Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection | |
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Compilation album by | |
Released | July 10, 2012 |
Recorded | 1937–1951 |
Genre | |
Length | 199:08 |
Label | Smithsonian Folkways |
Producer | Jeff Place, Robert Santelli |
Woody At 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collectionis a 150-page large-format book with three CDs containing 57 tracks, including Woody Guthrie's most important recordings such as the complete version of "This Land Is Your Land," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore," and "Riding in My Car." The set also contains 21 previously unreleased performances and six never-before-heard original songs, including Woody's first known—and recently discovered—recordings. It is an in-depth commemorative collection of songs, photos and essays released by Smithsonian Folkways in June 2012.
Robert Santelli, CEO of the Grammy Museum, contacted Jeff Place in October 2010 and suggested they compile a Guthrie box set to go along with the celebration of Guthrie's 100th birthday. Santelli and Place looked for the most important and representative of Guthrie's compositions. [1] They also included the earliest known recordings of Guthrie (made in 1939), which were discovered by researcher Peter LaChapelle in 1999. [2]
The design for Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection was created by Visual Dialogue, a graphic design company from Boston, Massachusetts. The firm based the collection's design on the plain typography and simple design of classic Folkways Records albums. The box set consists of a 150-page hardcover textbook containing Guthrie essays, sketches, and photographs. Three pockets hold CDs in the last pages of the book. [3]
Woody at 100 currently holds a 92 rating from aggregate review site Metacritic. [4] Rolling Stone critic David Fricke wrote, "This sumptuous birthday celebration of America's greatest folk singer is really a present to us: two CDs of his greatest songs and recordings, mostly from the mid-1940s, and a disc of illuminating rarities." [5]
Rachel Maddux of Pitchfork wrote, "in the world of Woody at 100, everything about Guthrie's career seems fluid, boundaryless, as if considering him just as a great American musician and not also as a man of letters and a painter, too, has maybe been a huge mistake." [6]
Aggregate scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 92/100 |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [7] |
Pitchfork | (8.5/10) [8] |
Rolling Stone |
Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection received two 2013 GRAMMY nominations, winning in the category of Best Boxed Set or Limited Edition Package. [9] The box set also won Independent Music Awards for Best Compilation Album and Best Album Packaging [10] as well as an American Association of Independent Music Libby Award for Creative Packaging. [11]
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter and composer who was one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He inspired several generations both politically and musically with songs such as "This Land Is Your Land".
Anthology of American Folk Music is a three-album compilation, released in 1952 by Folkways Records, of eighty-four recordings of American folk, blues and country music made and issued from 1926 to 1933 by a variety of performers. The album was compiled from the experimental film maker Harry Smith's own personal collection of 78 rpm records.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer, songwriter and story teller.
Dust Bowl Ballads is an album by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. It was released by Victor Records, in 1940. All the songs on the album deal with the Dust Bowl and its effects on the country and its people. It is considered to be one of the first concept albums. It was Guthrie's first commercial recording and the most successful album of his career.
Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records, donated the entire Folkways Records label to the Smithsonian. The donation was made on the condition that the Institution continue Asch's policy that each of the more than 2,000 albums of Folkways Records remain in print forever, regardless of sales. Since then, the label has expanded on Asch's vision of documenting the sounds of the world, adding six other record labels to the collection, as well as releasing over 300 new recordings. Some well-known artists have contributed to the Smithsonian Folkways collection, including Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins, Woody Guthrie, and Lead Belly. Famous songs include "This Land Is Your Land", "Goodnight, Irene", and "Midnight Special". Due to the unique nature of its recordings, which include an extensive collection of traditional American music, children's music, and international music, Smithsonian Folkways has become an important collection to the musical community, especially to ethnomusicologists, who utilize the recordings of "people's music" from all over the world.
Elizabeth Ardis Mitchell is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She began her career performing with Lisa Loeb as the duo Liz and Lisa, then founded the indie rock band Ida in 1991, of which she continues to be a member. As a solo artist, she has been recording and performing music for children since 1998.
Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion were a musical duo. Guthrie and Irion were married on October 16, 1999, and began performing together as an acoustic duo in late 2000, performing together until they divorced in the mid-2010s. Their music combined Irion's love of rock and blues with Guthrie's roots of folk and country.
American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie's published recordings are culled from a series of recording sessions in the 1940s and 1950s. At the time they were recorded they were not set down for a particular album, so are found over several albums not necessarily in chronological order. The more detailed section on recording sessions lists the song by recording date.
The Woody Guthrie Foundation, founded in 1972, is a non-profit organization which formerly served as administrator and caretaker of the Woody Guthrie Archives. The Foundation was originally based in Brooklyn, New York and directed by Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora Guthrie.
Nursery Days, originally released as Songs to Grow on, Volume One: Nursery Days, is an album of a collection of children's songs by American Folk singer Woody Guthrie. It was released in 1951 by Folkways Records and later re-released in 1992 with four extra songs under the name Nursery Days by Smithsonian Folkways. Several songs in the collection are instructional, helping children learn to count. Others are songs of adoration written by Guthrie with his own children in mind.
Nora Lee Guthrie is the daughter of American folk musician and singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie and his second wife Marjorie Mazia Guthrie, sister of singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, and granddaughter of renowned Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. Nora Guthrie is president of The Woody Guthrie Foundation, president of Woody Guthrie Publications and founder of the Woody Guthrie Archive, and lives in Mt. Kisco, New York.
The Asch Recordings, recorded between 1944 and 1949, are a series of albums featuring some of the most famous recordings of US folk musician Woody Guthrie. These sessions were recorded by Moses "Moe" Asch in New York City.
Folkways: A Vision Shared – A Tribute to Woody Guthrie & Leadbelly is a 1988 album featuring songs by Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly interpreted by leading folk, rock, and country recording artists. It won a Grammy Award the same year.
The Union Boys was an American folk music group, formed impromptu in 1944, to record several songs on an album called Songs for Victory: Music for Political Action. Its "all-star leftist" members were Josh White, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Tom Glazer.
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.
Released in 2005, Folkways: The Original Vision is an expanded rerelease of the 1989 album Folkways: The Original Vision, created by Smithsonian Folkways to document the origins of the Folkways Records label. The rerelease was created on the 15th anniversary of the original album, and included enhanced liner notes and six bonus tracks.
My Dusty Road is a 4 CD box set of Woody Guthrie music containing 54 tracks and a book. It is a collection of the newly discovered Stinson master discs. It was released by Rounder Records in 2009.
Stinson Records was an American record label formed by Herbert Harris and Irving Prosky in 1939, initially to market, in the US, recordings made in the Soviet Union. Between the 1940s and 1960s, it mainly issued recordings of American folk and blues musicians, including Woody Guthrie and Josh White.
Jeff Place is the American writer and producer, and a curator and senior archivist with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. He has won three Grammy Awards and six Indie Awards.
"Riding in My Car" is a children's song by Woody Guthrie.
I'm a gonna let you blow the horn,
I'm a gonna let you blow the horn,
A oorah, a oorah, a oogah, oogah,
I'll take you riding in my car.