Product Code: 2W 3007
Artist: Various
Origin: USA
Label: Warner Bros. Records (1976)
Format: 2 X LP
Availability: Enquire Now
Condition:
Cover: VG+
Record: VG+
Genre: Country , Folk Rock , World U

A Tribute To Woody Guthrie

Very nice clean double vinyl housed in a gatefold cover.

When Woody Guthrie died on October 3, 1967, after a stubborn  fifteen year bout with Huntington‘s Disease, a lot of people who had known him,  worked with him, or just sung his songs felt a spontaneous desire to do  something.

A “Tribute to Woody Guthrie” was planned for two performances at  Carnegie Hall on January 20th, 1968. The list of artists joined Woody’s own  friends and peers with the next generation of songwriters and musicians just  coming into their own. Appearing at the January concert were Judy Collins, Bob  Dylan (in the first public appearance after his motorcycle accident in 1966  with members of The Band), Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Odetta,  Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger. Actors Will Geer and Robert Ryan narrated the program.  Both performances were sold out an hour after tickets went on sale. Those  fortunate enough to attend participated in one of the most exciting and  remarkable musical experiences of all time.  

Two years later, eighteen thousand people attended the west coast  Tribute which took place on September 12, 1970, at the Hollywood Bowl. Joan  Baez, Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Odetta, Country Joe McDonald, Richie Havens,  Earl Robinson and Pete Seeger performed. Peter Fonda joined Will Geer in  narrating. The house band included members of Swampwater and Ry Cooder.

To honor Woody’s unique position as an artist, for the first time  ever, two albums were issued in 1972 shared between Columbia Records and Warner  Brothers Records, collating and editing tracks from both concerts. Now, exactly  fifty years after Woody’s death, we invite you to hear what took place on those  two iconic evenings as we present the Carnegie Hall and Hollywood Bowl concerts  in their original, scripted, concert order including twenty tracks which were  never included on the original LPs and are here released for the first time. Among  them Joan Baez (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos – Deportee), Jack Elliott (Hard  Travelin'), Arlo Guthrie (I Ain't Got No Home), Richie Havens (Blues For  Woody), Country Joe McDonald (Pretty Boy Floyd), Odetta (John Hardy), Tom  Paxton (Pretty Boy Floyd), Earl Robinson (Roll On Columbia), Pete Seeger (The  Sinking Of The Reuben James).

Producers Nora Guthrie, Michael Kleff and Steve Rosenthal dug deep  into the story behind the concerts – working with the original reel to reel  concert tapes and concert scripts, business letters, and personal stories –  they recreate and recount how, when and why these early tribute concerts are still  important and reveal how they had such an impact on those who attended.

“To listen to the recordings now is to reflect upon events from an  earlier and simpler time, which were communing with a still earlier and even  simpler time. But simplicity is not the same thing as innocence. Although times  have changed, in many ways for the better, not so the good and evil, bravery  and cowardice, generosity and injustice that Woody and his friends and  followers sang about.  What is so  striking in these recordings, above and beyond the politics and musical styles,  is the timelessness of what Woody was getting at in his deceptively simple  art.” Historian and author Sean Wilentz from his  introduction “So Long To Woody Guthrie