Nora Guthrie graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 1971. Following a career in modern dance Nora began working with her father's materials in 1992.
Dance career
Guthrie followed in her mother's footsteps, studying modern dance with the Martha Graham Dance Company and at New York University. She started a dance company with another NYU dancer, Ted Rotante, whom she married.[1] (At the time of her mother's death, Nora went by the name Nora Rotante.)[2]
Woody Guthrie legacy work
Early work
Guthrie's first project, in 1992, was the publication of a lost songbook of Woody's original lyrics and illustrations, Woody's 20 Grow Big Songs, published by HarperCollins. The following year, she co-produced the accompanying album with her brother Arlo; it received a Grammy nomination in the Best Children's Album category.
In 1994, Nora co-founded the Woody Guthrie Archives with Harold Leventhal and archivist Jorge Arevalo. In addition to managing the Archives and preserving her father's personal materials and original creative works, Nora develops and produces new projects which continue to expand Woody Guthrie's cultural legacy. In 1996, the Woody Guthrie Archives was open for free research to scholars and students, making Woody Guthrie's personal & professional collection available to the public for the first time.
Projects
In 1996, Guthrie co-produced the first Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum Tribute series honoring Woody Guthrie.
In 1998, Guthrie was Executive Producer of the Billy Bragg/Wilco collaboration Mermaid Avenue. These albums created new music to previously unknown Woody Guthrie lyrics and received critical acclaim and Grammy nominations in 1999 and 2001 respectively.
In 1998, Nora worked with folk artist Kathy Jakobsen to create the children's book This Land is Your Land, published by Little Brown, and Co., which illustrates and highlights Guthrie's classic lyric. It has won numerous awards and literary praise. The same year, Guthrie curated her first major exhibit "This Land Is Your Land: The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie" in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The exhibit opened in May 2000, at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles and toured for three years at major museums throughout the country, including the National Museum,[clarification needed] Washington, DC and the Museum of the City of New York.
Marking Woody Guthrie's 90th anniversary year, in 2003, Nora co-produced a month-long celebration of Woody's life and legacy in Nashville, TN. Programs included public school events, lectures, gallery exhibits, film screenings, concerts, and an exhibit at Nashville's Songwriters Hall of Fame. The month-long tribute culminated with "Nashville Sings Woody!", a concert at the Ryman Auditorium featuring local and international musicians.
In 2003, Nora collaborated with Berlin composer and performer, Hans-Eckardt Wenzel on the innovative Ticky Tock, released on Contraer Musik Records. The same year, Nora invited working-man's punk rockers, Dropkick Murphys to the Woody Guthrie Archives, to work with Woody Guthrie's previously unpublished lyrics. The lyric selected was "Gonna Be A Blackout Tonight" and was the title track on their album Blackout, on Hellcat Records.
Guthrie worked with the klezmer band The Klezmatics, exploring Woody Guthrie's Jewish-themed lyrics. Members of the Klezmatics composed music for Woody's Hanuka lyrics for Happy Joyous Hanukkah, their 2004 holiday CD release. Wonder Wheel, their 2006 release focused on Woody's lyrics dealing with Jewish history, culture and spirituality, won the 2007 GRAMMY Award for Best World Music Album.
In 2001 the Woody Guthrie Archive received a donation of a wire recording dating back to the 1940s. Nora Guthrie and Woody Guthrie Archive curator, Jorge Arevalo Mateus spent years investigating audio restoration, in the hopes of finding something special on this artifact. As it turned out, the wire recordings contained a never before heard, complete live performance given by Woody Guthrie in December 1949. Woody's wife, Marjorie Mazia, acted as moderator for the program. The evening was a cultural event meant to introduce Woody Guthrie's songs to a small group of adults and children at the YMHA in Newark, NJ. The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949, was self-released on Woody Guthrie Legacy Records, won the 2007 GRAMMY Award for Best Historic Album.
Woody Guthrie ArtWorks with Steven Brower, published by Rizzoli Press, is the first publication to highlight Woody as a visual artist.
In 2008, Nora released another new album of unpublished lyrics with folk rock singer-songwriter, Jonatha Brooke, The Works.
The premier release in the almost two-year celebration of Woody's centennial year was Note of Hope, a CD almost a decade in the making. This project was spearheaded by Nora and renowned bassist, Rob Wasserman, and explored Woody Guthrie's poetry and prose.
