Dust Bowl Ballads  (Audio CD) 
by Woody Guthrie

"If you'll gather 'round me children, a story I will tell," sings Woody Guthrie in "Pretty Boy Floyd." Children of all ages have never stopped gathering 'round Woody Guthrie since he recorded these songs in the spring of 1940, and that most-famous line tells us a lot about his approach: his songs are for all people, simple and direct enough to be understood by young ones, irresistibly catchy, yet devilishly clever and cutting. His ability to boil down complex emotions and issues to their very core has rarely been matched. "So long it's been good to know yuh," he sings in "Dusty Old Dust," and its childlike sing-along quality only serves to reinforce his very serious points. Across these 14 songs, Guthrie recounts and relives his experience as an Okie forced from his home by the Depression and drought of the 1930s, chronicling the arduous journey in brilliant, sometimes hilarious, sometimes horrifying detail. The characters that inhabit his stories are sincere, sympathetic, and brutally alive. Originally released in 1940 on two albums, and again in 1964 for the benefit of salivating folk revivalists, Dust Bowl Ballads returns once again in 2000 freshly remastered, full of new photos and boasting one alternate take. If there is one album of modern American folk music that deserves to be reissued for the benefit of each generation, it is this collection. In terms of the singer-songwriter concept, it is truly the river's source; in historical terms, it's to the New Deal what the Declaration of Independence is to the American Revolution. --Marc Greilsamer