Mahmoth's Music 7: Bumper Woody Guthrie Special
Woody Guthrie, Live on the BBC, 1944.
Link 1, Link 2 and Link 3
This is one of the prides of my digital collection, picked up a year or two back from a torrent site specialising in bootleg recordings. It's the great Woody Guthrie, turning up for no apparent reason on an early BBC radio childrens program (of all thing), as he'd just come into port and was looking for a place to sing and play. The notes that came with it can probably tell it better than I ever can:
"7 JULY 1944. Woody was a Merchant Marine, "washing dishes on a Liberty Ship," the troop ship Sea Porpoise which carried troops to the Normandy beach in early July 1944. After the troops were sent ashore, the ship hit a mine but made its way back to England; Woody was routed through London toward Glasgow, Scotland, toward the United States. On a song manuscript dated "July 13th, 1944", Woody wrote, "this train is carrying me outside from London now; on up towards Belfast, and Glasgow." While in London, he went to the offices of the BBC where he introduced himself as a member of The Martins and the Coys [produced by Alan Lomax for the BBC in late March 1944, broadcast by the BBC on 26 June 1944] and was given the opportunity to sing on the Children's Hour. After an autobiographical statement, he was recorded singing with his guitar accompaniment two railroad songs:
"Wabash Cannonball"
"900 Miles"
It's Guthrie around his best time, but what really makes it is the contrast between Woody's Okie drawl and the utterly cut-glass accent of the announcer, along with the nervous chuckle as he tells his tale of running away from home when he was still a young child.