There would be no “This Land is Your Land," “If I Had a Hammer," “Turn, Turn, Turn," and no Dust Bowl Ballads. The trajectory of American folk music would be forever thrown off its established vector. The poor, oppressed and otherwise dispossessed would be without an acoustic champion.
Woody Guthrie was born in Oklahoma in 1912, and spent the rest of his life fighting the good fight, usually for those who really needed it. His guitar said it all: “This Machine Kills Fascists." And while it wasn't totally accurate on that score -- there's still plenty fascism to go around these days -- it gave its all in service to the cause.
I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose...I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world.
-Woody Guthrie (Ed Cray's biography “Ramblin Man")
Guthrie was also an Copyfight Pioneer:
This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.
-Guthrie wrote on a song book
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