Woody Guthrie was a folk hero of Bob Dylan's, and five days after arriving in New York from Minnesota in 1961, Dylan tracked him down in East Orange, New Jersey, and meet him for the first time. Guthrie was 48 at the time, and lived at Greystone Park Psychiatric hospital in Morris Plains, New Jersey, but spent his Sundays at the apartment of Robert and Sidsel Gleason, 20 miles away in East Orange. He had been in psychiatric care since September 1954, when he checked himself into Brooklyn State Hospital, as he had trouble controlling his muscles and thought he had a mental disorder. When he checked out of the hospital in May 1956, he went to Morristown, New Jersey, where he wandered the streets, homeless, and was arrested, spending a night in Morris County Jail. At his own request he was then sent to Greystone, where staffers assumed he had paranoid schizophrenia - his claims that he had written thousands of songs and published a book seemed implausible. Months later, he was diagnosed as having Huntington's disease, a hereditary disorder that causes the victim to gradually lose control of his movements. Even though his mind was sound, Guthrie's family kept him at Greystone because it was the best option, and in 1959, when the Gleasons learned Guthrie was at Greystone, they arranged to take him every Sunday, making it much easier for Guthrie's family, who lived in Brooklyn, to visit. The Gleasons let visitors come by when Guthrie was with them, and some folk singers, including Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Phil Ochs, often stopped by, and Dylan had found out where Guthrie was when he went to the family home in Brooklyn and talked to Guthrie's 13-year-old son, Arlo. He had read Guthrie's autobiography 'Bound For Glory', which detailed his travels across America, playing his songs for anyone who would listen, and as he was rarely recorded, it was up to Dylan and other folk-singers of his generation to secure his legacy and carry on his tradition. By the time Dylan visited Guthrie, he was in pretty bad shape, barely able to move or speak, let alone sing, but he loved hearing his own songs, and Dylan was happy to play them. After his visit, Dylan wrote 'Song To Woody', which he included on his first album in 1962, incorporating some of Guthrie's songs into the lyric, peppering in bits from '1913 Massacre', 'Joe Hillstrom' and 'Pastures Of Plenty', and he played the song to Guthrie at a later visit. In the Spring of 1961, Guthrie's family transferred him back to Brooklyn State Hospital, so the visits to the Gleasons' apartment ended, and in 1967 he died at age of just 55. In the early years of his career Dylan often played Guthrie's songs in concert, and some were also recorded at the Gleason's home and in his Minnesota hotel room, and through him a new generation discovered the work of the man and learned about his contributions to American music. This album collects a dozen of these recordings from 1961, when Dylan was taking his first steps to becoming a spokesman for his generation, and was taking the lead from one of his heroes. Considering the age of the recordings they are not bad quality, although I have had to do some patching to 'I Want My Milk' to fix some bad drop-outs and volume fluctuations.
Track listing
01 1913 Massacre
02 Gypsy Davy
03 (As I Go) Ramblin' Round
04 I Want My Milk
05 Talking Merchant Marine
06 VD Blues
07 Pasture Of Plenty
08 Car Car
09 Ain't Got No Home
10 Talking Fish Blues
11 VD Gunner's Blues
12 This Land Is Your Land
All songs composed by Woody Guthrie.
