''For the drummer Steve Earle, see Afghan Whigs''

name	Steve Earle
landscape	yes
background	solo_singer
birth name	Stephen Fain Earle
birth date	January 17, 1955
Birth place	Hampton, Virginia U.S.
origin	San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
instrument	Vocals, guitar, mandolin, harmonica, banjo, bouzouki, bass
genre	Country, rock and roll, folk
occupation	Musician, Singer-songwriter, Author, Playwright
label	Uni. MCA Nashville, New West, E² Records, Warner Bros.
associated acts	Allison Moorer, Justin Townes Earle, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Buddy Miller, Joan Baez, Del McCoury Band, Lucinda Williams, Stacey Earle
website	SteveEarle.com
notable instruments	}}

Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle (; born January 17, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock, folk and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play.

Personal life[link]

Earle was born on January 17, 1955, at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. He is the eldest son of Jack Earle, an air traffic controller, and Barbara Earle. Although he was born in Virginia where his father was stationed in the military, the family returned to Texas before Earle's second birthday. His ancestry is Irish Catholic on his mother's side and Scots-Irish on his father's side. They moved often during his childhood, primarily within Texas, but spent several of his formative years in and around San Antonio, Texas including East Terrell Hills, Converse, and Schertz. He dropped out of school in the 9th grade to move to Houston and learn more about the music business. Earle released his first album, ''Guitar Town'', in 1986. His sister, Stacey Earle, is also a musician, having toured with her brother in the 1990s and sung on the song "When I Fall" on Earle's 2000 album, ''Transcendental Blues''.

Earle has been married seven times, including twice to the same woman. His wives were Sandra "Sandy" Henderson, Cynthia Dunn, Carol-Ann Hunter (with whom he had his first child, Justin), Lou-Anne Gill (with whom he had a second son, Ian and a stepdaughter, Amy), Maria Teresa Ensenat, Lou-Anne Gill a second time, and finally, in 2005, singer-songwriter Allison Moorer. His first son, Justin Townes Earle, is also a musician, and is named for Townes Van Zandt. Earle and Moorer had their first child together, John Henry Earle, on April 5, 2010.

Career[link]

Musical career[link]

In 1975, Earle moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he met Guy Clark and his wife Susanna. He appears in the 1975 film ''Heartworn Highways'', which documents the songwriting scene in Nashville around Clark, including fellow Texas musicians Townes van Zandt and Rodney Crowell. Earle had already met Van Zandt in Texas, and refers to Clark and Van Zandt as his mentors and teachers. Clark was instrumental in Earle being hired as a songwriter by the Sunbury Dunbar publishing division of RCA. There he wrote songs for the likes of Carl Perkins, Johnny Lee, Vince Gill and Steve Wariner. His song "Mustang Wine" was due to be recorded by Elvis Presley in 1975, but Presley did not turn up for the recording session. The song was released as a single by Carl Perkins. He also wrote the Patty Loveless hit "A Little Bit in Love." Earle did backing vocals on "Desperados Waiting for a Train" (together with Emmylou Harris) on Clark's first album ''Old No. 1'' and toured in Clark's band. In 1981 Earle achieved a top-ten cut with "When You Fall in Love," which was recorded by Johnny Lee. In 1985 one of his compositions "A Far Cry from You" was recorded by Connie Smith, who made the song a minor hit that year.

Earle's early work as a recorded performer was in the rockabilly style, and can be heard on his compilation album: ''Early Tracks''. The album was recorded for Epic Records, but the company dropped Earle, only releasing the album in 1987 after he found success with MCA Nashville. Earle had to wait until 1986 before his first album, ''Guitar Town'', was released by MCA. It was a critical success and was eventually certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. The follow-up albums ''Exit 0'' in 1987 and the certified-gold ''Copperhead Road,'' 1988, built on this success. With ''Copperhead Road'', Earle moved to MCA Los Angeles and drew increasingly on Rock and roll influences.

Earle had been a substance abuser since an early age and was addicted to heroin for many years. By the time of his 1990 album ''The Hard Way'', it started to become clear that the drugs were seriously affecting him. By 1992, due to his drug problem, he had discontinued performing and recording for two years, a period he refers to as his "vacation in the ghetto." He eventually ended up in jail on drug and firearms charges. Kicking the drug habit while in jail, Earle came out a new man and released two albums within 18 months of his release in late 1994. His comeback album, ''Train a Comin''', was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1996. ''Train a Comin''' was a return to the country blues-influenced folk of Earle's early career and drew on his older catalog of unrecorded material.

Earle's post-jail musical career is more diversified than his early work. He set up his own record label with producer and engineer Ray Kennedy, allowing him increasing artistic control. This has led to experimentation with a range of styles from country and bluegrass music to folk and hard rock music. He has maintained a strict work ethic. Several albums have been released since. Earle also tours often, playing over 200 shows per year. His concerts tend to be either solo acoustic shows or ensemble affairs with one of his two backing bands, the Dukes or the Bluegrass Dukes.

Earle is the subject of the documentary film ''Just an American Boy'', directed by Amos Poe, which explores his political views as well as his music. The film was shot while Earle was touring in support of his 2002 release ''Jerusalem''. In 2005, he caused consternation among his fans by allowing the song The Revolution Starts Now to be used by General Motors in a TV advertisement for pick-up trucks. In 2006, Earle contributed a cover of Randy Newman's song "Rednecks" to the tribute album ''Sail Away: The Songs of Randy Newman''. Earle is also the subject of two biographies, ''Steve Earle: Fearless Heart, Outlaw Poet'', by the noted New York-based music writer David McGee and ''Hardcore Troubadour: The Life and Near Death of Steve Earle'' by Lauren St. John.

In September 2007, Earle released his twelfth studio album, ''Washington Square Serenade'', on New West Records. Earle recorded the album after relocating to New York City, and it was his first attempt at using digital audio workstation ProTools, as opposed to traditional analog recording techniques. The disc features wife Allison Moorer on "Days Aren't Long Enough" and "Down Here Below." The album includes Earle's version of Tom Waits' song "Way Down in the Hole" which is featured as the theme song for the fifth season of ''The Wire'' in which Earle himself appears as Walon. In 2008, Earle produced Joan Baez's album ''Day After Tomorrow''. (Prior to their collaboration on ''Day After Tomorrow'', Baez had covered two Earle songs, "Christmas in Washington" and "Jerusalem," on previous albums.) In the winter, he toured Europe and North America in support of ''Washington Square Serenade'', performing half the set solo and the other half with a DJ. On May 12, 2009, Earle released a tribute album, ''Townes'', on New West Records. The album contains 15 songs written by his late friend and musical mentor Townes Van Zandt. Guest artists appearing on the album include Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Earle's wife Allison Moorer, and his son Justin Townes Earle. Both ''Washington Square Serenade'' and ''Townes'' also earned Grammy awards in the contemporary folk category.

Earle released his first novel and fourteenth studio album, both entitled ''I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive'' after a Hank Williams song, in the spring of 2011. The album was released on April 26, 2011 and was produced by T-Bone Burnett. Earle describes it as dealing with questions of mortality and having a "more country" sound than his earlier work. He plans a full band tour in support of the album in the summer of 2011.

Since his emergence as a performer, his songs have been covered by various well-known artists, including Joan Baez, The Pretenders, The Proclaimers, Eddi Reader, The Highwaymen, Waylon Jennings, Levon Helm, Emmylou Harris, Percy Sledge and Johnny Cash. Travis Tritt had a #7 country hit in 1995 with Earle's "Sometimes She Forgets."

Writing career[link]

In addition to music, Earle has written a collection of short stories called ''Doghouse Roses,'' several of which draw on his personal experiences as a musician and addict. The book was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in June 2001. Earle has also written poetry and wrote and produced a play about the death penalty entitled ''Karla''. The play was produced off-Broadway and focuses on the death of Karla Faye Tucker, who was the first woman excuted by the state of Texas since the death penalty was reinstated.

Earle's first novel, entitled ''I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive'' after a Hank Williams song, was published the spring of 2011. The novel is set in San Antonio in 1963, and tells the story of a defrocked doctor and morphine addict. The doctor makes a living by performing illegal abortions and is haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams, with whom he was traveling when Williams died of an overdose. The novel is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt1.

Acting career[link]

Earle portrayed a recovering drug addict named Walon in several episodes of the HBO television series ''The Wire'', created by David Simon. He appears first in season one where he addresses a 12-step-type meeting with an account of how he lost everything to addiction: "I pawned my pickup, my bike, and my National steel guitar, a stamp collection that my granddad left me; lost a good wife, a bad girlfriend, and the respect of anyone who ever lent me money." His story affects Bubbles and appears to spur him towards recovery. After season one, Walon does not return until Bubbles hits rock-bottom hard in the season four finale. Picking up the thread, he then appears throughout season five as sponsor, as Bubbles attempts to overcome his heroin addiction and its consequences. Earle's song "I Feel Alright" is used in a montage to close out season two. He also performs the opening theme of the fifth season, performing "Way Down in the Hole," a song written by Tom Waits.

Earle also played a supporting role as a drug dealer in Tim Blake Nelson's 2009 movie ''Leaves of Grass'', starring Edward Norton. He also played a musician in the HBO series ''Treme'', set in post-Katrina New Orleans. Earle's song "This City" can be heard over the closing credits of the first season finale. He was also one of several musicians who sang a mock charity appeal in the final episode of Season 3 of ''30 Rock''.

Radio shows[link]

Earle's radio show on Air America began in August 2004 and last aired on June 10, 2007, and that was a rebroadcast of a past episode. Shortly thereafter, he started DJing on a show on Sirius Satellite Radio called Hardcore Troubadour on their Outlaw Country channel.

Political views[link]

Since early in his career, Earle has been involved in a number of political causes. In his first public performances, Earle was unable to play in bars due to his age and took to playing in coffeehouses alongside anti-Vietnam War campaigners. These experiences had a strong effect on him, evidenced by his opposition to the Iraq War. He is also a regular participant in the "Concerts for a Landmine Free World," benefiting the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.

Earle's mother took part in anti-death penalty vigils, a cause that has been taken up by Earle. He has worked to abolish the death penalty and has recorded several songs about this cause, including "Billy Austin," "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)" and "Ellis Unit One" for the 1995 film ''Dead Man Walking''. Ellis Unit, located in Huntsville, Texas, previously housed the Texas male death row convicts, until it was moved to Polunsky Unit near Livingston, Texas. He exchanged letters with a prisoner on death row named Jonathan Wayne Nobles, the subject of "Over Yonder", and, at the request of Nobles, attended his execution in 1998. In 2010 Earle was awarded the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's Shining Star of Abolition award.

In the early 2000s Earle's music was more explicitly political. His 2002 album, ''Jerusalem'', was largely inspired by the US-led War on Terrorism. This album featured "John Walker's Blues," which was about the captured American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh. Many accused Earle of sympathizing with terrorists as the song was written from Lindh's perspective. Earle responded that he was simply empathizing with Lindh and attempting to understand his motivation through song rather than glorifying or forgiving terrorism. He said that, as a parent, he was moved by pictures of Lindh bound to a stretcher. "For some reason when I saw him on TV, I related it to my son. That skinny and that age, exactly. I thought, he's got parents somewhere, and they must be sick."

