2019ll hear more of those in the next several years.<\/p>\n

There is another thematic approach to Woody\u2019s work that I am slowly working on developing, but I\u2019ll keep that under wraps for now.<\/p>\n

What do you think we can still learn from Woody Guthrie?<\/b><\/p>\n

He was a straight-forward guy. There was a fundamental honesty about him, and a directness. \u00a0Those are good traits that will always be exemplary, for all of us. \u00a0\u00a0Of course, some of the particular issues he addressed in his songs, and what else he had to say, are no longer current issues, but a surprising number of them still obtain. \u00a0There will probably always be economic inequality, with those of power and influence using the tools available to them to try to solidify and expand their position of advantage. \u00a0There will always be room for straight talkers who can stand up and point out inequities and give voice to those who may not find an easy time voicing their own, perhaps even unarticulated, feelings.
\nOral histories of the folk tradition are so important to our understanding of America during this time period. \u00a0Do you think there is room for this type of project today? \u00a0Do we have anyone like Alan Lomax today? \u00a0Or Guthrie? <\/b>
\nThere is a very definitely plenty of room for oral history \u2013 not just in folk tradition but in all fields. \u00a0There are many scholars and other dedicated people working today to document the lives of those who came before, taking advantage of tools available to us today \u2013 such as video \u2013 which weren\u2019t around at Woody\u2019s time. \u00a0I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s anyone quite like Alan Lomax or Woody Guthrie today, in America. There could well be in other lands, though I don\u2019t know of any. \u00a0I don\u2019t know if there really could be anyone quite like Alan Lomax today, because of the proliferation of media and the fact that there are hundreds of people doing documentary work. \u00a0But maybe there will be in time to come.<\/p>\n

Every few years there seems to be a bit of a folk revival. \u00a0In recent years, bands like the Avett Brothers and Mumford and Sons have gotten a lot of attention\u2014Mumford even contributing to the new Coen brothers film, Inside Llewyn Davis<\/i>. \u00a0This is wonderful, of course, but do you think it is a challenge for contemporary audiences to reach back eighty years to dig a little deeper into the folk tradition?<\/b>
\nPeriodic return to the essential simplicity of acoustic, \u201chand-made\u201d music is probably something that will continue. Many of today\u2019s \u201cfolk-style\u201d musicians themselves do look back to Woody Guthrie, and others. See, for instance, the New Multitudes<\/i> project that Rounder released a couple of years ago. For younger audiences today, that music seemed to resonate. \u00a0Whether contemporary audiences themselves will do some digging, I don\u2019t know. I\u2019d like to hope so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woody Guthrie: American, Radical, Patriot, gathers together the complete Library of Congress recordings in one place for the very first time, including the interviews done by Alan Lomax, the VD demos, and the BPA songs written to help celebrate the power of the Bonneville Power Administration as it powered up the Pacific Northwest. In the … Continue reading Woody Guthrie the Commonist: An Interview with Bill Nowlin<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}