My Name is New York: Ramblin; Around Woody Guthrie's Town
3-CD Deluxe Audio Book & Paperback Guide Book
$28.00
~ Now Available ~
The Woody Guthrie Store
~ Rare Guthrie home recordings
~ Exclusive interviews
~ New songs!
3-CD SET INCLUDES:
2-CD AUDIO TOUR – 19 tracks highlighting significant locations where Woody Guthrie lived and wrote.
A historic audio tour told by those who knew him best.
with
PETE SEEGER
ARLO GUTHRIE
RAMBLIN’ JACK ELLIOTT
BOB DYLAN
and many more
AND
THE SONGS CD - 16 Woody Guthrie NYC songs + new releases
Written and Narrated by Nora Guthrie
WOODY GUTHRIE lived in New York City from 1940-1967, a total of 27 years. Although he continued to ramble, New York was the city he called home, and always returned to. With friends Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and others, he was at the hub of a new movement – introducing and popularizing rural, roots, topical, and protest music to modern urban audiences.
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND was written at a small boarding house on 43rd Street. His autobiography BOUND FOR GLORY and many of his most popular songs were written in various locations around town; JESUS CHRIST, TOM JOAD, VIGILANTE MAN, and RIDING IN MY CAR are among the 600 songs he composed here.
Now, for the first time, you'll actually be able to hear these stories told by those who knew him best, in many different ways and through various encounters and circumstances; music partners Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Sonny Terry, and Bess Lomax Hawes, Woody's first wife Mary Guthrie, Woody's merchant marine buddy Jimmy Longhi, Bob Dylan, Woody's second wife Marjorie Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Nora Guthrie and many others share their memories with you first-hand.
With this new audio tour, we invite you to walk the streets, ride the buses and subways, or sit down and relax on some of the stoops, park benches, or beaches where Woody Guthrie did – always strumming away on his guitar, always working on a new song.
"All you can write is what you see" – Woody Guthrie
~ July 14, 2014 ~
'MY NAME IS NEW YORK' DELUXE COLLECTION CELEBRATES WOODY GUTHRIE'S NEW YORK WITH AUDIO TOUR, UNRELEASED SONGS, NEVER-SEEN ARTIFACTS AND MORE
Three-disc set features new interviews with
Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Woody's friends and family
What some people know about Woody Guthrie is filtered through a reputation as America’s wandering folk singer, but for 27 years New York City was the place he called home. His career is almost inseparable from the city: Woody Guthrie wrote over 600 songs here - including "This Land Is Your Land," "Tom Joad," and "Hard Travelin'" - and raised his family in a variety of locations around Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn.
To celebrate the indelible influence this city had on Woody’s career, on September 23 Woody Guthrie Publications is releasing ‘My Name Is New York; Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town’ a three-disc collection that offers an intimate portrait of Woody's NYC life through storytelling and music. Produced by Steve Rosenthal, Michael Kleff and Woody's daughter Nora Guthrie, ‘My Name is New York’ presents two discs of an audio tour and stories that contextualize Woody's New York with new interviews, song snippets and a history narrated by Nora, plus a third disc of music, including some never heard before.
“Working on this project has been more than just a nostalgic walk down memory lane," Nora says. "It’s been a precious adventure, collecting the stories – and the voices - of my father’s NYC friends and family, many of them who are now gone. It’s been, at times, both a hilarious and tearful journey. And, just as for thousands of artists who have migrated here, you can see how New York City was absolutely critical in significantly chiseling my father’s destiny.”
Featuring new interviews with luminaries like Pete Seeger (in one of his final interviews), Woody’s son Arlo Guthrie, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, as well as with Woody’s many other friends and family, the first two discs take listeners on a virtual tour of the city as Woody experienced it through visits to 19 locations. They include the boarding house on 43rd Street where “This Land Is Your Land” was written; the Greenwich Village apartment that The Almanac Singers — an all-star folk collective included Guthrie, Seeger, Lead Belly and Josh White - called home; and his home on Coney Island, where Woody tirelessly composed over 100 songs, and was eventually laid to rest.
The collection also includes a bonus music disc featuring an array of Guthrie’s NYC songs, including the first recording of “This Land Is Your Land"; two previously unreleased home demos he recorded in the city, including the song that gave the set its name and a duet with Sonny Terry; and five premieres of previously unpublished lyrics from a variety of artists, from contemporaries to younger musicians following in his tradition.