His 2004 album, ''The Revolution Starts Now'', which features several songs relating to the Iraq War, was deliberately released to coincide with the run-up to the 2004 US presidential election, with the aim of encouraging votes for John Kerry. The song "The Revolution Starts Now" was used in the promotion of Michael Moore's anti-war documentary film ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' and appears on the album ''Songs and Artists That Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11'', the songs for which were selected by Moore. The song also opened Earle's weekly Sunday-night show on Air America Radio. He appears in the 2008 political documentary ''Slacker Uprising''.

While Earle's work subsequent to ''The Revolution Starts Now'' is less explicitly political, he continues to support activist causes and his albums and stage banter include political references. During the second half of his 2011 tour with The Dukes and Duchesses featuring Allison Moorer, the drum kit was adorned with the slogan "we are the 99%" a clear reference to the occupy movement which began in September that year.

Discography[link]

Use in media[link]

Steve Earle's songs have appeared in many major motion pictures and television as writer and performer.

As performer and writer[link]

''The Beverly Hillbillies'' (1993) ("Honey Don't")

''Dead Man Walking'' (1995) ("Ellis Unit One")

''The Horse Whisperer'' (1998) ("Me and the Eagle")

''Pay It Forward'' (2000) ("Open Your Window")

''You Can Count on Me'' (2000) ("I'm Still In Love With You", "Harlan Man", "Texas Eagle", "The Mountain", "Pilgrim")

''The Pledge'' (2001) ("The Other Side of Town")

''Last Party 2000'' (also known as ''The Party's Over'' (2001) ("Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)")

''Big Bad Love'' (2001) ("Goodbye")

''The Rookie'' (2002) ("Some Dreams")

''Stevie'' (2002) ("I Ain't Ever Satisfied")

''The Wire'' (2004) ("I Feel Alright"), ("Down in the Hole" as performer only, written by Tom Waits)

''Silver City'' (2004) ("Amerika v. 6.0")

''Brokeback Mountain'' (2005) ("Devil's Right Hand")

''Talladega Nights'' (2006) ("Valentine's Day", "Hard-Core Troubadour", "I Feel Alright")

''The Guardian'' (2006) ("Home To Houston")

''Bridge to Terabithia'' (2007) ("Someday")

''The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey'' (2007) ("Nothing But A Child")

''Friday Night Lights (Tv Series)'' (2009) ("Hard-core Troubadour")

''Leaves of Grass'' (2009) ("Lonely Are the Free")

''Treme'' (2010) ("This City")

''Moonshiners'' (2011) ("Copperhead Road")

As writer[link]

''Sgt. Bilko'' (1996) ("Sometimes She Forgets")

''G.I. Jane'' (1997) ("Goodbye")

''P.S. I Love You'' (2007) ("The Galway Girl")

Awards[link]

Steve Earle has received a total of fourteen nominations for Grammy Awards and won three.

:2012 Nominated "Best Folk Album" for ''I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive''. :2010 Won "Best Contemporary Folk Album" for ''Townes''. :2008 Won "Best Contemporary Folk Album" for ''Washington Square Serenade''. :2005 Won "Best Contemporary Folk Album" for ''The Revolution Starts...Now''. :2005 Nominated “Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance” for ''The Revolution Starts...Now''. :2003 Nominated "Best Contemporary Folk Album" for ''Jerusalem''. :2001 Nominated "Best Contemporary Folk Album" for ''Transcendental Blues''. :2000 Nominated "Best Bluegrass Album" for ''The Mountain'' with the Del McCoury Band. :1999 Nominated "Best Contemporary Folk Album" for ''El Corazón''. :1996 Nominated "Best Contemporary Folk Album" for ''Train A Comin'''. (Lost in 1996 to Lucinda Williams' ''Car Wheels On A Gravel Road'', which Earle co-produced.) :1988 Nominated "Best Country Male Vocalist" for ''Exit 0''. :1988 Nominated "Best Country Song" for “Nowhere Road”. :1987 Nominated "Best Country Male Vocalist" for Guitar Town. :1987 Nominated "Best Country Song" for “Guitar Town”.

He was named Country Artist of the Year for 1986 by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine.

In 2004, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting by the UK's BBC Radio 2.

In July 2010, Earle was nominated for an Emmy Award in the Music and Lyrics category, for the song "This City," which was written for the television series ''Tremé.''

On May 13, 2011, Earle was granted an honorary degree from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law.

Collaborations[link]

Recorded and performed "Johnny Come Lately" with The Pogues.

Performed a duet with Iris DeMent on "I'm Still In Love With You".

Co-wrote the Jason & the Scorchers song "A Bible & A Gun".

Sang on Jason Ringenberg's re-recording of "A Bible & A Gun" (2002).

Worked with the Supersuckers, recording their song "Creepy Jackalope Eye" and his song "NYC" (1996).

Released split single of the Rolling Stones song "Before They Make Me Run" with the Supersuckers (1997).

Sang backup vocals and played the harmonica on the Indigo Girls song "Shame on You", on their album ''Shaming of the Sun'' (1997).

Recorded "The Galway Girl" and "Dominick Street" with Sharon Shannon and The Woodchoppers.

Recorded covers of Alejandro Escovedo's "Paradise" and Warren Zevon's "Reconsider Me" with Reckless Kelly, for Escovedo and Zevon tribute albums.

Collaborated with the Del McCoury Band on ''The Mountain'' (1999).

Performed a duet with Lucinda Williams on "You're Still Standin' There".

Performed a duet with Chris Hillman on "High Fashion Queen" for the Gram Parsons tribute album ''Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons''.

Performed a duet with Siobhan Maher Kennedy on "Poison Lovers".

Performed a duet with Emmylou Harris on "Comin' Around", "Goodbye", and "I Remember You".

Performed a duet with Stacey Earle on "When I Fall".

Played guitar and sang backup on Emmylou Harris's version of "Goodbye" (from her ''Wrecking Ball'' album.)

Co-wrote "Go Amanda" with Sheryl Crow (on ''Jerusalem'').

Sang with Sheryl Crow on his cover of "Time Has Come Today" on ''Sidetracks''.

Covered the Son Volt classic "Windfall"

Played banjo on Patti Smith's cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

Produces and collaborates on Joan Baez's album ''Day After Tomorrow''.

Performed a duet with Jill Sobule on her song "Love is Never Equal"

Covered NRBQ's "A Girl Like That" on the NRBQ tribute album The Q People (2004).

Performed with Allison Moorer on the song "After The Fire Is Gone" from Coal Miner's Daughter: A Tribute To Loretta Lynn (2010).

Sources[link]

McGee, David. ''Steve Earle: Fearless Heart, Outlaw Poet,'' Backbeat, 2005.

Schone, Mark. (1998). "Steve Earle." In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 160–1.

St John, Lauren. ''Hardcore Troubadour: The Life and Near Death of Steve Earle'', Fourth Estate, 2002 ISBN 1-84115-611-6

References[link]

External links[link]

Steve Earle Official website

"Death in Texas" Article By Earle On Witnessing The Execution Of A Friend

Just an American Boy

Interview with Steve Earle

Features, CD and concert reviews with Steve Earle at Country Standard Time

GM commercial featuring ''The Revolution Starts Now''

Steve Earle to Release Townes Van Zandt Tribute Album

Freeing a Mentor From His Mythology

Steve Earle Lays it Down

Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:People from Hampton, Virginia Category:American country singers Category:American country guitarists Category:American folk guitarists Category:American rock guitarists Category:American male singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Kerrville New Folk Competition finalists Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:American mandolinists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:American anti-war activists Category:American anti–death penalty activists Category:Musicians from Virginia Category:New West Records artists Category:American folk rock musicians Category:Uni Records artists

bg:Стив Ърл de:Steve Earle es:Steve Earle fr:Steve Earle fy:Steve Earle it:Steve Earle no:Steve Earle pt:Steve Earle simple:Steve Earle sv:Steve Earle

name	Woody Guthrie
background	solo_singer
birth name	Woodrow Wilson Guthrie
birth date	July 14, 1912
Birth place	Okemah, Oklahoma, United States
death date	October 03, 1967
Death place	New York City, New York, United States
instrument	Vocals, guitar, harmonica, mandolin, fiddle
genre	Folk, protest song, country
occupation	Singer-songwriter
years active	1930–1956
influences	Joe Hill, Will Rogers, Jimmie Rodgers, The Carter Family, Lead Belly
influenced	Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston, Jack Elliott, Phil Ochs, Joe Strummer, Bruce Springsteen
associated acts	Almanac Singers
notable instruments	Martin 000-18, Gibson Southern Jumbo, Gibson J-45 }}

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan ''This Machine Kills Fascists'' displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land". Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg and Tom Paxton have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence.

Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour". Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States communist groups, though he was seemingly not a member of any.

Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. He is the grandfather of musician Sarah Lee Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of Huntington's disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder. During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.

Woody Guthrie was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 1997.

Biography[link]

Early life: 1912–30[link]

Guthrie was born in Okemah, a small town in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, the son of Nora Belle (née Sherman) and Charles Edward Guthrie. His parents named him after Woodrow Wilson, then Governor of New Jersey and the Democratic candidate soon to be elected President of the United States.

Charles Guthrie was an industrious businessman, owning at one time up to of land in Okfuskee County. He was actively involved in Oklahoma politics and was a Democratic candidate for office in the county. When Charles was making stump speeches, he would often be accompanied by his son. Charles Guthrie was involved in the 1911 lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson. His son wrote three songs about the event and said that his father was later a member of the revived Ku Klux Klan.

Guthrie's early family life was affected by several fires, including one that caused the loss of his family's home in Okemah. His sister Clara later died in a coal-oil (used for heating) fire when Guthrie was seven, and Guthrie's father was severely burned in a subsequent coal-oil fire. The circumstances of these fires, especially that in which Charley was injured, remain unclear. It is unknown whether they were accidents or the result of actions by Guthrie's mother Nora, who was afflicted with Huntington's disease, although the family did not know this at the time. It leads to dementia as well as muscular effects.

Nora Guthrie was eventually committed to the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane, where she died in 1930 from Huntington's disease. Judging from the circumstances of her father's death by drowning, researchers suspect that George Sherman suffered from the same hereditary disease.

When Nora Guthrie was institutionalized, Woody Guthrie was 14. His father Charley was living and working in Pampa, Texas, to repay his debts from unsuccessful real estate deals. Woody and his siblings were on their own in Oklahoma; they relied on their eldest brother Roy for support. The 14-year-old Woody Guthrie worked odd jobs around Okemah, begging meals and sometimes sleeping at the homes of family friends. According to one story, Guthrie made friends with an African-American blues harmonica player named "George", whom he would watch play at the man's shoe shine booth. Before long, Guthrie bought his own harmonica and began playing along with him. In another interview 14 years later, Guthrie claimed he learned how to play harmonica from a boyhood friend, John Woods, and that his earlier story about the shoe-shining player was false.

