1992-1996

Nora's first project, in 1992, was the publication of a lost songbook of Woody’s original lyrics and illustrations, Woody’s 20 Grow Big Songs, published by Harper Collins. The following year, Nora co-produced the accompanying album Woody's 20 Grow Big Songs with her brother Arlo Guthrie, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Children’s Album.

In 1994, Nora co-founded the Woody Guthrie Archives with Harold Leventhal and archivist Jorge Arevalo Mateus.

1996

In 1996, Ms. Guthrie co-produced the first ever Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum Tribute series honoring Woody Guthrie.  Main events consisted of a scholarly symposium held at Case Western Reserve University,a weekend of intimate shows at local clubs, and a tribute concert in Cleveland’s famed Severance Hall.  Among the many artists that participated in the tribute weekend were; Bruce Springsteen, Jorma Kaukonen, Indigo Girls, Billy Bragg, Joe Ely, David Pirner, Tim Robbins, Alejandro Escovedo, Ani DiFranco, Jimmy LaFave, and Arlo Guthrie among many others.  Ani DiFranco produced and released the live concert CD titled Til We Outnumber ‘Em, on her independent label Righteous Babe Records. The funds raised from this concert went to opening of the Woody Guthrie Archives for free research to scholars and students, making Woody Guthrie’s personal & professional collection available to the public for the first time.

1998

In 1998, Ms. Guthrie was Executive Producer of the ground breaking Billy Bragg/Wilco collaboration Mermaid Avenue (1998, Elektra Records) and Mermaid Avenue Volume II (2000, Elektra Records), and Mermaid Avenue, The Complete Sessions (2012, Nonesuch Records) These landmark albums, creating new music to previously unknown Guthrie lyrics, received critical acclaim and Grammy nominations in 1999 and 2001 respectively.

In 1998, Nora worked with folk artist Kathy Jakobsen to create the children’s book This Land is Your Land, published by Little Brown, and Co., which illustrates and highlights Guthrie’s classic lyric.  Now in its 10th anniversary printing, This Land Is Your Land has won numerous awards and literary praise.

Additionally, in 1998, Ms. Guthrie curated her first major exhibit This Land Is Your Land: The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES).  The exhibit opened in May 2000, at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles and toured for three years at major museums throughout the country, including the National Museum in Washington, DC and the Museum of the City of New York.  This extensive exhibit presented previously unseen original Guthrie materials including notebooks and diaries, artworks, lyrics, photographs, instruments and memorabilia giving a rare and intimate look into the life and legacy of Woody Guthrie.

2003

Marking Woody’s 90th anniversary year, in 2003, Nora co-produced a month-long celebration of Woody’s life and legacy in Nashville, TN.  Programs included public school events, lectures, gallery exhibits, film screenings, concerts, and an exhibit at Nashville’s Songwriters Hall of Fame.  The month-long tribute culminated with Nashville Sings Woody! a concert held at the Ryman Auditorium featuring local and international musicians.  Among the many performers paying tribute were Marty Stuart, Old Crow Medicine Show, Janis Ian, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Guy Clark, Peter Rowan, Nanci Griffith, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Tim O’Brien, Alison Brown, Corey Harris, and Arlo Guthrie.

In 2003, Nora collaborated with Berlin composer and performer, Hans-Eckardt Wenzel on the innovative Ticky Tock, released on Contraer Musik Records. Available in both English and German languages, this CD continued to explore new avenues for Woody’s lyrics and ideas. Ticky Tock received The German Record Critics' Award in 2003. (Wenzel also won Germany’s Deutcher Lieder Preis for his translation and arrangement of “This Land Is Your Land” in 2013.)

In 2003, Nora invited working-man’s punk rockers, Dropkick Murphys to the Woody Guthrie Archives, to work with Woody Guthrie's previously unpublished lyrics. The lyric selected was "Gonna Be A Blackout Tonight" and was the title track on their album Blackout, on Hellcat Records. Strangely, the release pre-date the infamous Northeast blackout of 2003 by two months. The connection between Woody & Dropkick was undeniably electric!

2004-2006

Taking yet another unusual turn, Ms. Guthrie worked with the world renowned klezmer band The Klezmatics, exploring Woody Guthrie’s Jewish themed lyrics. Members of the Klezmatics composed music for Woody’s Hanuka lyrics for Happy Joyous Hanukkah, their 2004 holiday CD release. Wonder Wheel, their 2006 release focused on Woody’s lyrics dealing with Jewish history, culture and spirituality, won the 2007 GRAMMY Award for Best World Music Album.  In continuing the exploration of this unique collaboration, Holy Ground: Woody Guthrie’s Yiddish Connection, is a multimedia lecture program which Nora currently presents.

Dropkick Murphys reached out again with interest in a follow-up. "I'm Shipping Up To Boston" was the subsequent collaboration, released on The Warriors Code, in 2005 on Hellcat Records. "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" has since become a Boston anthem, appearing in Martin Scorcese's Oscar winning film, The Departed in 2004, as well as becoming an iconic theme song during the 2004 World Series, when the Red Sox broke the 86 year "Curse of the Bambino."