Following Note of Hope, another original collaborative project was released. New Multitudes features Jay Farrar (Son Volt), Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Will Johnson (Centro-matic), and Anders Parker. Nora first invited Jay Farrar to peruse the Archive, who invited the other musicians to collaborate on the project. Most of the lyrics on this two-CD release, derive from Woody's early years in Los Angeles, the 1930s. Woody's days spent down on LA's skid row, and later, his return to LA in the early 50s, are two distinctly emotional periods in his life.
2012: Woody Guthrie Centenary
The year-long celebrations, co-produced by Guthrie and Robert Santelli (executive director of the GRAMMY Museum Foundation) included educational conferences, exhibits, adult and elementary school outreach programs and presentations, and concerts that followed Woody's road from Oklahoma through California and on to New York City.
Later projects
In 2013, Guthrie collaborated with Douglas Brinkley and Johnny Depp to release House of Earth, a previously unpublished manuscript Woody Guthrie wrote in 1947. It tells the story of an expectant couple surviving the Dust Bowl and the depression in the Texas Panhandle and dreaming of a better future where they will own their own home. The same year, the Woody Guthrie Center opened in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Guthrie, along with Robert Santelli and the George Kaiser Family Foundation created the permanent home for the Woody Guthrie Archive. Also in 2013, she self-published Woody Guthrie's Wardy Forty: Greystone Park State Hospital Revisited.
In 2014 Guthrie released My Name Is New York: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town, a walking tour guidebook to 19 significant locations in NYC where Woody Guthrie lived and composed.
In 2005, Guthrie commissioned contemporary classical composer David Amram to create a symphonic interpretation of "This Land Is Your Land", asking Amram to use the text and melody as the inspiration. To mark the 75th Anniversary of Woody's "This Land" – penned in 1940 in NYC – Newport Records released This Land; Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie, conducted by David Amram and performed by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, on February 23, 2015.
She collaborated with Del McCoury on an album focused on Woody's hillbilly and bluegrass styled lyrics. The premiere took place on June 29, 2013, at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah, NY.
Related Research Articles
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He inspired several generations both politically and musically with songs such as "This Land Is Your Land".
Susan McKeown is an Irish folk singer, songwriter, arranger and producer.
Mermaid Avenue is a 1998 album of previously unheard lyrics written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie, put to music written and performed by British singer Billy Bragg and the American band Wilco. The project was the first of several such projects organized by Guthrie's daughter, Nora Guthrie, original director of the Woody Guthrie Foundation and archives. Mermaid Avenue was released on the Elektra Records label on June 23, 1998. A second volume of recordings, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II, followed in 2000 and both were collected in a box set alongside volume three in 2012 as Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions. The projects are named after the song "Mermaid's Avenue", written by Guthrie. This was also the name of the street in Coney Island, New York, on which Guthrie lived. According to American Songwriter Magazine, "The Mermaid Avenue project is essential for showing that Woody Guthrie could illuminate what was going on inside of him as well as he could detail the plight of his fellow man". It was voted number 939 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000).
Ellis Paul is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. Born in Presque Isle, Aroostook County, Maine, Paul is a key figure in what has become known as the Boston school of songwriting, a literate, provocative, and urbanely romantic folk-pop style that helped ignite the folk revival of the 1990s. His pop music songs have appeared in movies and on television, bridging the gap between the modern folk sound and the populist traditions of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.
The Klezmatics are an American klezmer music group based in New York City, who have achieved fame singing in several languages, most notably mixing older Yiddish tunes with other types of more contemporary music of differing origins. They have also recorded pieces in Aramaic and Bavarian.
Man in the Sand is a 1999 documentary that functions as both a biography of American folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie and a chronicle of the creation of the Billy Bragg & Wilco Mermaid Avenue albums, which feature songs consisting of previously-unheard Woody Guthrie lyrics set to newly-created music.
Marjorie Guthrie, who used Marjorie Mazia as her professional name, was a dancer, dance teacher, and health science activist. She was married to folk musician Woody Guthrie. Her children with him include folk musician Arlo Guthrie and Woody Guthrie Publications president Nora Guthrie.
The Woody Guthrie Folk Festival is held annually in mid-July to commemorate the life and music of Woody Guthrie. The festival is held on the weekend closest to July 14 - the date of Guthrie's birth - in Guthrie's hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma. Daytime main stage performances are held indoors at the Brick Street Cafe and the Crystal Theatre. Evening main stage performances are held outdoors at the Pastures of Plenty. The festival is planned and implemented annually by the Woody Guthrie Coalition, a non-profit corporation, whose goal is simply to ensure Guthrie's musical legacy. The event is made possible in part from a grant from the Oklahoma Arts Council. Mary Jo Guthrie Edgmon, Woody Guthrie's younger sister, is the festival's perennial guest of honor.