He seemed to have a natural affinity for music and easily learned to "play by ear". He began to use his musical skills around town, playing a song for a sandwich or coins. Guthrie easily learned old ballads and traditional English & Scots songs from the parents of friends. Although he did not excel as a student (he dropped out of high school in his fourth year and did not graduate), his teachers described him as bright. He was an avid reader on a wide range of topics. Friends recall his reading constantly.

Eventually, Guthrie's father sent for his son to come to Texas, but little changed for the aspiring musician. Guthrie, then 18, was reluctant to attend high school classes in Pampa and spent much time learning songs by busking on the streets and reading in the library at Pampa's city hall. He was growing as a musician, gaining practice by regularly playing at dances with his father's half-brother Jeff Guthrie, a fiddle player. At the library, he wrote a manuscript summarizing everything he had read on the basics of psychology. A librarian in Pampa shelved this manuscript under Guthrie's name, but it was later lost in a library reorganization.

1930s: traveling[link]

At age 19, Guthrie met and married his first wife, Mary Jennings, with whom he had three children, Gwendolyn, Sue, and Bill, all of whom would later die prematurely. With the advent of the Dust Bowl era, Guthrie left Texas, leaving Mary behind, and joined the thousands of Okies who were migrating to California looking for work. Many of his songs are concerned with the conditions faced by these working class people.

California[link]

During the late part of that decade, he achieved fame with radio partner Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman as a broadcast performer of commercial "hillbilly" music and traditional folk music. Guthrie was making enough money to send for his family, who were still living in Texas. While appearing on the commercial radio station KFVD, owned by a populist-minded New Deal Democrat Frank W. Burke, Guthrie began to write and perform some of the protest songs that would eventually appear on ''Dust Bowl Ballads''.

It was at KFVD that Guthrie met newscaster Ed Robbin. Robbin was impressed with a song Guthrie wrote about Thomas Mooney, believed by many to be a wrongly convicted man who was, at the time, a leftist ''cause célèbre''. Robbin, who became Guthrie's political mentor, introduced Guthrie to socialists and communists in Southern California, including Will Geer. He remained Guthrie's lifelong friend, and helped Guthrie book benefit performances in the communist circles in Southern California. Notwithstanding Guthrie's later claim that "the best thing that I did in 1936 was to sign up with the Communist Party," he was never a member of the Party. He was noted as a fellow traveler—an outsider who agreed with the platform of the party while not subject to party discipline. Guthrie requested to write a column for the Communist newspaper, ''The Daily Worker''. The column, titled "Woody Sez", appeared a total of 174 times from May 1939 to January 1940. "Woody Sez" was not explicitly political, but was about current events as observed by Guthrie. He wrote the columns in an exaggerated hillbilly dialect and usually included a small comic; they were published as a collection after Guthrie's death. Steve Earle said of Guthrie, "I don't think of Woody Guthrie as a political writer. He was a writer who lived in very political times".

With the outbreak of World War II and the nonaggression pact the Soviet Union had signed with Germany in 1939, the owners of KFVD radio did not want its staff "spinning apologia" for the Soviet Union. Both Robbin and Guthrie left the station. Without the daily radio show, his prospects for employment diminished, and Guthrie and his family returned to Pampa, Texas. Although Mary Guthrie was happy to return to Texas, the wanderlusting Guthrie soon after accepted Will Geer's invitation to New York City and headed east.

1940s: building a legacy[link]

New York City[link]

Arriving in New York, Guthrie, known as "the Oklahoma cowboy", was embraced by its leftist folk music community. For a time, he slept on a couch in Will Geer's apartment. Guthrie made his first recordings—several hours of conversation and songs recorded by the folklorist Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress—as well as an album, ''Dust Bowl Ballads'', for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey.

Guthrie was tired of the radio overplaying Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". He thought the lyrics were unrealistic and complacent. Partly inspired by his experiences during a cross-country trip and his distaste for "God Bless America", he wrote his most famous song, "This Land Is Your Land", in February 1940; it was subtitled "God Blessed America for Me." The melody is adapted from an old gospel song, "Oh My Loving Brother." This was best known as "When The World's On Fire", sung by the country group The Carter Family. Guthrie signed the manuscript with the comment, "All you can write is what you see, Woody G., N.Y., N.Y., N.Y.". He protested against class inequality in the fourth and sixth verses:

:''As I went walking, I saw a sign there,'' :''And on the sign there, It said "no trespassing."'' [In another version, the sign reads "Private Property"] :''But on the other side, it didn't say nothing!'' :''That side was made for you and me.''

:''In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;'' :''By the relief office, I'd seen my people.'' :''As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,'' :''Is this land made for you and me?''

These verses were often omitted in subsequent recordings, sometimes by Guthrie. Although the song was written in 1940, it was four years before he recorded it for Moses Asch in April 1944., Sheet music was not produced and given to schools by Howie Richmond until later.

In March 1940, Guthrie was invited to play at a benefit hosted by The John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Farm Workers, to raise money for migrant workers. There he met the folksinger Pete Seeger, and the two men became good friends. Later, Seeger accompanied Guthrie back to Texas to meet other members of the Guthrie family. He recalled an awkward conversation with Mary Guthrie's mother, in which she asked for Seeger's help to persuade Guthrie to treat her daughter better.

Guthrie had some success in New York at this time as a guest on CBS's radio program ''Back Where I Come From'' and used his influence to get a spot on the show for his friend Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter. Ledbetter's Tenth Street apartment was a gathering spot for the leftwing musician circle in New York at the time, and Guthrie and Ledbetter were good friends, as they had busked together at bars in Harlem.

In September 1940 Guthrie was invited by the Model Tobacco Company to host their radio program, ''Pipe Smoking Time''. Guthrie was paid $180 a week, an impressive salary in 1940. He was finally making enough money to send regular payments back to Mary. He also brought her and the children to New York, where the family lived briefly in an apartment on Central Park West. The reunion represented Woody's desire to be a better father and husband. He said "I have to set [''sic''] real hard to think of being a dad". Guthrie quit after the seventh broadcast, claiming he had begun to feel the show was too restrictive when he was told what to sing. Disgruntled with New York, Guthrie packed up Mary and his children in a new car and headed west to California.

Pacific Northwest[link]

In May 1941, after a brief stay in Los Angeles, Guthrie moved the family north to Washington state on the promise of a job. Gunther von Fritsch was directing a documentary about the Bonneville Power Administration's construction of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, and needed a narrator. Alan Lomax had recommended Guthrie to narrate the film and sing songs onscreen. The original project was expected to take 12 months, but as filmmakers became worried about casting such a political figure, they minimized Guthrie's role. The Department of the Interior hired him for one month to write songs about the Columbia River and the construction of the federal dams for the documentary's soundtrack. Guthrie toured the Columbia River and the Pacific Northwest. Guthrie said he "couldn't believe it, it's a paradise", which appeared to inspire him creatively. In one month Guthrie wrote 26 songs, including three of his most famous: "Roll On Columbia", "Pastures of Plenty", and "Grand Coulee Dam". The surviving songs were released as ''Columbia River Songs''. The film was never completed and was released only in a limited form.

At the conclusion of the month in Oregon and Washington, Guthrie wanted to return to New York. Tired of the continual uprooting, Mary Guthrie told him to go without her and the children. Although Guthrie would see Mary again, once on a tour through Los Angeles with the Almanac Singers, it was essentially the end of their marriage. Divorce was difficult, since Mary was a member of the Catholic Church, but she reluctantly agreed in December 1943.

Almanac Singers[link]

Following the conclusion of his work in Washington State, Guthrie corresponded with Pete Seeger about Seeger's newly formed folk-protest group, the Almanac Singers. Guthrie returned to New York with plans to tour the country as a member of the group. The singers originally worked out of a loft in New York City hosting regular concerts called "hootenannys", a word Pete and Woody had picked up in their cross-country travels. The singers eventually outgrew the space and moved into the cooperative Almanac House in Greenwich Village.

Initially Guthrie helped write and sing what the Almanacs Singers termed "peace" songs; while the Nazi-Soviet Pact was in effect, until Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Communist line was that World War II was a capitalist fraud. After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, the group wrote anti-fascist songs. The members of the Almanac Singers and residents of the Almanac House were a loosely defined group of musicians, though the 'core' members included Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Millard Lampell and Lee Hays. In keeping with common socialist ideals, meals, chores and rent at the Almanac House were shared. The Sunday hootenannys were good opportunities to collect donation money for rent. Songs written in the Almanac House had shared songwriting credits among all the members, although in the case of "Union Maid", members would later state that Guthrie wrote the song, ensuring that his children would receive residuals.

In the Almanac House, Guthrie added authenticity to their work, since he was a "real" working-class Oklahoman. "There was the heart of America personified in Woody....And for a New York Left that was primarily Jewish, first or second generation American, and was desperately trying to get Americanized, I think a figure like Woody was of great, great importance", a friend of the group, Irwin Silber, would say. Woody routinely emphasized his working-class image, rejected songs he felt were not in the country blues vein he was familiar with, and rarely contributed to household chores. House member Agnes "Sis" Cunningham, another Okie, would later recall that Woody, "loved people to think of him as a real working class person and not an intellectual". Guthrie contributed songwriting and authenticity in much the same capacity for Pete Seeger's post-Almanac Singers project ''People's Songs'', a newsletter and booking organization for labor singers, founded in 1945.

''Bound for Glory''[link]

Guthrie was a prolific writer, penning thousands of pages of unpublished poems and prose, many written while living in New York City. After a recording session with Alan Lomax, Lomax suggested Guthrie write an autobiography. Lomax thought Guthrie's descriptions of growing up were some of the best accounts he had read of American childhood. During this time Guthrie met Marjorie Mazia, a dancer in New York who would become his second wife. Mazia was an instructor at the prestigious Martha Graham Dance School, where she was assisting Sophie Maslow with her piece ''Folksay''. Based on the folklore and poetry collected by Carl Sandburg, ''Folksay'' included the adaptation of some of Guthrie's ''Dust Bowl Ballads'' for the dance. Guthrie continued to write songs and began work on his autobiography. The end product, ''Bound For Glory'' was completed due to the patient editing assistance of Mazia and was first published by E.P. Dutton in 1943. It is vividly told in the artist's down-home dialect, with the flair and imagery of a true storyteller. ''Library Journal'' complained about the "Too careful reproduction of illiterate speech." But Clifton Fadiman, reviewing the book in the ''New York Times'', paid the author a fine tribute: "Some day people are going to wake up to the fact that Woody Guthrie and the ten thousand songs that leap and tumble off the strings of his music box are a national possession like Yellowstone and Yosemite, and part of the best stuff this country has to show the world." A film adaptation of ''Bound for Glory'' was released in 1976.

The Asch recordings[link]

In 1944, Guthrie met Moses "Moe" Asch of Folkways Records, for whom he first recorded "This Land Is Your Land". Over the next few years, he recorded "Worried Man Blues", along with hundreds of other songs. These recordings would later be released by Folkways and Stinson Records, which had joint distribution rights. The Folkways recordings are available (through the Smithsonian Institute online shop); the most complete series of these sessions, culled from dates with Asch, is titled ''The Asch Recordings''.

