ARCHIVES NEWSLETTER
Spring / Summer 2005

This Spring truly spells out renewal and transition for the Woody Guthrie Archives. In efforts to improve our research services and better care for the collection, the archives recently underwent considerable renovations. While we had to close the archives for a brief period, we are confident that the new space and furnishings will better serve the needs of staff, researchers and visitors alike. The renovation not only provides additional space for the growing collection, its new design enables more efficient access to the collection as well as a safer and more stable environment for the material. We are truly excited about these improvements and look forward to welcoming everyone to the archives, as we get back to the business of bringing the Woody Guthrie Collection to where it belongs! To the people.

In spite of all the renovations--and its impact on our workflow--archives staff has been busily working on several ongoing and new projects:

We recently conducted the first oral history of the Woody Guthrie Oral History Project with Elmer J. Buhler. Mr. Buhler was Woody’s driver and compañero in 1941, when Guthrie served as a contract artist assigned to write songs for the Bonneville Power Administration, a US government public works project. Although many of Woody’s songs resulting from this period are well-known folk classics (i.e., Grand Coulee Dam, Pastures of Plenty, Roll On Columbia), thanks to Mr. Buhler, we have added an important perspective on the events, people and places which sparked Guthrie’s outburst of creativity and patriotism. We have our good friend Bill Murlin to thank for conducting the first off site oral history at Mr. Buhler’s Portland, Oregon home for the Woody Guthrie Archives.

One of our most significant research initiatives yet was newly launched: the Woody Guthrie Research Fellowship program. In partnership and with the support of the BMI Foundation, Inc., this program offers financial support to individuals working on projects which advance Guthrie scholarship and research. For further information, please go to http://www.bmifoundation.org/pages/WGuthrie.asp.

Other educational outreach efforts are also coming along, as we continue to work with Brooklyn College’s Music Library staff to develop a web-based Woody Guthrie songs archive. And, for the first time, staff from the Woody Guthrie Foundation will participate at the 8th Annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, held in Woody’s birthplace and hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma. For festival details, visit http://www.woodyguthrie.com.

Finally, we bid farewell to Felicia Katz Harris, who has accepted a position starting July 1 as curator of Asian and Middle Eastern Folk Art at the Museum of International Folk Art (Santa Fe, New Mexico). As the archivist for the Woody Guthrie Archives for nearly 4 years, Felicia has contributed a great deal and will be missed. We wish her the best in all her endeavors.

Whether in New York City, Okemah, Santa Fe, or wherever our roads may cross, we look forward to seeing and hearing from you.

Jorge Arevalo
Curator

Archives Projects:

We are nearing completion of the first extensive publication that presents and explores Woody Guthrie primarily as a visual artist. The Woody Guthrie art book, edited and designed by Steven Brower, will contain hundreds of paintings, drawings, and other visual works of art from the Guthrie Collection. Published by Rizzoli Press and to be released in October 2005, we are excited about introducing Woody’s art to the world and highly anticipate this project to be a great success!

Exhibitions and Programs:

This past February, Monmouth University of New Jersey hosted four WGFA traveling exhibitions to complement performances by Ribbon of Highway, Jimmy LaFaves’s musical tribute touring company. Exhibitions from the Archives included THE FACES OF WOODY GUTHRIE: Photographs; BOUND FOR GLORY: Woody Guthrie’s Self-Illustrated Life Story; THIS IS THE HAND: Woody’s Vision of Labor; and, SING LIKE ME: Popular Song Lyrics
by Woody Guthrie.

If you haven’t yet seen the Woody Guthrie section in BOB DYLAN’S AMERICAN JOURNEY 1956-1966 exhibition at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, it’s showing through September 5, 2005. There are plans to travel the critically acclaimed exhibit, for which the Archives provided Woody Guthrie material. So be on the lookout for the traveling exhibition schedule at www.emplive.org/visit/travel_exhibits/index.asp.

Executive Director, Nora Guthrie presented the program HOLY GROUND at the Spertus Institute in Chicago and at the Jacob Burns Film Center, which was created with lyrics, photos, recordings, and other material from the archives that explore Woody Guthrie’s Jewish songs and his relationship with his mother-in-law and Yiddish poetess, Eliza Greenblatt.

In his talk, entitled “A3 DADDIES TO ATOM FIRES: Woody's Inspiration and Message in His Lyrics,” Woody Guthrie Foundation administrator Michael Smith offered his interpretations of selected Woody Guthrie song lyrics, discovered while researching and copyrighting material from the Archives. The presentation was held at the People’s Music Network workshop in Jackson Heights, NY.

Felicia Katz Harris gave a lecture entitled, “AS WOODY SEES IT: Artwork from his Autobiography ‘Bound For Glory’,” to a Sing Out! and Lehigh Valley Folk Music Society sponsored celebration of Woody Guthrie held in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The Greenburgh Library in Westchester County, New York hosted an exhibit of photographs, artwork, and awards from the Woody Guthrie Archives. Presented in conjunction with Nora Guthrie’s film presentation, “I've Sung This Song,” visitors also had the opportunity to view rare film clips from the archives.

BMI, Inc., also recently hosted the WGFA traveling exhibit, SING LIKE ME: Popular Song Lyrics by Woody Guthrie in the lobby of their Manhattan office building. This special exhibit is a selection of 10 popular songs by Woody Guthrie. The installation was prepared in association with the official announcement of the Woody Guthrie Fellowship Program.