'My Name Is New York' Track List
Disc 1: February 16, 1940 — November 1942
01. 59th Street at 5th Avenue, Manhattan
02. 101 West 43rd Street, Manhattan
03. 57 East 4th Street, Manhattan
04. 31 East 21st Street, Manhattan
05. 5 West 101st Street, Manhattan
06. 70 East 12th Street, Manhattan
07. 130 West 10th Street, Manhattan
08. 430 6th Avenue, Manhattan
09. 148 West 14th Street, Manhattan
10. 647 Hudson Street, Manhattan
Disc 2: December, 1942 — October 3, 1967
01. 74 Charles Street, Manhattan
02. 3815 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn
03. 3520 Mermaid Avenue, Brooklyn
04. 49 Murdock Court, Brooklyn
05. 517 East 5th Street, Manhattan
06. Brooklyn State Hospital, 681 Clarkson Avenue, Brooklyn
07. 159-13 85th Street, Queens
08. Creedmore State Hospital, Queens
09. Final Resting Place: Atlantic Ocean, Brooklyn
The Songs CD:
01. “New York Town” (Woody Guthrie/Cisco Houston/Sonny Terry)
02. “New York Trains” (Del McCoury Band)
03. “Union Maid” (Almanac Singers)
04. “My New York City” (Mike + Ruthy)
05. “Tom Joad” (Woody Guthrie)
06. “Man’s A Fool” (Woody Guthrie (spoons)/Sonny Terry) home tape
07. “Vigilante Man” (Woody Guthrie)
08. “Union Air in Union Square” (Lowry Hamner)
09. “Round and Round Hitler’s Grave” (Almanac Singers)
10. “Jesus Christ” (Woody Guthrie)
11. “Beatitudes” (Reverend Billy & the Stop Shopping Choir)
12. “This Land Is Your Land” (Woody Guthrie)
13. “Go Coney Island, Roll On The Sand” (Demolition String Band with Stephen Said)
14. “Howdi Do” (Ramblin’ Jack Elliott)
15. “My Name Is New York” (Woody Guthrie) home demo tape
16. “Go Down to the Water” (Billy Bragg & Wilco)
For more information on My Name Is New York, please contact Ray Padgett [rpadgett@shorefire.com] or Matt Hanks [mhanks@shorefire.com] at Shore Fire Media, 718.522.7171.
Nora Guthrie
Author, Narrator, Producer
Photo: Silvia Hauptmann
NORA GUTHRIE is Woody Guthrie's daughter, and founder and Director of the Guthrie Archives from 1996 – 2013. She currently works as President of Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. developing projects which bring Woody Guthrie's vast cultural and, often unknown, creative legacy to the public.
In 1996, Nora co-produced the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame Tribute to Woody Guthrie with performers Bruce Springsteen among others, and curated the first major exhibition on Guthrie, This Land Is Your Land, for the Smithsonian Institution which toured major museums throughout the country from 2001 – 2003.
For the past twenty years, Nora has been focusing on Woody Guthrie’s previously unpublished lyrics. She was executive producer of the Billy Bragg & Wilco’s Grammy nominated recordings Mermaid Avenue Vol’s 1, II & 111 and the Klezmatics’ Grammy award winning Wonder Wheel and Happy Joyous Hanuka. Other recording projects include the Grammy award winning The Live Wire; Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949, Jonatha Brooke’s The Works and Note of Hope with Rob Wasserman, Jackson Browne, Lou Reed, Madeleine Peyroux and others. She was the executive producer on Jay Farrar’s New Multitudes, which featured new music to Guthrie lyrics by Jay Farrar, Jim James, Will Johnson, and Anders Parker.
To celebrate Woody’s centennial, throughout 2012 she co-produced a year of concerts, events and exhibits in partnership with the Grammy Museum and in 2013, co-produced the CD & DVD Woody at 100! Live at the Kennedy Center, was aired on public television stations throughout the country.
In 2012-13, working with photographer Phillip Buehler, she published and edited the award winning book Woody Guthrie’s Wardy Forty, and worked with Johnny Depp and author Douglas Brinkley on the release of House of Earth, Woody Guthrie’s unpublished novel. Working in collaboration with the Grammy Museum, in 2013 Nora created the new Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the final repository of the Woody Guthrie Archives and a state of the art museum and educational center.
Her latest project is producing My Name Is New York; Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town – the Deluxe Audio Book which is an expanded version of the 2012 powerHouse Books publication of the same name, and is set to be released in September, 2014.
Michael Kleff
Producer
MICHAEL KLEFF is an award-winning radio producer, radio host, journalist, and author living in Bonn, Germany and New York City, USA. His varied professional pursuits focus on world music and politics.
From 1976 – 1982 he worked as Personal Assistant to the German Minister of the Interior, Gerhart Baum. In 1984 he began his journalistic career in radio working for the Associated Press as a political correspondent. His radio work includes; hosting on the award-winning World Music program Al Globe on Radio Brandenburg, which focused on the emerging world music scene in the 1990’s combined with topical, political coverage from around the world; documentaries on Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Harry Belafonte, Phil Ochs, Bill Monroe, Woodstock, The History of Topical Songs, The History of the Civil Rights Movement, and the 3 hour long program America the Beautiful? which aired on nationwide broadcast; the European World Music Charts on Midnight Blue (Deutschlandfunk). He has been a member of the World Music Charts Europe panel for fifteen years.
In 2002 he was the editor for “Hard Travelin’, Das Woody Guthrie Buch” the most complete published work of Woody Guthrie songs with German translations. He has done numerous projects for Bear Family Records, including the award winning 10 CD box set “Die Burg Waldeck Festivals 1964-1969”.
He is currently the Editor in Chief of Folker, the German folk and world music magazine, and hosts the international music festival Tanz und Folkfest Rudolstadt. He continues to produce original radio documentaries and hosts regular programs for numerous German public radio stations.
Steve Rosenthal
Producer
STEVE ROSENTHAL is a four time Grammy winner who opened The Magic Shop Recording Studio in NYC, in 1988. He has produced, mixed and restored Archival projects for Woody Guthrie, Elvis Presley, Alan Lomax, The Rolling Stones, Jelly Roll Morton, Harry Nilsson, Billy Joel, Sam Cooke and Frank Sinatra. In 2014, he won his latest GRAMMY for his work on The Rolling Stones’ Charlie Is My Darling.
He has also produced and engineered new music for artists like Lou Reed, Natalie Merchant, Suzanne Vega, Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro, Charles Brown and Ollabelle.