World War II years[link]

Guthrie believed performing his anti-fascist songs and poems at home was the best use of his talents; Guthrie lobbied the United States Army to accept him as a USO performer instead of conscripting him as a soldier in the draft. When Guthrie's attempts failed, his friends Cisco Houston and Jim Longhi pressured Guthrie to join the U.S. Merchant Marine. Guthrie followed their advice: he served as a mess man and dishwasher and frequently sang for the crew and troops to buoy their spirits on transatlantic voyages. Guthrie made attempts to write about his experience in the Merchant Marine but was never satisfied with the results. Longhi later wrote about these experiences in his book ''Woody, Cisco and Me''. The book offers a rare first-hand account of Guthrie during his Merchant Marine service. In 1945, Guthrie's association with communism made him ineligible for further service in the Merchant Marine, and he was drafted into the U.S. Army.

While he was on furlough from the Army, Guthrie and Marjorie were married. After his discharge, they moved into a house on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island and over time had four children. One of their children, Cathy, died as a result of a fire at age four, sending Guthrie into a serious depression. Their other children were Joady, Nora and Arlo. Arlo followed in his father's footsteps as a singer-songwriter. During this period, Guthrie wrote and recorded ''Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child'', a collection of children's music, which includes the song "Goodnight Little Arlo (Goodnight Little Darlin')", written when Arlo was about nine years old.

A 1948 crash of a plane carrying 28 Mexican farm workers from Oakland, California, in deportation back to Mexico inspired Woody to write "Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)".

In 1949 Guthrie's music was featured in the film ''Columbia River;'' Guthrie had been commissioned in 1941 to provide songs for the project, but it had been postponed due to WWII.

Mermaid Avenue[link]

The years living on Mermaid Avenue were among Guthrie's most productive periods as a writer. His extensive writings from this time were archived and maintained by Marjorie and later his estate, mostly handled by Guthrie's daughter, Nora. Several of the manuscripts contain scribblings by a young Arlo and the other Guthrie offspring.

During this time Ramblin' Jack Elliott studied extensively under Guthrie, visiting his home and observing how he wrote and performed. Elliott, like Bob Dylan later, idolized Guthrie and was inspired by his idiomatic performance style and repertoire. Due to Guthrie's suffering Huntington's disease, Dylan and Guthrie's son Arlo later claimed they learned much of Guthrie's performance style from Elliott. When asked about Arlo's claim, Elliott said, "I was flattered. Dylan learned from me the same way I learned from Woody. Woody didn't teach me. He just said, If you want to learn something, just steal it—that's the way I learned from Lead Belly."

1950s and 1960s[link]

Deteriorating health[link]

By the late 1940s, Guthrie's health was declining, and his behavior was becoming extremely erratic. He received various diagnoses (including alcoholism and schizophrenia), but in 1952, it was finally determined that he was suffering from Huntington's disease, a genetic disorder inherited from his mother. Believing him to be a danger to their children, Marjorie suggested he return to California without her; they eventually divorced.

Upon his return to California, Guthrie lived at the Theatricum Botanicum, a summer-stock type theatre founded and owned by Will Geer; with blacklisted singers and actors, he waited out the anti-communist political climate. As his health worsened, he met and married his third wife, Anneke Van Kirk. They had a child, Lorinna Lynn. The couple moved to Fruit Cove, Florida, briefly. They lived in a bus on land called Beluthahatchee, owned by his friend Stetson Kennedy. Guthrie's arm was hurt in a campfire accident when gasoline used to start the campfire exploded. Although he regained movement in the arm, he was never able to play the guitar again. In 1954, the couple returned to New York. Shortly after, Anneke filed for divorce, a result of the strain of caring for Guthrie. Anneke left New York and allowed friends to adopt Lorinna Lynn. Lorinna had no further contact with her birth parents and died in 1973 at the age of nineteen in a car accident in California. After the divorce, Guthrie's second wife, Marjorie, re-entered his life and cared for him until his death.

Guthrie, increasingly unable to control his muscles, was hospitalized at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital from 1956 to 1961, at Brooklyn State Hospital until 1966, and finally at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center until his death. Marjorie and the children visited Guthrie at Greystone every Sunday. They answered fan mail and played on the hospital grounds. Eventually a longtime fan of Guthrie invited the family to his nearby home for the Sunday visits. This lasted until Guthrie was moved to the Brooklyn State Hospital, which was closer to where Marjorie lived.

When Bob Dylan, who idolized Guthrie and whose early folk career was deeply inspired by him, learned that Guthrie was hospitalized in Brooklyn, he was determined to meet his idol. By this time, Guthrie was said to have his "good days" and "bad days". On the good days, Dylan would sing songs to him, and at the beginning Guthrie seemed to warm to Dylan. When the bad days came, Guthrie would berate Dylan. Reportedly on Dylan's last visit, Guthrie didn't recognize him.

At the end of his life, Guthrie was largely alone except for family. Due to the progression of Huntington's, he was difficult to be around. Guthrie's illness was essentially untreated, due to a lack of information about the disease. His death helped raise awareness of the disease and led Marjorie to help found the Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease, which became the Huntington's Disease Society of America. None of Guthrie's three remaining children with Marjorie has developed symptoms of Huntington's. Two of Mary Guthrie's children (Gwendolyn and Sue) suffered from the disease. (Her son Bill died in an auto-train accident in Pomona, California, at age 23.) Both died at 41 years of age.

Folk revival and Guthrie's death[link]

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a new generation of young people were inspired by folk singers including Guthrie. These "folk revivalists" became more politically aware in their music than those of the previous generation. The American Folk Revival was beginning to take place, focused on the issues of the day, such as the civil rights movement and free speech movement. Pockets of folk singers were forming around the country in places such as Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. One of Guthrie's visitors at Greystone Park was the 19-year-old Bob Dylan who idolized Guthrie. Dylan wrote of Guthrie's repertoire: "The songs themselves were really beyond category. They had the infinite sweep of humanity in them." After learning of Guthrie's whereabouts, Dylan regularly visited him. Guthrie died of complications of Huntington's disease on October 3, 1967. By the time of his death, his work had been discovered by a new audience, introduced to them in part through Dylan, Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, his ex-wife Marjorie and other new members of the folk revival, and his son Arlo.

Family[link]

Married: Mary Esta Jennings (1933–1943), Marjorie Greenblatt Mazia (1945–1953), Anneke van Kirk (1953–1954)

Children (8): Gwendolyn Gail (1935–1976), Sue (1937–1978), Bill (1939–1962), Cathy Ann (1943–1947), Arlo Davy (1947–), Joady Ben (1948–), Nora (1950–), Lorinna Lynn (1954–1973)

Musical legacy[link]

Foundation and archives[link]

The Woody Guthrie Foundation is a non-profit organization that serves as administrator and caretaker of the Woody Guthrie Archives. The archive houses the largest collection of Guthrie material in the world. Guthrie's unrecorded written lyrics housed at the Archives have been the starting point of several albums including the Wilco and Billy Bragg albums ''Mermaid Avenue'' and ''Mermaid Avenue Vol. II'', created in 1998 sessions at the invitation of Guthrie's daughter Nora. The Native American (Diné) trio Blackfire also interpreted previously unreleased Guthrie lyrics at Nora's invitation. Jonatha Brooke's 2008 album, ''The Works'' includes lyrics from the Woody Guthrie Archives set to music by Jonatha Brooke. The various artists compilation ''Note of Hope: A Celebration of Woody Guthrie'' was released in 2011. Nora selected Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker, and Yim Yames to record her father's lyrics for ''New Multitudes'' to honor the 100th anniversary of his birth and a box set of the Mermaid Avenue sessions was also released.

Folk Festival[link]

The Woody Guthrie Folk Festival is held annually in mid-July to commemorate Guthrie's life and music. The festival is held on the weekend closest to Guthrie's birth date (July 14) in Guthrie's hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma. Planned and implemented annually by the Woody Guthrie Coalition, a non-profit corporation, the goal is simply to ensure Guthrie's musical legacy. The Woody Guthrie Coalition commissioned a local Creek Indian sculptor to cast a full-body bronze statue of Guthrie and his guitar, complete with the guitar's well-known inscription: "This machine kills fascists". The statue, sculpted by artist Dan Brook, stands along Okemah's main street in the heart of downtown and was unveiled in 1998, the inaugural year of the festival.

Jewish songs[link]

Marjorie Mazia was born Marjorie Greenblatt and her mother, Aliza Greenblatt, was a well-known Yiddish poet. With her, Guthrie wrote numerous Jewish lyrics. Guthrie’s Jewish lyrics can be traced to the unusual collaborative relationship he had with his mother-in-law, who lived across from Guthrie and his family in Brooklyn in the 1940s. Guthrie (the Oklahoma troubadour) and Greenblatt (the Jewish wordsmith) often discussed their artistic projects and critiqued each other’s works, finding common ground in their shared love of culture and social justice, despite very different backgrounds. Their collaboration flourished in 1940s Brooklyn, where Jewish culture was interwoven with music, modern dance, poetry and anti-fascist, pro-labor, classic socialist activism. Guthrie was inspired to write songs that came directly out of this unlikely relationship, both personal and political; he identified the problems of Jews with those of his fellow Okies and other oppressed peoples.

These lyrics were rediscovered by Nora Guthrie and were set to music by the Jewish Klezmer group The Klezmatics with the release of ''Happy Joyous Hanukkah'' on JMG Records in 2007. The Klezmatics also released ''Wonder Wheel — Lyrics by Woody Guthrie'', an album of spiritual lyrics put to music composed by the band. The album, produced by Danny Blume, was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.

Tributes[link]

Since his death, artists have paid tribute to Guthrie by covering his songs or by dedicating songs to him. One of the first artists to do so was Scottish folk artist Donovan, who covered Guthrie's "Car, Car (Riding in My Car)" on his 1965 debut album ''What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid''. On January 20, 1968, three months following Guthrie's death, Harold Leventhal produced ''A Tribute to Woody Guthrie'' at New York City's Carnegie Hall. Performers included Jack Elliott, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Bob Dylan and The Band, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Odetta, and others. Leventhal repeated the tribute on September 12, 1970 at the Hollywood Bowl. Recordings of both concerts were eventually released as LPs and later combined into one CD. The legendary Irish folk singer, Christy Moore, was also strongly influenced by Woody in his seminal 1970 album ''Prosperous'', giving renditions of "The Ludlow Massacre" and Bob Dylan's "Song to Woody". Bob Dylan also penned, ''Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie'' as a later tribute song to Guthrie. Bruce Springsteen also performed a cover of Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" on his live album ''Live 1975–1985''. In the introduction to the song, Springsteen referred to it as "just about one of the most beautiful songs ever written."

In September 1996 Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and Case Western Reserve University cohosted ''Hard Travelin': The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie'', a 10-day conference of panel sessions, lectures, and concerts. The conference became the first in what would become the museum's annual American Music Masters Series conference. Highlights included Arlo Guthrie's keynote address, a Saturday night musical jamboree at Cleveland's Odeon Theater, and a Sunday night concert at Severance Hall, the home of the Cleveland Orchestra. Musicians performing over the course of the conference included Arlo Guthrie, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, the Indigo Girls, Ellis Paul, Jimmy LaFave, Ani DiFranco, and others. In 1999, Wesleyan University Press published a collection of essays from the conference and DiFranco's record label, Righteous Babe, released a compilation of the Severance Hall concert, '''Til We Outnumber 'Em'', in 2000.