New Productions:

“This Machine Kills Fascists: The Woody Guthrie Story,” a documentary by Stephen Gammond (Snapper Music, London) is officially completed and will soon be released. Be on the look out for this one, it promises to be a revelation!

Recent Researchers and Visitors to the Archives:

The Archives worked with numerous musicians and artists this past season. Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon researched Woody’s song lyrics for a joint project with Rob Wasserman. Frank London, Lisa Gutkin, and Lorin Sklamberg of the Klezmatics researched lyrics for their Holy Ground CD project, a follow up to the successful Happy Joyous Hanukkah CD.

Banjoman Tony Trishka and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell spent time in the Archives researching Woody’s lyrics in search of new children’s songs.

Lori Brandstron, a graduate student in Library Science visited the Archives for a research project regarding the structure and organization of Archives.

Martin Butler, a PhD student at Univeristat Duisberg Essen (Germany) visited the Archives for two weeks for his doctoral research on the context of Woody Guthrie’s Dustbowl Ballads. Martin is comparing Woody’s song lyrics line by line to historical texts, news clippings, and traditional songs.

Jim Pollard continues to transcribe a manuscript titled “My Forsaken Bible,” written by Woody Guthrie in 1956 while at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, New Jersey. This manuscript is a play written by Woody about daily life in the psychiatric ward. The play is meant to be a musical, and Woody even included lyrics for songs. In transcribing this body of work (which is at times illegible due to Woody’s loss of motor skills), Jim is making great strides in helping us to understand the significance of this body of work.

Special Accessions:

This past season we received some terrific donations. Here are highlights of just a few of the many items we recently accessioned into the collection:

Jim Pollard donated an issue of Life Magazine dated November 10, 1967. The issue includes the tribute by Pete Seeger, "So Long Woody, It's Been Good To Know Ya."

Vince Herman donated a copy of Leftover Salmon’s album, "Leftover Salmon." (High Country Records, 2004), which includes the song "Woody Guthrie."

Jeff Morgan, PhD candidate at Stanford University, and long-time friend of the Archives, donated a copy of his unpublished paper, "Hard Travelin': The Construction of Woody Guthrie's Legacy."

The Joel Rafael Band donated their new CD, "Woodyboye: Songs of Woody Guthrie (and tales worth telling volume II)." Appleseed Recordings APR CD 1086, 2005.

Nora Guthrie and Michael Kleff donated an audio CD of interviews recorded during their recent visit to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) headquarters and the Bonneville Dam in Portland, Oregon. This oral history project was recorded by Michael Kleff (Nora Guthrie’s husband and editor of the German publication, Folker) and includes conversations with Bill Murlin (the BPA Public Affairs Specialist who assembled the “Woody Guthrie Columbia River Collection Songbook” and helped to produce the accompanying recording), musician Carl Allen, and Skip Fowler, an Army Corps of Engineers ranger who gave Nora and Michael a tour of the BPA grounds.

Special Thanks:

Finally, this past semester, the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives had the good fortune to work with two extraordinary interns. Kate Harto is a senior at Ramapo College in New Jersey and was instrumental in helping to catalog the entire Ed Cray Collection, and prepare the collection for permanent storage. Thanks to Kate, researchers will have much better access to the incredible depth of material donated by Woody Guthrie biographer Ed Cray (such as interview transcriptions, correspondences, articles, and research notes). In addition, Kate helped prepare several exhibitions for travel.

Scott Urgola is a senior at Adelphi University in Long Island, NY. Scott worked hard at transcribing original song lyrics for the Archives’ records and helped fill copy requests from researchers. In addition, Scott played a key hand (literally) in helping us pack and move the Archives collection to off-site storage for the current renovation. We owe both interns a world of gratitude in helping to carry the Archives through another season!

Internship Opportunities:

We are a small, but very busy office. If you are interested in internship or volunteer opportunities at the Woody Guthrie Archives, please submit a resume, a brief proposal of the type of work you are interested in doing, and a list of three references.

We are presently interested in candidates with the following credentials:

- Experience in maintaining, developing and designing web site content.
- Interest in transcribing Woody Guthrie's original song lyrics.
- Background in cataloging archival material

Other tasks may include answering general reference calls, providing administrative support, and helping out with various archives projects.

Ideal candidates will have a background in archival or library science, museum studies, music history, or a related area. An interest in, and special knowledge of, Woody Guthrie and folk music is a plus, as are A/V skills.

Applications and inquiries should be sent to:
Archivist
Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives
250 West 57th St., Suite 1218
New York, NY 10107
wgarchive@woodyguthrie.org

Applications for Conducting Research at the Archives:
Encouraged by the range of scholarship, creativity, and inspiration that the Woody Guthrie Collection offers, the Archives welcomes researchers, scholars, artists, musicians, publishers, filmmakers, and those pursuing interests related to the life, works, and times of Woody Guthrie.

Interested researchers must complete an Application for Research Form. Successful applicants are invited to set up an appointment with the archivist on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Fridays between 10:30 AM to 5:30 PM.

We encourage visitors to look at the Online Collection Finding Aids on our website before visiting the archives. At this time, due to limited staff time and to protect the delicate collection, we are unable to accommodate general interest visits. We hope that our ever-improving website will satisfy general interest.

For further information or questions, please contact the archivist.