2007-2008

In 2001 the Woody Guthrie Archive received a donation of a wire recording dating back to the 1940s. Nora Guthrie and Woody Guthrie Archive curator, Jorge Arevalo Mateus spent years investigating audio restoration, in the hopes of finding something special on this rare artifact. As it turned out, the wire recordings contained a never before heard, complete live performance given by Woody Guthrie in December, 1949. Woody's wife, Marjorie Mazia, acted as moderator for the program. The evening was a cultural event meant to introduce Woody Guthrie's songs to a small group of adults and children at the YMHA in Hewark, NJ. The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949, was self-released on Woody Guthrie Legacy Records, won the 2007 GRAMMY Award for Best Historic Album.

Woody Guthrie ArtWorks, published by Rizzoli Press, is the first publication to highlight Woody as a visual artist. Nora released this very special coffee table book, co-edited and designed by Steven Brower. In more than 300 examples, Woody Guthrie's visual creativity is apparent, from political cartoons to bawdy and comical gouaches, to children's art and abstract emotional outpourings. For decades Guthrie’s vast trove of artwork has remained virtually unknown and unexplored. This exciting publication reveals the art as one of Woody Guthrie's long-time muse. Included are essays by Steven Brower and Nora Guthrie, introduction and afterword by Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy

In 2008, Nora released another new album of unpublished lyrics with folk rock singer/songwriter, Jonatha Brooke.  Adding a new dimension to Woody's lasting legacy, The Works delves into Woody’s love songs and is the first full album collaboration with a female artist. Working with exceptional musicians such as Steve Gadd, Christian McBride and Joe Sample as her main band, with guest appearances by Greg Leisz, Keb Mo, Derek Trucks, Eric Bazilian and Glen Phillips sharing in various spotlights, Jonatha's immense creativity as a composer and arranger are evident. The Works was engineered and co-produced by Bob Clearmountain. 

2013

In 2013, Nora collaborated with Douglas Brinkley and Johnny Depp to release House of Earth, a previously unpublished completed manuscript Woody Guthrie wrote in 1947. House of Earth, a New York Times Best Seller released on Depp’s Harper Collins imprint Infinitum Nihil, tells the story of an expectant couple who are desperately surviving the Dust Bowl and the depression in the Texas Panhandle and dreaming of a better future where they will own their own home, an adobe home, a house made of earth.

On April 28, 2013, The Woody Guthrie Center opened in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Nora Guthrie along with Robert Santelli (Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum Foundation) and the George Kaiser Family Foundation created the permanent home for the Woody Guthrie Archive, complete with a permanent exhibit on the life and legacy of Woody Guthrie, a temporary gallery space, and a 60-seat theater. The Woody Guthrie Center, located in the heart of the Brady Arts District, is dedicated to educating people on the powerful and intangible legacy Woody Guthrie has left.

On November 11, 2013, Nora self-published Woody Guthrie's Wardy Forty: Greystone Park State Hospital Revisited. This new book by photographer Phillip Buehler, revealed a largely unknown slice of Woody Guthrie’s life. Through never-before-published letters, historic and family photographs, rare personal interviews, contrasted with present day photographs of the abandoned Greystone hospital by Buehler, Woody Guthrie’s Wardy Forty brought into view the five years Woody spent as a patient at Greystone Park State Hospital in Morris Plains, New Jersey. Afflicted with Huntington’s disease, Guthrie lived the last 15 years of his life in hospitals, suffering from this degenerative neurological disorder. One of these hospitals was Greystone Park, where he was a patient from 1956 through 1961. He lived in Ward 40, calling it “Wardy Forty.” It was here that 19-year-old Bob Dylan visited his idol and the torch was symbolically passed to a new generation of folk singer. Wardy Forty is the 2013 IndieFab Book of The Year winner by Foreword Reviews.

2014

September 23, 2014 marked the release of Nora’s most groundbreaking, recent work, My Name Is New York: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town. This walking tour, narrated by Nora Guthrie and guidebook & the companion deluxe 3-CD audio book highlights 19 significant locations in NYC where Woody Guthrie lived and composed some of his most iconic works.  Woody 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. Written and narrated by Nora Guthrie, co-produced along with Steve Rosenthal and Michael Kleff, My Name Is New York includes stories told by those who knew him best; 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, Lead Belly’s niece Tiny Robinson, Bob Dylan, Woody's second wife Marjorie Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, and Nora Guthrie share their memories. My Name Is New York book & audiobook was selected by the New York State Education Department to be included in New York City's 2015-2016 music history curriculum for middleschool and highschool students.

2015

In 2005, Nora Guthrie commissioned contemporary classical composer David Amram to create a symphonic interpretation – a new musical expression – of “This Land Is Your Land”; asking Amram to use the text and melody as the foundation, and an inspiration, from which he could expand on. Just as Aaron Copland honored “Simple Gifts” as his muse for Appalachian Spring, so might David create an honest and honorable tribute to the many ideas and stories which Woody planted within the verses of "This Land". To mark the 75th Anniversary of Woody’s “This Land” – penned in 1940 in NYC - Newport Records recently released This Land; Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie, conducted by David Amram and performed by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, on February 23rd, 2015.

