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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
The life and songs of America's folk singer, Woody Guthrie, 6 Feb 2005
By A Customer
In the past year I have discovered the songs of Woody Guthrie, from which it is clear that the man was simply America's troubadour. In his relatively short lifetime, he wrote over three thousand songs, with new ones seemingly being discovered (or rediscovered) each year. He sang about the Depression, the Dust Bowl, Union workers, the Pacific Northwest, and seemingly every subject under the sun that a man would encounter wandering the country from one end to the other singing songs. From Woody Guthrie springs the Weavers, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan. Or maybe it is simply better to think about them as standing on Guthrie's broad shoulders. I have picked up bits and pieces of Guthrie's life from liner notes and on some of the narration provided on the Guthrie tribute album. So finding a biography that looks at both the life and songs of Woody Guthrie is exactly what I was looking for at this point in my musical education.Elizabeth Partridge's biography is intended for ages 12 and up, but it is certainly more than a juvenile biography. Most of the book is devoted to the twenty years when Guthrie was most productive, since the last dozen years of his life he was essentially hospitalized with Huntington's Disease. Ironically, this was just as the nation was enjoying a folk music revival of which he should have been the centerpiece. In researching his life story Partridge interviewed not only his good friend and fellow musician Pete Seeger, but Guthrie's children Arlo and Nora, who gave her access to rare tapes of unreleased songs as well as thousands of pages of journals, articles, book manuscripts, sketches, and paintings. What I liked best about "This Land Was Made For You and Me" is how she integrates Guthrie's songs, words, poems, and drawings into the story of his life. If anything, I wish she had included more songs and lyrics throughout the book. The book is filled with photographs, many from the Guthrie family, but there are also several showing the life and times in which Guthrie wrote and sang his songs. Most importantly, whether you are a young reader or an old timer like myself, you will get a sense of the life of Woody Guthrie. Just do not forget to listen to the music.
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![Woody Guthrie - This Machine Kills Facists [2005]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61fPaGLD3pL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
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£9.99