Jimmy LaFave was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. After moving to Stillwater, Oklahoma, LaFave became a supporter of Woody Guthrie. He later became an Advisory Board member and regular performer at the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival.
Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion were a musical duo. Guthrie and Irion were married on October 16, 1999, and began performing together as an acoustic duo in late 2000. Their music combined Irion's love of rock and blues with Guthrie's roots of folk and country.
The Woody Guthrie Foundation, founded in 1972, is a non-profit organization which formerly served as administrator and caretaker of the Woody Guthrie Archives. The Foundation was originally based in Brooklyn, New York and directed by Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora Guthrie.
Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah is an album by The Klezmatics, released in 2006. It contains Hanukkah-themed songs, of which the lyrics to most were written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1949.
Aliza Greenblatt was an American Yiddish poet. Many of her poems, which were widely published in the Yiddish press, were also set to music and recorded by composers including Abraham Ellstein, Solomon Golub, and Esther Zweig. They were also recorded by Theodore Bikel and Sidor Belarsky, among others. Greenblatt published five volumes of Yiddish poetry and an autobiography in Yiddish, Baym fentsṭer fun a lebn and her works include such well-known Yiddish songs as Fisherlid, Amar Abaye, and Du, Du.
Wonder Wheel is a 2006 album by neo-Klezmer band The Klezmatics. It features lyrics by Woody Guthrie which were unrecorded during his life. It won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 49th Grammy awards.
New Multitudes is a Woody Guthrie tribute album performed by Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker, and Jim James to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Guthrie's birth, released through Rounder Records on February 28, 2012. The project was initiated by Woody's daughter Nora Guthrie to have Farrar add music to her father's lyrics—specifically, his earliest songwriting years in Los Angeles. Over the course of several years, he invited the others to collaborate and recorded at a variety of locations across the United States. Each artist wrote music to lyrics that inspired him and presented it to the collaborators for recording. The result is an album with diverse musical genres that has garnered positive reviews from critics for its varied styles and instrumentation. The quartet promoted the album with a small promotional tour that took them to record stores, radio programs, theaters, and folk festivals. The group has plans for releasing a second volume.
John Fullbright is an American singer-songwriter from Okemah, Oklahoma. While still in high school, Fullbright performed at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah. In 2009 he released the album Live at the Blue Door and three years later released his first studio album, From the Ground Up, which received a Grammy nomination in the category Best Americana Album. He has been the subject of two segments on NPR and was a 2012 winner of ASCAP Foundation's Harold Adamson Lyric Award.
Woody At 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collectionis a 150-page large-format book with three CDs containing 57 tracks, including Woody Guthrie's most important recordings such as the complete version of "This Land Is Your Land," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore," and "Riding in My Car." The set also contains 21 previously unreleased performances and six never-before-heard original songs, including Woody's first known—and recently discovered—recordings. It is an in-depth commemorative collection of songs, photos and essays released by Smithsonian Folkways in June 2012.
Lisa Gutkin is an American violinist, singer and songwriter of The Klezmatics. She played in Sting's The Last Ship, had a cameo appearance in “Sex and the City,” and is a MacDowell Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. Lisa appears on hundreds of recordings including From Here On In, a CD of her original songs produced by John Lissauer, and Play Klezmer Fiddle!, an instructional DVD. She has co-authored songs with Woody Guthrie, Anne Sexton, and Maggie Dubris, and composed for symphony orchestra, dance, and film. She is the Co-Music Director and Co-Composer for the Broadway show "Indecent (play)" which won 2 Tony Awards for Best Direction of a Play and Best Lighting Design of a Play in 2017.
The Woody Guthrie Center is a public museum and archive located in Tulsa, Oklahoma that is dedicated to the life and legacy of American folk musician and singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie. The Center also contains the archives of folk singer, songwriter, and fellow social activist Phil Ochs.
This Machine Still Kills Fascists is the eleventh studio album by American band Dropkick Murphys and was released on September 30, 2022, on Dummy Luck Music. It marks the band's first studio album since The Gang's All Here to not feature vocalist Al Barr, who was on hiatus from the band to take care of his ailing mother. It is the band's first acoustic and country album and is composed of unused lyrics and words by Woody Guthrie.
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