Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Tribute to Woody Guthrie


Woody Guthrie Tribute

I had the privilege of attending a Tribute to Woody Guthrie Fundraising Event at Belfast’s Empire on Sunday night past. Fine local musicians including Juliet Turner, Bap Kennedy, The Delaware’s performed their creative adaptations of some of Woody Guthrie’s classics.

Despite his debilitating disease, Guthrie penned many prophetic and often scathing musical commentary’s on the American life, economy, justice system and political landscape.

My personal favourite? "This land is your land" which was written as a sort of antidote to Irving Berlin’s God Bless America.

2 comments:

Jonny Watson said...

I saw the gig but was away on a silent retreat...

I was introduced to woody Guthrie by Billy Bragg through the "mermaid avenue" albums.

It sure sounded like a good gig. I had read that some guy called Brian was playing as well.

Mark said...

Cheers jonny. There was some dude called Houston playing but modesty prevented the mention of this!

Mermaid Avenue is one of my favourite albums.