2016

In 2016 Nora worked with bluegrass icon Del McCoury on a new album focused on Woody’s hillbilly & bluegrass styled lyrics. The world premiere of this work took place on June 29, 2013 at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, located in Katonah, NY and released Del and Woody in 2016. You could almost say that the cover of the new release from the Del McCoury Band tells you everything you need to know: two giants of American music, both known far and wide by their first names, guitars in hand, looking out at the world with a bold gaze and a characteristic expression.  But there's a story behind Del And Woody , a collection of Woody Guthrie lyrics set to music by Del McCoury—and while its dozen songs speak eloquently for themselves, knowing how they came to be adds a dimension that's sure to deepen every listener's enjoyment. Though it took the process years to come to fruition the result is an album that really transcends the concept of collaboration. For while Del McCoury is not quite of Guthrie's generation, these two American masters share an unsurpassed breadth of experience, outlook, shared interests and common backgrounds. So what you hear is the simple and easy unity of these two artists. As Nora Guthrie says, "It sounds as if these lyrics and melodies have been around together forever, or as Pete Seeger says, 'that's genius'."

2017

2017 marked the 50th anniversary of Woody Guthrie's passing from Huntington's Disease. Producers Nora Guthrie, Michael Kleff and Steve Rosenthal collaborated with Bear Family Records and re-released Woody Guthrie: The Tribute Concerts. They dug deep into the story behind the original 1967 and 1968 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.

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.

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 50 years after Woody’s death, you can 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.

“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”

2018 - 2021

In 2018, Nora was awarded an Honorary Degree of Humane Letters from Keene State College, NH and was invited to present their graduation commencement speech. As she said in her address, “Do not become another like any other, because you’re not like any other. There are enough robots in the world, enough followers, enough people who have declined their right to be unique, different, or outside the box. But it’s unique, different and outside the box people that are the visionaries, the ones who think of and do things in original ways.”

In 2021 we released the largest collection of Woody Guthrie's original writings. Curated by Nora Guthrie and music historian Robert Santelli the new book ”Woody Guthrie: Songs and Art • Words and Wisdom” delves deep into Woody's archive, giving unprecedented access and visibility to his lyrics, art, and correspondence; and spotlights Guthrie’s passionate social politics which are as vital today as ever. This fresh, intimate, and vibrantly visual book brings to life Woody’s story through facsimiles of his own personal writings, photos, and artwork. Woody wrote powerfully about economic inequality, immigration reform, fascism, war, corruption from unbridled capitalism, patriotism, environmentalism, as well as spirituality of all kinds, love, and family. Winner of 2022 ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Award!

”This is what I’d like to share with everyone. This is how I’d like my father to be remembered. And this is what I love about him.” ~ Nora Guthrie. With contibutions by Douglas Brinkley, Rosanne Cash, Chuck D, Jeff Daniels, Ani DiFranco, and Arlo Guthrie, this stunningly visual collection is enlightening, inspiring, and edifying, spotlighting Woody Guthrie as a significant guiding voice and citizen of the world.

2022 - present

Dropkick Murphys completed a 2-album collaboration featuring lyrics by Woody Guthrie and original music by the Boston-based punk band. This Machine Still Kills Fascists (2022) brought Woody Guthrie’s words to life once again! Dropkick Murphys founder Ken Casey explained, ”The project has been a long time in the making. Nora Guthrie thought her father would’ve got a kick out of us, would’ve liked us, that we were somewhat kindred spirits so to speak, which to us was a huge honor.” Nora Guthrie added, ”I collected lyrics on all kinds of topics…lyrics that seemed to be needed to be said – or screamed – today. Ken Casey is a master at understanding Woody’s lyrics, which can be complicated, long, deadly serious, or totally ridiculous. DKM is capable of delivering them all.”

Okemah Rising was the second and final acoustic album from Dropkick Murphy's series recorded at the infamous Church Studios in Tulsa, OK. Ken Casey explained, ”Every night, when the audience is singing along with Woody’s words, his steadfast defense of the working class, and his fight against social injustice and the abuse of political power comes across loud and clear. So as long as Dropkick Murphys are involved, Woody’s message will always be heard.” Okemah Rising also features guest performances by Violent Femmes, Jesse Ahern, Jaime Wyatt, and Cole Quest.

Over the years, Nora has created many surprising “outside of the box” collaborations and inspired many new recordings of both known and unknown Woody Guthrie lyrics. The long list of richly diverse artists also includes; Alison Krauss + Union Station, Janis Ian, Jimmy LaFave, Ellis Paul, John McCutcheon, Slaid Cleaves, Eliza Gilkyson, James Talley, Red Dirt Rangers, Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, Taj Mahal, Cissy Houston, Kim Wilson, Corey Harris, Joel Rafael, Lila Downs, John McCutcheon, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Dropkick Murphys, Anti-Flag, Blackfire, Tim O’Brien, Jackson Browne, Lucinda Williams and John Mellencamp! There is still a treasure trove of work by Woody Guthrie yet to be discovered by the public and we look forward to continuing to delight audiences with creative releases highlighting Woody as one of the most creative, observers of the world.