The music world in Oklahoma and nationwide has continued paying devoted attention to Woody Guthrie’s legacy. In 2012, Guthrie was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival continued its 15th year in Okemah.
To mark the 100th anniversary of Woody’s birth in 2012, the George Kaiser Family Foundation purchased the Woody Guthrie archives in New York, with plans to move the massive and historic collection to Tulsa as a cornerstone of the future Oklahoma Pop Museum championed by the Oklahoma History Center. Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum followed with an early 2012 exhibit, “Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration.”
Also in 2012, Nonesuch Records re-released the complete Mermaid Avenue sessions as a box set with 17 previously unreleased tracks by Billy Bragg and Wilco who created music for unrecorded Guthrie lyrics. Released by Rounder Records in 2012, New Multitudes, is a similar project spearheaded by Woody’s daughter, Nora, surrounding unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics with new music by members of alt-country and alt-rock bands such as Son Volt, My Morning Jacket, Varnaline, and South San Gabriel. Note of Hope: A Celebration of Woody Guthrie is one 2012 release that may bring Woody Guthrie’s music closer to the experiences of contemporary youth. Notables such as Jackson Browne, Ani DiFranco, Lou Reed and others perform lyrics form Woody’s archives in spoken prose, hip-hop, acoustic folk and rock. Culled from the Woody Guthrie Archives slated for relocation to Tulsa, the album features material from the latter years of his life in New York, emphasizing the eternal contrasts between happiness and despair in life. The Smithsonian Institution crowned the 2012 celebration for Woody Guthrie by releasing the box set Woody at 100, featuring three CDs and a 150-page book including 57 tracks, 21 previously unreleased performances, and 6 never-before-heard original songs.
Along with a planned reconstruction of his boyhood home in Okemah from boards that have been preserved from its dismantling, further developments in Oklahoma for Woody Guthrie’s legacy emerged with the announcement of another Gilcrease Museum exhibit geared toward younger audiences that will tour public schools in the state through the summer of 2013. Created in tandem with the GRAMMY Museum, and titled “Ramblin’ Round: Guthrie Goes to School,” the project is designed to inform elementary-aged students about Guthrie’s life and music. The Oklahoma Humanities Council picks up the torch in 2013 with its Smithsonian Institution partnership called Museums on Main Street, in which Smithsonian Exhibits are installed in various smaller Oklahoma communities. The 2013-2014 exhibit, “New Harmonies: Discovering American Roots Music,” explores the impact of America’s traditional ethnic music on American popular culture and music. Not surprisingly, Woody Guthrie is a primary component of the interactive exhibit that opens in Idabel in March, 2013, and ends in Alva in January, 2014. In Woody’s own words, we will be “thinkin’ and wonderin"” about the life and music of this American icon, who gained his horse sense in Oklahoma, for many years down the road.
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