From 1999 to 2002 the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service presented the traveling exhibit, ''This Land Is Your Land: The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie''. In collaboration with Nora Guthrie, the Smithsonian exhibition draws from rarely seen objects, illustrations, film footage, and recorded performances to reveal a complex man who was at once poet, musician, protester, idealist, itinerant hobo, and folk legend.

In 2003, Jimmy LaFave produced a Woody Guthrie tribute show called ''Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway''. The ensemble show toured around the country and included a rotating cast of singer-songwriters individually performing Guthrie's songs. Interspersed between songs were Guthrie's philosophical writings read by a narrator. In addition to LaFave, members of the rotating cast included Ellis Paul, Slaid Cleaves, Eliza Gilkyson, Joel Rafael, husband-wife duo Sarah Lee Guthrie (Woody Guthrie's granddaughter) and Johnny Irion, Michael Fracasso, and The Burns Sisters. Oklahoma songwriter Bob Childers, sometimes called "the Dylan of the Dust", served as narrator. When word spread about the tour, performers began contacting LaFave, whose only prerequisite was to have an inspirational connection to Guthrie. Each artist chose the Guthrie songs that he or she would perform as part of the tribute. LaFave said, "It works because all the performers are Guthrie enthusiasts in some form". The inaugural performance of the Ribbon of Highway tour took place on February 5, 2003 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The abbreviated show was a featured segment of ''Nashville Sings Woody'', yet another tribute concert to commemorate the music of Woody Guthrie held during the Folk Alliance Conference. The cast of ''Nashville Sings Woody'', a benefit for the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives, also included Arlo Guthrie, Marty Stuart, Nanci Griffith, Guy Clark, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Janis Ian, and others.

Woody and Marjorie Guthrie were honored at a musical celebration featuring Billy Bragg and the band Brad on October 17, 2007 at Webster Hall in New York City. Steve Earle also performed. The event was hosted by actor/activist Tim Robbins to benefit the Huntington's Disease Society of America to commemorate the organization's 40th Anniversary.

Copyright controversy[link]

In his recordings in the early 1940s Woody Guthrie included the following “Copyright Warning”:

“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.” Currently the copyright in much of Woody's songs is claimed by a number of different organizations.

When JibJab published a parody of Woody's song This Land Is Your Land to comment on the US 2004 Presidential election, Ludlow Music attempted to have this parody taken down, claiming it breached their copyright. JibJab then sued to affirm their parody was Fair Use, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) acting for them. As part of their research on the case they found that the song had actually been first published by Woody Guthrie in 1945, although the copyright was not registered until 1956. This meant that when Ludlow applied to renew the copyright in 1984 they were 11 years too late, and the song had in fact been in the public domain since 1973 (28 years from first publication). Ludlow agreed that JibJab were free to distribute their parody. In an interview on NPR Arlo Guthrie said that he thought the parody was hilarious and he thought Woody would have loved it too. Ludlow still claims copyright in this song; however, it is not clear what the basis of this claim is.

Posthumous honors[link]

Pete Seeger had the Sloop ''Woody Guthrie'' built for an organization he founded, the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. It was launched in 1978. Now operated by the Beacon Sloop Club, it serves to educate people about sailing and the history and environs of the Hudson River.

Although Guthrie's catalogue never brought him many awards while he was alive, in 1988 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the same year Bob Dylan was inducted (much of Dylan's initial folk music work was heavily influenced by Guthrie), and in 2000 he was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1987 "Roll On Columbia" was chosen as the official Washington State Folk Song, and in 2001 Guthrie's "Oklahoma Hills" was chosen to be the official state folk song of Oklahoma.

On September 26, 1992, The Peace Abbey, a multi-faith retreat center located in Sherborn, Massachusetts, awarded Guthrie their Courage of Conscience Award for his social activism and artistry in song which conveyed the plight of the common person.

On June 26, 1998, as part of its Legends of American Music series, the United States Postal Service issued 45 million 32-cent stamps honoring folk musicians Huddie Ledbetter, Guthrie, Sonny Terry and Josh White. The four musicians were represented on sheets of 20 stamps.

In July 2001, CB's Gallery in New York City began hosting an annual Woody Guthrie Birthday Bash concert featuring multiple performers. This event moved to the Bowery Poetry Club in 2007 after CB's Gallery and CBGB, its parent club, closed.

In 2005, the Boston-based punk band Dropkick Murphys recorded "I'm Shipping Up to Boston". The song's lyrics are from a poem written by Guthrie, and the music was composed by the band. The song was released in 2005 on the album ''The Warrior's Code'' and gained fame when it was used as part of the soundtrack for the 2006 movie ''The Departed''.

In 2006, The Klezmatics set Jewish lyrics written by Guthrie to music. The resulting album, ''Wonder Wheel'', won the Grammy award for best contemporary world music album.

On April 27, 2007, Guthrie was one of four Okemah natives inducted into Okemah's Hall of Fame during the town's Pioneer Day weekend of festivities.

On February 10, 2008, ''The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949'', a rare live recording released in cooperation with the Woody Guthrie Foundation, was the recipient of a Grammy Award in the category Best Historical Album. Less than two years later, Guthrie was again nominated for a Grammy in the same category with the 2009 release of ''My Dusty Road'' on Rounder Records.

In the centennial year of Guthrie's birthday another album of newly composed songs on his lyrics has been released: New Multitudes. At 10 March 2012 there was a tribute concert at the Brady Theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma. John Mellencamp, Arlo Guthrie, the Del McCoury Band and the Flaming Lips have performed.

The Grammy Museum is going to have a tribute week in April 2012 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame plans some in June. The four-disc box "Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions" by Billy Bragg and Wilco is set for an April release. Inside there will be 17 unreleased songs and a documentary.

Selected discography[link]

Many Guthrie tracks have been repeatedly repackaged and reordered. Items here are listed in order of the most recent published date, not original recording date.

!Year	!Title	!Record Label
1940	''Dust Bowl Ballads''	Folkways Records
1972	''Greatest Songs of Woody Guthrie''
1987	''Columbia River Collection''	Rounder Records
1988	''Folkways: The Original Vision'' (Woody and Leadbelly)	Smithsonian Folkways
1988	''Library of Congress Recordings''	Rounder Records
1989	''Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs''	Smithsonian Folkways
1990		Smithsonian Folkways
1991	''Cowboy Songs on Folkways''	Smithsonian Folkways
1991	''Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child''	Smithsonian Folkways
1992	''Nursery Days''	Smithsonian Folkways
1994	''Long Ways to Travel: The Unreleased Folkways Masters, 1944–1949''	Smithsonian Folkways
1996	''Almanac Singers''	UNI/MCA
1996	''Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti''	Smithsonian Folkways
1997		Smithsonian Folkways
1997		Smithsonian Folkways
1998		Smithsonian Folkways
1999		Smithsonian Folkways
2007	''The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949''	Woody Guthrie Publications
2009	''My Dusty Road''	Rounder Records

See also[link]

Arlo Guthrie

List of songs by Woody Guthrie

List of albums by Woody Guthrie

Lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson

Pete Seeger

References[link]

Citations[link]

Printed sources[link]

Further reading/listening[link]

Hogeland, William (March 14, 2004), Emulating the Real and Vital Guthrie, Not St. Woody, New York Times.

Down Home Radio Show. LeadBelly & Woody Guthrie live on WNYC Radio, Dec. 1940. Audio re-broadcast of a 1940 radio show. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

Earle, Steve. Woody Guthrie. ''The Nation'', July 21, 2003. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

Electronic Frontier Foundation. Scanned images of some of Woody Guthrie's original works. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

Jackson, Mark Allen. ''Prophet Singer: The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie''. University Press of Mississippi, January, 2007. ISBN 978-1-60473-102-6

La Chapelle, Peter. Is Country Music Inherently Conservative? History News Network. Nov. 12, 2007. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

Kaufman, Will (2011). Woody Guthrie, American Radical University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-03602-6

La Chapelle, Peter. ''Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California''. University of California Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-520-24888-5 (hb); ISBN 978-0-520-24889-2 (pb)

Library of Congress. Timeline of Woody Guthrie (1912–1967). Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

Library of Congress. Woody Guthrie and the Archive of American Folk Song: Correspondence, 1940–1950. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

Marroquin, Danny. Walking the Long Road. PopMatters.com. Aug. 4, 2006. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

Public Broadcasting Service. ''Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home''. Documentary from PBS' American Masters series, July 2006. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

University of Oregon. ''Roll On Columbia: Woody Guthrie and the Bonneville Power Administration''. Video documentary. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

University of Virginia. Guthrie singing "This Land Is Your Land". MP3 recording. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

Symphony Silicon Valley Concert Recordings. David Amram's ''Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie'' Recorded September 30, 2007. Audio recording. Retrieved on January 11, 2008.

WoodyGuthrie.de. Woody Guthrie Related Audio. Miscellaneous Real Audio files featuring Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Alan Lomax and others. Retrieved on January 29, 2008.

External links[link]

The Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives

''Woody Guthrie and the Archive of American Folk Song: Correspondence, 1940–1950'', Library of Congress, American Folklife Center. American Memory presentation of archival correspondence written by Woody Guthrie to the staff of the Archive of American Folk Song. Retrieved August 31, 2009

Woody Guthrie in NYC, 1943 – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Woody Guthrie's Discography on Smithsonian Folkways

Songfacts interview with Anna Canoni (Guthrie's granddaughter)

Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Guthrie, Woody

Voices of Oklahoma interview with Nora Guthrie. First person interview conducted with Nora Guthrie speaking about her father, Woody Guthrie, on October 7, 2010. Original audio and transcript archived with Voices of Oklahoma oral history project.

Category:1912 births Category:1967 deaths Category:People from Okemah, Oklahoma Category:American autobiographers Category:American buskers Category:American folk singers Category:American folk-song collectors Category:American male singers Category:American sailors Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American socialists Category:Cub Records artists Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Woody Category:Industrial Workers of the World members Category:Folk musicians from Oklahoma Category:Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame inductees Category:People from Echo Park, Los Angeles Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Shack dwellers Category:Squatters Category:Songster musicians Category:Songwriters from Oklahoma Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Vanguard Records artists Category:Anti-fascists Category:American folk guitarists Category:American harmonica players Category:American mandolinists Category:American violinists Category:Rounder Records artists Category:Huntington's disease

an:Woody Guthrie ast:Woody Guthrie ca:Woody Guthrie cs:Woody Guthrie da:Woody Guthrie de:Woody Guthrie es:Woody Guthrie eu:Woody Guthrie fr:Woody Guthrie ga:Woody Guthrie gl:Woody Guthrie ko:우디 거스리 it:Woody Guthrie he:וודי גאת'רי la:Woody Guthrie lv:Vudijs Gatrijs ml:വൂഡി ഗുത്രി nl:Woody Guthrie ja:ウディ・ガスリー no:Woody Guthrie nn:Woody Guthrie pl:Woody Guthrie pt:Woody Guthrie ru:Гатри, Вуди simple:Woody Guthrie sh:Woody Guthrie fi:Woody Guthrie sv:Woody Guthrie tr:Woody Guthrie uk:Вуді Гатрі

name	Sharon Shannon
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth date	November 12, 1968
Birth place	Corofin, County Clare, Ireland
occupation	AccordionistFiddler
genre	CelticFolk
years active	1991–present
children	}}

Sharon Shannon (born 12 November 1968 in Ruan, County Clare) is an Irish musician. She is best known for her work with the accordion and for her fiddle technique. She also plays the tin whistle and melodeon. Her 1991 album ''Sharon Shannon'' is the best selling album of traditional Irish music ever released there. Beginning with Irish folk music, her work demonstrates a wide-ranging number of musical influences, including reggae, cajun music, Portuguese music, and French Canadian music. Her single ''What You Make It (da, da, da, da)'' featured hip hop music artists. She won the lifetime achievement award at the 2009 Meteor Awards.

Early life [link]

At eight years old, Shannon began performing with Disirt Tola, a band from County Clare. With Disirt Tola, Shannon toured the United States at age fourteen.

Shannon also worked as a competitive showjumper, but gave it up at age sixteen to focus on her music performing.

Shannon similarly abandoned studying at University College Cork.

In the mid-1980s, Shannon studied the accordion with Karen Tweed and the fiddle with Frank Custy, and performed with the band Arcady, of which she was a founding member.

Early recording career - The Waterboys [link]

Shannon began her own recording career in 1989, working with producer John Dunford and musicians such as Adam Clayton, Mike Scott and Steve Wickham. The work with Scott and Wickham led to Shannon's joining their band, The Waterboys. Shannon was with the band for eighteen months, and contributed both accordion and fiddle to their ''Room to Roam'' album. Her first world tour was with The Waterboys. Like Wickham, she left the group when Scott and group member Anthony Thistlethwaite wanted to move the band back to a more rock and roll sound.

First solo recordings [link]

Her 1991 album ''Sharon Shannon'' is the best selling album of traditional Irish music ever released there.

Shannon's solo work has achieved remarkable airplay and commercial success, especially in Ireland. After her inclusion on ''A Woman's Heart'', a compilation album and a tribute to her work on The Late Late Show, Shannon's music received a great deal of exposure, contributing to the record-breaking sales of her debut album.

Sharon's second album, ''Out The Gap'' (1994), was produced by Dennis "Blackbeard" Bovell and had a distinctly reggae feel.

Sharon's track, "Cavan Potholes", written by Dónal Lunny is featured on the 1996 compilation ''Common Ground: Voices of Modern Irish Music.'' Other stars on the album include Sinéad O'Connor, Elvis Costello, Kate Bush and Bono.

Sharon's fourth album titled "Spellbound" was released in September 1998. This compilation featured new material, live tracks and also tracks from previous albums.

Also in 1998 Sharon was asked by violinist Nigel Kennedy to join a him in performing on his "Jimi Hendrix Suite", later performing this work in some major European cities.

Her 2000 album, ''The Diamond Mountain Sessions'', which included vocals from a wide variety of artists, was also a commercial success, being certified triple platinum.

Shannon recorded with Steve Earle on the song "The Galway Girl", which was released on both Earle's album ''Transcendental Blues'', and Shannon & Friends' ''The Diamond Mountain Sessions''. Both albums were released in 2000.

Another collaboration with Earle was the instrumental "Dominic Street", released on Earle's 2002 album ''Sidetracks''. Shannon has also worked with Jackson Browne, the band Coolfin, Dónal Lunny, Moya Brennan, Kirsty MacColl, Christy Moore, Sinéad O'Connor, Liam O'Maonlai, and John Prine, amongst others.

Later work [link]

In 2004 Sharon Shannon released the album Libertango with guest spots from Róisín Elsafty, Sinéad O'Connor and the late Kirsty MacColl.

In 2005, she appeared on Tunes, a collaboration with Frankie Gavin, Michael McGoldrick, and Jim Murray.

In 2006 a celebration of 15 years of recording came out with The Sharon Shannon Collection 1990-2005 .

In 2007 Shannon has worked with Belinda Carlisle for her album Voila.

As a solo musician, Sharon Shannon has toured Australia, Europe, Hong Kong, and Japan. She has also performed for politicians such as Bill Clinton, Mary Robinson and Lech Wałęsa. Shannon has played benefit concerts for causes that she supports, such as animal welfare.

She continues to record her music and perform with her tour band, The Woodchoppers. A live version of ''Galway Girl'' recorded with Mundy was the most downloaded track in Ireland in 2007, winning a Meteor Award.

In 2008, Shannon featured in the Transatlantic Sessions.

In 2009, she played "Galway Girl" live at the Meteor Music Awards 2009, where she also picked up a Lifetime Achievement Award and won Most Downloaded Track again for Galway Girl with Mundy.

In March 2012 she attended a quiz in Monroe's Pub in Galway in aid of the GSPCA. Her team did not win.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

''Sharon Shannon'' (1991) Track listing at irishtune.info.

''Out the Gap'' (1994) Track listing at irishtune.info

''Each Little Thing'' (1997)

''The Diamond Mountain Sessions'' (2000)

''Live in Galway'' (2002)

''Libertango'' (2003)

''Tunes'' (2005) Track listing at irishtune.info

''collection 1990-2005'' (2006)

''Live at Dolans CD & DVD'' (2007)

''Renegade'' (2007)

''Saints & Scoundrels'' (2009)

''upside down '' (2009)

''Flying Circus'' (2012) - with the RTE Concert Orchestra

Videography[link]

''Live at Dolans'' (2007)

Notes[link]

# # # | accessdate=October 30, 2005 }} #

References[link]

External links[link]

Official website

Category:Irish accordionists Category:Irish fiddlers Category:Living people Category:The Waterboys members Category:People from County Clare Category:People from County Galway Category:1968 births

de:Sharon Shannon es:Sharon Shannon fr:Sharon Shannon it:Sharon Shannon nl:Sharon Shannon

name	The Pogues
alias	Pogue Mahone
background	group_or_band
origin	Kings Cross, London, England
genre	Celtic punk, folk punk
years active	1982–1996, 2001–present
website	Pogues.com
current members	Spider StacyJem FinerShane MacGowanJames FearnleyAndrew RankenPhil ChevronDarryl HuntTerry Woods
past members	Cait O'RiordanJoe StrummerDave CoulterJames McNallyJamie Clarke }}

The Pogues are a Celtic punk band from London, formed in 1982 and fronted by Shane MacGowan. The band reached international prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. MacGowan left the band in 1991 due to drinking problems but the band continued first with Joe Strummer and then with Spider Stacy on vocals before breaking up in 1996. The band reformed in 2001, and has been playing regularly ever since, most notably on the US East Coast around St Patrick's Day and across the UK and Ireland every December. The group has yet to record any new music and, according to Spider Stacy on Pogues.com, has no inclination to do so.

Their politically tinged music was informed by MacGowan and Stacy's punk backgrounds, yet used traditional Irish instruments such as the tin whistle, cittern, mandolin and accordion.

The Pogues were founded in Kings Cross, a district of North London, in 1982 as Pogue Mahone—''pogue mahone'' being the Anglicisation of the Irish ''póg mo thóin'', meaning "kiss my arse".

Band history [link]

The roots of The Pogues were formed when MacGowan (vocals), Peter "Spider" Stacy (tin whistle), and Jem Finer (banjo) were together in an occasional band called The Millwall Chainsaws in the late 1970s after MacGowan and Stacy met in the toilets at a Ramones gig at The Roundhouse in 1977. MacGowan was already with The Nips, though when they broke up in 1980 he concentrated a bit more on Stacy's Millwall Chainsaws who changed their name to The New Republicans. During this period MacGowan and Finer auditioned unsuccessfully for a licence to busk at Covent Garden. In 1982 James Fearnley (accordion) joined MacGowan, Stacy, and Finer, calling the band Pogue Mahone. The new group played their first gig at The Pindar of Wakefield on 4 October 1982.

They then appeared at Gossips in Dean Street Soho on Thursday November 3rd with Trash Trash Trash and The Stingrays.

They later added Cait O'Riordan (bass) and Andrew Ranken (drums). The band played London pubs and clubs, and released a single, "Dark Streets of London", on their own, self-named label, gaining a small reputation—especially for their live performances. They came to the attention of the media and Stiff Records when they opened for The Clash on their 1984 tour. Shortening their name to "The Pogues" (partly due to BBC censorship following complaints from Gaelic speakers in Scotland) they released their first album ''Red Roses for Me'' on Stiff that October.

The band gained more attention when the UK Channel 4's influential music show ''The Tube'' made a video of their version of "Waxie's Dargle" for the show. The performance—featuring Spider Stacy repeatedly smashing himself over the head with a beer tray (in the manner of Bob Blackman's infamous "Mule Train/Mule Tray")—became a favourite with the viewers, but Stiff refused to release it as a single, feeling it was too late for it to help ''Red Roses for Me'' (in fact Stiff was by then in deep financial trouble). Nevertheless, it remained a favourite request for the show for many years.

With the aid of punk and New Wave forefather Elvis Costello they recorded the follow-up, ''Rum Sodomy & the Lash'', in 1985 during which time guitarist Philip Chevron joined. The album title is a famous comment falsely attributed to Winston Churchill who was supposedly describing the "true" traditions of the British Royal Navy. The album cover featured ''The Raft of the Medusa'', with the faces of the characters in Théodore Géricault's painting replaced with those of the band members. The album shows the band moving away from covers to original material. Shane MacGowan came into his own as a songwriter with this disc, offering up poetic story-telling, such as "The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn" and "The Old Main Drag", as well as definitive interpretations of Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" and Eric Bogle's "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" (this had previously been covered by Shane's fellow punk contemporaries The Skids in 1981).

The band failed to take advantage of the momentum created by the strong artistic and commercial success of their second album. They first refused to record another album (offering up the four-track EP ''Poguetry in Motion'' instead); O'Riordan married Costello and left the band, to be replaced by bassist Darryl Hunt, formerly of Plummet Airlines and Pride of the Cross; and they added a multi-instrumentalist in Terry Woods, formerly of Steeleye Span. Looming over the band at this period (as throughout their entire career) was the increasingly erratic behaviour of their vocalist and principal songwriter, Shane MacGowan. Their record label, Stiff Records, went bankrupt soon after the 1987 release of the single "The Irish Rover" (with The Dubliners). Members of the band, including O'Riordian, acted in Alex Cox's ''Straight to Hell'', and five songs by the band were included on the film's soundtrack album.

Success and breakup [link]

The band remained stable enough to record ''If I Should Fall from Grace with God'' in 1988 (with its Christmas hit duet with Kirsty MacColl "Fairytale of New York", which was voted "the best Christmas song ever" in VH1 UK polls in 2004) and 1989's ''Peace and Love''. The band was at the peak of its commercial success, with both albums making the top 5 in the UK (numbers 3 and 5 respectively), but MacGowan was increasingly unreliable. He failed to turn up for the opening dates of their 1988 tour of America, and prevented the band from promoting their next album, ''Hell's Ditch'', so in 1991 the band sacked him. Vocal duties were for a time handled by Joe Strummer, before Stacy finally took over permanently. After Strummer's departure, the remaining seven Pogues recorded ''Waiting for Herb'', which contained the band's third and final top twenty single, "Tuesday Morning", which became their best-selling single internationally. Terry Woods and James Fearnley then left the band and were replaced by David Coulter and James McNally respectively. Within months of their departures, ill health forced Phil Chevron to leave the band; he was replaced by his former guitar technician, Jamie Clarke. This lineup recorded the band's seventh (and final) studio album, ''Pogue Mahone''. The album was a commercial failure, and, following Jem Finer's decision to leave the band in 1996, the remaining members decided it was time to call it quits. According to Shane MacGowan, amongst the reasons of the breakup was disagreement concerning the political orientation of his songs, the band not wanting to sing too obvious pro-republican songs — though some of their previous songs were already politically engaged : for instance, ''Streams of Whiskey'' is about the poet and IRA member Brendan Behan. Soon after the breakup Shane MacGowan recorded a song called ''Paddy Public Enemy Number One'' as a tribute to the Republican leader Dominic McGlinchey, a former leader of the INLA killed a few years before.

Post-breakup [link]

After the Pogues' break-up, the three remaining long-term members (Spider Stacy, Andrew Ranken and Darryl Hunt) played together briefly as the Vendettas. They played mainly new Stacy-penned tracks, though Darryl Hunt also contributed songs, and the band's live set included a few Pogues songs. First Ranken then Hunt left the band, the latter going on to become singer/songwriter in an indie band called Bish, whose self-titled debut album was released in 2001. Ranken has gone on to play with a number of other bands, including hKippers, The Municipal Waterboard and, most recently, The Mysterious Wheels. In addition to The Vendettas who Stacy freely admits lost all attraction when the Pogues reformed, Spider continued to write and record music with various bands, including the James Walbourne, Filthy Thieving Bastards, Dropkick Murphys and Astral Social Club. Shane MacGowan founded Shane MacGowan and The Popes in 1992. They only managed two studio albums but struggled on until 2002. His autobiography ''A Drink With Shane MacGowan'', co-written with his journalist girlfriend Victoria Mary Clarke, was released in 2001. Jem Finer went into experimental music, playing a big part in a project known as "Longplayer", a piece of music designed to play continuously for 1,000 years without repeating itself. In 2005, Finer released the album ''Bum Steer'' with DB Bob (as DM Bob and Country Jem). James Fearnley moved to the United States shortly before leaving the Pogues. He was a member of The Low And Sweet Orchestra and later the Cranky George Trio. Philip Chevron reformed his former band The Radiators, which briefly included former Pogue Cait O'Riordan. Terry Woods formed The Bucks with Ron Kavana, releasing the album ''Dancin' To The Ceili Band'' in 1994. Later, he formed The Woods Band, releasing the album ''Music From The Four Corners of Hell'' in 2002.

Reunion [link]

The band, including MacGowan, re-formed for a Christmas tour in 2001 and performed nine shows in the UK and Ireland in December 2004. In 2002 ''Q'' magazine named The Pogues as one of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". In July 2005, the band—again including MacGowan—played at the annual Guilfest festival in Guildford before flying out to Japan where they played three dates. Japan is the last place they all played together before MacGowan was originally sacked in 1991, and they have a strong following there. They played a date in Spain in early September. The reunited Pogues played dates in the UK with support from the Dropkick Murphys in late 2005, and re-released their 1987 Christmas classic "Fairytale of New York" on 19 December, which went straight in at #3 in the UK Singles charts on Christmas Day 2005, showing the song's enduring popularity. On 22 December 2005 the BBC broadcast a live performance (recorded the previous week) on the Jonathan Ross Christmas show with Katie Melua filling in for the late Kirsty MacColl, the first time the band had played the song live on television. The following week they performed live on the popular music show ''CD:UK''.

Shane MacGowan wrote a blog for ''The Guardian'' website in 2006, detailing his thoughts on the current tour. The band was awarded the lifetime achievement award at the annual Meteor Ireland Music Awards in February 2006. In March 2006, the band played their first U.S. dates with Shane in over 15 years. The band played a series of sold-out concerts in Washington D.C., Atlantic City, Boston, and New York. Later they played a series of highly acclaimed and sold-out gigs during mid-October 2006 in San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, and toured Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Dublin, and Nottingham in mid-December 2006. They began a second U.S. tour in March 2007, once again to coincide (and conclude) with a Roseland Ballroom New York City show on Saint Patrick's Day. 2007 has proved to be the most prolific year of touring since the reunion. A tour of the west coast of America and eleven dates in the UK in December complement the headlining festival appearances made in the summer across Europe (Sweden, Belgium and Spain). They continue to be in huge demand, often selling out very large venues, despite criticism of selling out, and claims that arenas and festivals do not suit the band's sound. Guitarist Phil Chevron has stated there were no plans to record new music or release a new album. Chevron said that one way to keep enjoying what they were doing was to avoid making a new album, although he did say that there still is a possibility in the future for new music, but certainly not in the near future. Terry Woods has commented that MacGowan has been writing, and most of it sounds good. In 2008 the band released a box set ''Just Look Them Straight in the Eye and Say....POGUE MAHONE!!'', which included rare studio out-takes and previously unreleased material.

The band has received mixed reviews of some recent performances though they continue to pull the crowds. Reviewing a March 2008 concert, The ''Washington Post'' described MacGowan as "puffy and paunchy," but said the singer "still has a banshee wail to beat Howard Dean's, and the singer's abrasive growl is all a band this marvelous needs to give its amphetamine-spiked take on Irish folk a focal point." The reviewer continued: "The set started off shaky, MacGowan singing of `goin' where streams of whiskey are flowin,' and looking like he'd arrived there already. He grew more lucid and powerful as the evening gathered steam, through two hours and 26 songs, mostly from the Pogues' first three (and best) albums". In December 2010 the Pogues (with support from Crowns) played what was billed as a farewell UK Christmas tour.

In March 2011, the Pogues played a six-city/ten-show sold out US tour titled "A Parting Glass with The Pogues" visiting Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Boston, and New York (in that order), with only the last three cities getting more than one show. It may, or may not, be the last time they tour the States. Stacy said “I think we are basically pretty certain this is the last tour of this type we’ll be doing in the States. There might be the odd sort of one-off here and there. We’re not saying this is absolutely, definitely the end.”

Members [link]

;Current

Shane MacGowan - vocals, guitar, banjo, bodhrán (1982–1991, 2001–present)

Spider Stacy - vocals, tin whistle (1982–1996, 2001–present)

Jem Finer - banjo, mandola, saxophone, hurdy-gurdy, guitar, vocals (1982–1996, 2001–present)

Andrew Ranken - drums, percussion, harmonica, vocals (1982–1996, 2001–present)

James Fearnley - accordion, mandolin, piano, guitar (1982–1993, 2001–present)

Philip Chevron - guitar, vocals (1985–1994, 2001–present)

Darryl Hunt - bass guitar (1986–1996, 2001–present)

Terry Woods - mandolin, cittern, concertina, guitar, vocals (1986–1993, 2001–present)

;Former members

Cait O'Riordan - bass, vocals (1982–1986, 2004)

Joe Strummer - vocals, guitar (1991–1992; also replaced an ailing Phil Chevron for a U.S. tour in 1987; died 2002)

Dave Coulter - mandolin, violin, ukulele, percussion (1993–1996)

James McNally - accordion, whistles, percussion (1993–1996)

Jamie Clarke - guitar, vocals (1995–1996)

Discography [link]

Hit-song 'Fairytale of New York' [link]

"Fairytale of New York" was released as a single in 1987 and reached #1 in the Irish charts and #2 in the British charts over Christmas (the time of peak sales). The song has become a festive classic in the UK and Ireland over the years, and was voted the best Christmas song of all time three years running in 2004, 2005, and 2006 in polls by music channel VH1 UK, despite not achieving Christmas Number One when it was released. It was also voted as the 27th greatest song never to reach UK#1 in another VH1 poll, and also voted as the 84th greatest song of all time by BBC Radio 2 listeners in their "Sold on Song" top 100 poll. In 2007 the record was briefly censored by the BBC because of the word "faggot" being deemed potentially offensive to gay people. Following protests from listeners, including the mother of Kirsty MacColl, the censorship was lifted.

Albums [link]

''Red Roses for Me'' (1984): #89 UK

''Rum Sodomy & the Lash'' (1985): #13 UK

''If I Should Fall from Grace with God'' (1988): #3 UK, #88 US, #15 NO

''Peace and Love'' (1989): #5 UK, #118 US, #13 NO

''Hell's Ditch'' (1990) #12 UK, #187 US

''Waiting for Herb'' (1993): #20 UK

''Pogue Mahone'' (1996)

Live albums [link]

''Streams of Whiskey: Live in Leysin, Switzerland 1991'' (2002)

''The Ultimate Collection including Live at the Brixton Academy 2001'' (2005): #15 UK

Compilation albums [link]

''The Best of The Pogues'' (1991): #11 UK

''Essential Pogues'' (1991)

''The Rest of The Best'' (1992)

''The Very Best of The Pogues'' (2001): #18 UK

''The Ultimate Collection'' (2005): #15 UK

''Dirty Old Town: The Platinum Collection (Budget CD)'' (2005)

''Just Look Them Straight in the Eye and Say....POGUE MAHONE!!'' (Anthology/Box Set of rare and unreleased tracks) (2008)

Video [link]

''The Pogues: Live at The Town & Country Club St Patricks Day 1988'' VHS 1988

''POGUEVISION" Music Video Collection – VHS 1991

Singles [link]

Year	Title	Chart positions	Album
! style="width:35px; text-align:center;"	! style="width:35px; text-align:center;"	! style="width:35px; text-align:center;"	! style="width:35px; text-align:center;"
	"Dark Streets of London"
"Boys from the County Hell"
	"A Pair of Brown Eyes"
"Sally MacLennane"
"Dirty Old Town"
						–
	"Irish Rover" (featuring The Dubliners)					–
"Fairytale of New York" (featuring Kirsty MacColl)
	"Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah"					''Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah''
"Misty Morning, Albert Bridge"					''Peace and Love''
	"Summer in Siam"					''Hell's Ditch''
"Jack's Heroes" (featuring The Dubliners)					''Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah''
					Red Hot + Blue (Produced by the Red Hot Organization)
						''Hell's Ditch''
"Rainy Night in Soho (remix)"					''Poguetry in Motion''
"Fairytale of New York" (re-issue)					''If I Should Fall from Grace with God''
1992	"Honky Tonk Women"					''Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah''
2005	"Fairytale of New York" (re-release)
2006	"Fairytale of New York" (re-entry of re-release)
2007	"Fairytale of New York" (re-entry on downloads alone)
2008	"Fairytale of New York" (re-entry on downloads alone)
2009	"Fairytale of New York" (re-entry on downloads alone)
2010	"Fairytale of New York" (re-entry on downloads alone)
2011	"Fairytale of New York" (re-entry on downloads alone)

