The Master Storyteller - Woody Guthrie Quiz | Music

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Woody Guthrie was born in 1912 in a small town in Oklahoma, of a family of culturally diverse heritage. In fact, the town and area, itself, was one of cultural diversification. In what town was he born?

Answer: Okemah

Woody was the third of five children born to his parents. His father was a staunch Democrat, which is why he named his third child "Woodrow Wilson". During that time in the US, the Socialist party was gaining ground, and Woody's father battled them with written word and voice.

His father was a Southerner, his mother a Northerner, and his uncles, on his paternal side, were of Native American descent. Okemah, planned as a junction between two rail lines, was built on land leased from the Creek Indians, and there was a large African-American presence. All of this, as well as his family trials, would have a bearing on Woody's future works, providing him with a social conscience, as well as many stories to tell.

He was schooled at Okemah, even though he left in the summers from his 15th year on to find work, until his senior year, which he spent in Texas with other family. By getting his high school education he has the academic wherewithal to tell those stories.

2. One afternoon a young boy asked Woody where he'd come from. He told him he'd come from "the Oklahoma hills". He went back into the building and within 15 minutes had written a song that became one of his best known songs, although he never did record it. What was its name?

Answer: Oklahoma Hills

Although Woody didn't record the song, his cousin and fellow performer, Jack Guthrie did. Woody and his singing partner, Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman, and sometimes Jack, sang it on the radio program Woody had with KFVD, Hollywood. (They soon became the station's most popular performers.) Over the years, Jack smoothed out the lyrics some and recorded it, releasing it in 1945 on Capitol Records.

It ran up to the top of the charts and was a number one hit. Jack became a potential star but unfortunately died in 1948 of TB.

Although the copyright on the song shows both Woody and Jack's names, Woody actually wrote it, with Jack adding some changes and popularizing it.

3. Written in 1940, in response to "God Bless America" which Woody said he was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing, this song is his best-known song. It has even been championed as a new national anthem. Please tell me what it is.

Answer: This Land is Your Land

The melody is similar to the gospel song, "When the World's on Fire", which was also adapted for the tune "Little Darling Pal of Mine". Woody wrote six verses to the song, two of which were about Depression times. Those weren't included when the song was first recorded.

He later wrote a seventh verse which was included, along with the Depression verses, in the 1945 mimeographed "Ten of Woody Guthrie's Songs: Book One". However, when he sang any of his songs, he would use variants depending upon his mood and, perhaps, audience.

This song is classed as one of his "Children's Songs".

4. The BPA commissioned Guthrie to write a number of songs for them as a public relations move because many people were skeptical of the providing of subsidized electricity to most homes in the nation by the damming of rivers. This was the most famous of those songs and became the Washington State folksong. Can you tell me its name, please.

Answer: Roll on Columbia, Roll On

At that time, most people felt that an undammed river was a river going to waste. The issue wasn't the damming of the river for electricity; it was whether private enterprise or the government was going to do it. Guthrie was the government's "lobbyist".

He spent a month being driven around the Columbia River and claimed he "wrote 26 songs in 26 days". Although that may have been an exaggeration, he did write a great deal of very good songs. And, of course, the government dammed the Columbia, benefitting those who had not had electricity before. "Roll On Columbia, Roll On" was sung to the tune "Goodnight Irene", so it was easy for people to recognize and sing.

5. Another of the songs written for the Bonneville Power Association to promote their damming of the Columbia River was also very popular. It was later recorded by Britisher Lonnie Donegan, and made it to #6 on the British Pop charts. What is the name of that song?

Answer: Grand Coulee Dam

Guthrie wrote at least eight verses originally, but then cut it to six. He wrote that "The rich ones hired airplanes full of entertainers and stars to come up to Oregon, Washington, Montana and Wyoming and tell the people that they didn't need no Coolee (sic) Dam at all...Then I sung another little song to sort of put these airplane loads of fonies back in their place".

The song was based on the melody of "The Wabash Cannonball" and was recorded in 1941. A critic has said that without Donegan's recording people like Dylan may not have made it to Guthrie's songbook. And that would have been a shame for music!

6. Another song he composed due to the BPA had nothing to do with generating electricity nor the Columbia River, itself. He took the concept from a prior historical pilgrimage and applied it to the Dust Bowl migrants. I know you know what it is, so please tell me.

Answer: Oregon Trail

This song was composed in 1941. Guthrie says he was on "the high banks of the Columbia River" when he wrote it. In this song, the end of the "trail" promised rain, excellent crops, no dust or sand, prosperity and a good life.
It was originally recorded in 1947 but not released by Asch and Folkways until 1962. It was re-issued in 1966 when Guthrie was honored with the Department of the Interior's Conservation Service Award. They also named a substation on the Columbia for him.

7. Remaining one of Guthrie's most popular "Dust Bowl" songs, this one was one of the earliest, written in 1937. In it you learn what you need in order to go and live happily in California. What's the name of it?

Answer: Do-Re-Mi

Woody recorded this for Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress in 1940. A month later he recorded it for Victor Records as a song in the "Dust Bowl Ballads, Vol. 1". He again recorded it, this time for Asch, in 1947, but that wasn't released by Folkways until 1956 on "Bound for Glory".

It is still one of his most popular Dust Bowl songs. It's a fun, easy to sing, song that warned the migrants that perhaps California wasn't the end-all, be-all, just as Steinbeck warned in "The Grapes of Wrath".

8. Originally written as "Dusty Old Dust" and recorded by RCA Victor in 1940, Guthrie changed the name and wrote as least four different versions through the 40's. It's a song we've all sung as we went on our way, probably never realizing that it was originally a Guthrie song. What is this song?

Answer: So Long It's Been Good To Know You

Woody even had a few war verses thrown in to some of his versions. After all, he was a story teller and could tell his stories anyway he wanted. The Asch/Folkways collection has at least six different manuscripts that he typed. Guthrie composed the tune for the chorus but the verse is sung to the melody of "Billy the Kid" which he thought to be a traditional folk song.

However, "Billy the Kid" had been written by Rev. Andrew Jenkins in 1927 and recorded by the great Vernon Dalhart at that time. Because of Dalhart's popularity, the song crossed the country quickly. Due to that, it certainly has become a "traditional" song. Later the Weavers, with Pete Seeger, recorded it. Guthrie had sung with Seeger, and the Almanac Singers, at times.

9. Guthrie didn't only sing the songs he wrote. He sang country/western, traditional folk, anything he knew and liked. One of these he sang had already been made a hit years before by Vernon Dalhart, in fact it was the first C&W record selling over a million copies. Would you like to tell me the name of this much recorded rail song?

Answer: Wreck of the Old 97

A true story about a train wreck on the outskirts of Danville, Virginia, caused by the train leaving a prior station late, and then management demanding that the new engineer make up the time. There is no knowledge on where Guthrie learned the song, and he does not use the usual place names.

He was backed on this record by Cisco Houston, with whom he did a lot of songs. This is one of the Asch recordings.

10. Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, as we all know as "Woody", died in 1967 of a disease that took both his maternal grandfather as well as his mother. What was that terrible disease that ended his life in a psychiatric hospital?

Answer: Huntington's Disease

Huntington's Disease, formerly called Huntington's Chorea because of one of the symptoms, is an inherited disease that usually becomes noticeable in middle age. There are now treatments that can help manage some of the symptoms, but they do not stop the mental decline into dementia and death. Guthrie had been married three times and fathered eight children.

His son, Arlo, is a well-known performer in his own right. His former wife, Marjorie, helped to found the Huntington's Disease Society of America. None of their children have developed the disease, but two of his children from this first wife died of it at age 41. Never again will anyone see the guitar embellished with the sticker "This Machine Kills Fascists" played by the one and only, Woody Guthrie.

Source: Author habitsowner

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The Master Storyteller - Woody Guthrie Quiz

"Woody" Guthrie wrote and sang songs of America as he saw it and lived it. He was as much historian as he was songwriter/performer. Let's talk about a few of his numbers.

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