20130612

Nora Guthrie Talks about Woody’s Unheard Songs

Image635066319798185405Woody Guthrie’s daughter, Nora says she’s just thrilled that Del McCoury is working on her project to set music to some of her father’s unfinished songs.   

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More than 30 songs were chosen by Nora from more than 3000 that reside in the Woody Guthrie Archives and given to Del McCoury. “I always thought my father wanted to hear these songs set to string band music,” she said to Del, “and you are the person I want to have do it.”

In way of preparing for the project, McCoury has researched string bands in Texas during the period that Woody was there.  He interviewed surviving members and had them play music and talk about the way music was in the 1930’s and 40’s so that he could channel what Woody might have been hearing when the words to these songs were written, says Maggi Landau, Caramoor Artistic Director of Roots Music where McCoury will debut the songs in a live concert on June 29th.  (See Related Story Here)

One of the songs included in this project that Nora Guthrie is extremely excited about is “Wimmen’s Hats” and she says it is a song that he wrote the very day after he wrote “This Land Is Your Land” and so it has a great deal of historical significance.

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