Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was one of the central American folk songwriters and a foundational figure in the protest music tradition. Born in Oklahoma during the oil boom, his family's descent into poverty during the Dust Bowl era shaped his lifelong identification with working people and migrants. He traveled to California in the late 1930s, where he performed on KFVD radio in Los Angeles and began writing songs that would define American folk music: 'This Land Is Your Land,' 'Pastures of Plenty,' 'Do Re Mi.' His 1943 autobiography 'Bound for Glory' remains a masterpiece of American literature. He was a member of the Almanac Singers alongside Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston, and others, connecting the folk-left-labor world to the broader American musical tradition. He recorded extensively for Folkways Records and the Bonneville Power Administration, and his guitar famously bore the inscription 'This Machine Kills Fascists.' His influence on Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, and subsequent protest songwriters is immense. He was diagnosed with Huntington's disease in the early 1950s and spent his final years in hospitals, dying in 1967.