To honor Oklahoma folk icon
Woody Guthrie, Smithsonian Folkways will release “
Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection.” The box set hits stores July 10, just four days before the Okemah-born musician would have turned 100 years old.
The collection includes a 150-page large-format book with photos and essays, three music CDs with 21 previously unreleased performances and six never-before heard, original tunes.
His early Dust Bowl ballads, along with more than 3,000 work songs, union and labor songs, political and philosophical songs, anti-war songs, anti-Nazi songs, love songs and children’s songs, marked the pulse of hard-hit people in times of economic depression and war. Guthrie died in 1967.
If that’s not enough, the record company also is releasing a charming collection of “re-imagined” Guthrie children’s songs, “
Little Seed: Songs for Children by Woody Guthrie,” by
Elizabeth Mitchell. The baker’s dozen tunes features versions of “This Land Is Your Land” and “Bling Blang.” Hear both at
tulsaworld.com/folkwayslittleseed. That album also drops July 10.
Presales for both are now open at
tulsaworld.com/folkwayswoody. Presale for the “Woody at 100” album includes an instant album download and a previously unreleased Guthrie tune.
Smithsonian Folkways is an official sponsor of The Woody Guthrie Centennial.
Watch the minidoc on how it was made:
