Woody Guthrie

Overview

Woody Guthrie was a 20th-century musician and writer whose songs and stories about the American experience have influenced the country's music, identity, and mythology. Guthrie was born in Oklahoma, but eventually moved to Texas, where he experienced firsthand the Dust Bowl, the catastrophic ecological and economic disaster of the 1930s, and began writing songs about it.

Throughout the '30s, Guthrie became a significant political voice for migrants in California through his radio shows and a popular newspaper column, "Woody Sez." In 1940, he wrote "This Land Is Your Land," released an autobiographical novel, and recorded "Dust Bowl Ballads," a concept album about the migrant experience.

Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Strummer, and many other songwriters cite Guthrie as a major influence, as do American writers like John Steinbeck. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

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