Woody at Home

It has been a while since I last posted. May was a hectic month for me. It began with a performance during the Woody at Home program at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The program featured guests Anna Canoni, President of the Woody Guthrie Publications and granddaughter of Woody Guthrie. Steve Rosenthal, who engineered the release was part of the program where they discussed the CD Woody at Home, a collection of recordings Woody Guthrie made in his home in Brooklyn.

The recordings give the listener an opportunity to listen to Woody in his creative process as he recorded to a reel to reel in his apartment. You can hear a spoken version of Deportees. You can hear new verses to This Land is Your Land. You can hear children like Arlo and Nora in the background. What you can't hear is an unbearable hum from poor grounding in the Brooklyn apartment (Owned by Fred Trump). With stem separation technology, they were able to eliminate the noise that previously made the recordings unusable.

Playing the Guthrie songs at the Rock Hall with Woody's legacy present, inspired me to start recording a collection of songs for an upcoming release called "A Better World is Coming". 12 songs by Woody Guthrie. I recorded them with the plan of listening to my performances and enhancing it with additional instrumentation where needed. Ultimately, I decided to keep it raw with vocal and acoustic guitar. It really didn't need any support. I am excited to share these recordings. I think the performances capture my style as well as any recordings I have ever released. I think the also are true to Woody's songwriting.

A couple of days after the Rock Hall event, Folknet hosted John McCutcheon for a sold out concert. John gave us an amazing performance and was as kind a human being as you would expect.

Near the end of the month Roots of American Music hosted Mary Frances Hurt of the Mississippi John Hurt Foundation and granddaughter of John Hurt. As program director, I made a lot of the arrangements for her visit and developed a friendship with Mary Frances. My friendship with blues musician, Andy Cohen enabled us to make the connection to bring her to town. The Roots event was part of our Masters of American Music series at Visible Voice Books. This one featured Ray Flanagan performing the music of Mississippi John Hurt. Mary spoke during the program about her grandfather's life, music, spirit, and the foundation. The event was sold out.

It amazes me how this journey in folk music has taken me from stumming chords in a song book to being a part of the programing that keeps these artists legacies alive.

Spending time with folk royalty is becoming a regular part of my life. It is important for me to take time to reflect on what all of these people have meant to me. It is also a time to think about the musicians lives that I have the opportunity to impact through Roots of American Music, Folknet, FARM, and Folk Alliance International. It is a gift to me to be a part of this continuous stream of music, from the legends to those who are barely known sharing songs with the children in our schools.

I am living a dream.