References [link]

External links [link]

Official Pogues site

Official Shane MacGowan site

''The Guardian'' article

"dirty old town"

Category:British punk rock groups Category:Buskers Category:Celtic punk groups Category:Musical groups disestablished in 1996 Category:Musical groups established in 1982 Category:Musical groups from London Category:Musical groups reestablished in 2001 Category:Musical septets Category:People from Kings Cross, London

br:The Pogues ca:The Pogues cs:The Pogues da:The Pogues de:The Pogues es:The Pogues eu:The Pogues fr:The Pogues gl:The Pogues hr:The Pogues it:The Pogues nl:The Pogues ja:ザ・ポーグス no:The Pogues nds:The Pogues pl:The Pogues pt:The Pogues ro:The Pogues ru:The Pogues fi:The Pogues sv:The Pogues ta:போகுசு

Name	Emmylou Harris
Background	solo_singer
Birth date	April 02, 1947
Birth place	Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Instrument	Voice, guitar
Genre	Folk, country rock, country, bluegrass, rock, pop, alt-country
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician
Years active	1970–present
Label	Jubilee, Reprise, Warner Bros., Elektra, Asylum, Rhino, Nonesuch
Associated acts	Ryan AdamsThe BandBright EyesJames BurtonBeth Neilsen ChapmanEarl Thomas ConleyElvis CostelloRodney CrowellIris DementJohn DenverDixie ChicksBob DylanSteve EarleVern GosdinPatty GriffinArlo GuthrieMark KnopflerAlbert LeeLittle FeatDave MatthewsKate and Anna McGarrigleWillie NelsonJuice NewtonRoy OrbisonGram ParsonsDolly PartonJohn PrineLinda RonstadtRicky SkaggsBruce SpringsteenDon WilliamsLucinda WilliamsNeil YoungWarren Zevon|website www.emmylouharris.com
Past members	}}

Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She has released many chart-topping albums and singles over the course of her career, and has won 12 Grammys and numerous other awards.

In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including Gram Parsons, The Band, Linda Ronstadt, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, Mark Knopfler, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Rodney Crowell, and Neil Young.

Biography[link]

Early years [link]

Emmylou Harris is the daughter of a career military family, her father, Walter Harris, was a military officer and her mother, Eugenia was a wartime military wife. Her father, a member of the Marine Corps, was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Harris spent her childhood in North Carolina and Woodbridge, Virginia, where she graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School as class valedictorian. In high school she also won a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she began to study music seriously, learning to play the songs of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on guitar. Leaving college to pursue her musical aspirations, she moved to New York, working as a waitress to support herself while performing folk songs in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. She married fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969 and recorded her first album, ''Gliding Bird''. Harris and Slocum soon divorced, and Harris and her newborn daughter Hallie moved in with her parents in the Maryland suburbs on the edge of Washington, D.C.

With Gram Parsons [link]

Harris soon returned to performing as part of a trio with Gerry Mule and Tom Guidera. One night in 1971, members of the country rock group The Flying Burrito Brothers happened to be in the audience. Former Byrds member Chris Hillman, who had taken over the band after the departure of its founder Gram Parsons, was so impressed by Harris that he briefly considered asking her to join the band. Instead, Hillman ended up recommending her to Parsons, who was looking for a female vocalist to work with on his first solo album, ''GP''. Harris toured as a member of Parsons' band, The Fallen Angels, in 1973, and the couple shone during vocal harmonies and duets. Harris was quite pleased, and invested a lot emotionally in their relationship. Later that year, Parsons and Harris worked on a studio album, ''Grievous Angel''. Parsons died in his motel room near what is now Joshua Tree National Park on September 19, 1973, from an accidental overdose of drugs and alcohol. Parsons's ''Grievous Angel'' was released posthumously in 1974, and three more tracks from his last sessions with Harris were included on another posthumous Parsons album, ''Sleepless Nights'', in 1976. There was one more album of recorded material from that period of time that was packaged with the name, ''Live 1973'', but was not released until 1982.

The working relationship between Harris and Parsons is of great importance in country and country-rock music history. Parsons offered Harris a study in true country music, introducing her to artists like The Louvin Brothers, and provided her with a musical identity; Harris's harmony and duet vocals, on the other hand, were lauded by those who heard them, and helped inspire Parsons' performances. His death left her devastated at an emotional and musical crossroads. She eventually carried on with her own version of Parsons' musical vision, and was instrumental in bringing attention to his achievements. Harris's earliest signature song, and arguably her most personal one, "Boulder to Birmingham", written shortly after Gram's death, showed the depth of her shock and pain at losing Parsons. It was, according to her best friend Linda Ronstadt, the beginning of a "lifetime effort to process what had happened", and was just the first of many songs written and/or performed by Harris about her life with (and without) Parsons.

:I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham :I would hold my life in his saving grace. :I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham :If I thought I could see, I could see your face. : :   —"Boulder to Birmingham" :   lyrics by Emmylou Harris

The Hot Band[link]

Warner Brothers A&R; representative Mary Martin introduced Harris to Canadian producer Brian Ahern, who produced her major label debut album, ''Pieces of the Sky'', released in 1975 on Reprise Records. The album was surprisingly eclectic, especially by Nashville standards, including cover versions of The Beatles' "For No One", Merle Haggard's "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" and The Louvin Brothers' "If I Could Only Win Your Love". It also featured "Bluebird Wine", a composition by young Texas songwriter Rodney Crowell, who was the first in a long line of songwriters whose talents Harris has championed. The record was one of the most expensive country records produced at the time, featuring the talents of James Burton, Glen Hardin, Ron Tutt, Ray Pohlman, and Bill Payne, as well as two tracks ("Before Believing" and "Queen of the Silver Dollar") that were cut with the Angel Band. Two singles were released: "Too Far Gone", which initially charted at #73 (a 1979 reissue hit #13), and Harris's first big hit, "If I Could Only Win Your Love", a duet with Herb Pedersen (later a founding member of The Desert Rose Band), which peaked at #4.

Executives of Warner Bros. Records (Reprise Records's parent company) told Harris they would agree to record her if she would "get a hot band". Harris did so, enlisting guitarist James Burton and pianist Glen Hardin, both of whom had played with Elvis Presley as well as Parsons. Burton was a renowned guitarist, starting in Ricky Nelson's band in the 1950s, and Hardin had been a member of The Crickets. Other Hot Band members were drummer John Ware, pedal steel guitarist Hank DeVito, and bassist Emory Gordy, Jr., with whom Harris had worked while performing with Parsons. Singer-songwriter Crowell was enlisted as a rhythm guitarist and duet partner. Harris's first tour schedule originally dovetailed around Presley's, owing to Burton and Hardin's continuing commitments to Presley's band. The Hot Band lived up to its name, with most of the members moving on with fresh talent replacing them as they continued on to solo careers of their own.

''Elite Hotel'', released in December 1975, established that the buzz created by ''Pieces of the Sky'' was well-founded. Unusual for country albums at the time, which largely revolved around a hit single, Harris's albums borrowed their approach from the album-oriented rock market. In terms of quality and artistic merit, tracks like "Sin City", "Wheels", and "Till I Gain Control Again", which weren't singles, easily stood against tracks like "Together Again", "Sweet Dreams", and "One of These Days", which were. While ''Elite Hotel'' was a #1 country album, the album did sufficiently well as a crossover success with the rock audience. Harris appealed to those who normally disapproved of the country market's pull toward crossover pop singles ("Together Again" and "Sweet Dreams" both topped the country charts). ''Elite Hotel'' won a Grammy in 1976 for Best Country Vocal Performance, Female.

Harris' reputation for guest work continued. Aside from contributing to albums by Linda Ronstadt, Guy Clark and Neil Young, Harris was tapped by Bob Dylan to perform on his ''Desire'' album, but entirely uncredited. Harris also filmed one of the studio sequences, owing to her touring schedule, in The Band's ''The Last Waltz'', singing "Evangeline".

Burton left the Hot Band in 1976, choosing to remain with Elvis Presley's band, and was replaced by English guitarist Albert Lee. Harris's commercial apex was ''Luxury Liner'', released in 1977, which remains one of her definitive records. On ''Luxury Liner'', Harris's mix of songs from Chuck Berry ("(You Never Can Tell) C'est La Vie"), Gram Parsons (the title track and "She"), The Carter Family ("Hello Stranger") and Kitty Wells ("Making Believe") illustrate a continuity and artistic merit to country music often overlooked at the time. Despite Top Ten singles with "C'est La Vie" and "Making Believe", the album's best known track is the first recorded cover of Townes Van Zandt's classic "Pancho & Lefty", which would be a #1 hit for Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard in 1983. At the end of 1977, Crowell left the Hot Band to pursue a solo career; his replacement was bluegrass multi-instrumentalist and singer Ricky Skaggs.

''Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town'' signaled a slight change of direction from Harris's previous three albums. Rather than mixing classic and contemporary, the album is made up largely of recently written songs, though from a wide variety of writers. "Two More Bottles of Wine", written by Delbert McClinton, became Harris's third #1 single, "To Daddy", written by Dolly Parton, went to #3, and a third single, "Easy From Now On", went Top Twenty. The album included two songs apiece from Crowell ("I Ain't Living Long Like This" and "Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight") and songwriter Jesse Winchester ("Defying Gravity" and "My Songbird"), and Utah Phillips' "Green Rolling Hills".

The Roots Records[link]

In 1977 (January), Harris married Brian Ahern. Their (Harris' second) daughter, Meghann, was born in 1979. During this time, Harris cut three studio albums that reflected a shift toward traditional country (the industry, on the other hand, was about to embrace ''Urban Cowboy''). The first key to the change in direction was her Grammy Award-winning 1979 album ''Blue Kentucky Girl''. Apart from a cover of The Drifters' "Save The Last Dance For Me", the album was largely made up of classic-styled country material in the vein of Loretta Lynn and Kitty Wells. One of her best-loved albums, the record includes songs ranging from The Louvin Brothers' "Everytime You Leave" to Willie Nelson's "Sister's Coming Home" to Gram Parson's signature "Hickory Wind". Wesley Rose took special interest in Harris' recording of "Beneath Still Waters", which became a #1 smash.

A Christmas album, ''Light of the Stable'', was released in 1979; its title track featured backing vocals by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Neil Young, all three of whom Harris had been working with sporadically since the mid-1970s, and would continue to collaborate with through the 2000s. (Harris, Parton and Ronstadt began working on a planned trio album during this time, though it would remain unfinished for nearly a decade; a few of the tracks recorded for the project surfaced on the women's respective solo albums in the interim.) The album is largely acoustic, featuring readings of traditional fare such as "Silent Night", "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "The First Noel".

In the 1980s, Harris pursued country music's history even further with the bluegrass-oriented recording of ''Roses in the Snow'', featuring Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, Albert Lee, Emory Gordy Jr. and Jerry Douglas. Harris's versions of the traditional "Wayfaring Stranger" and Paul Simon's "The Boxer" were strong singles.

In 1980, Harris recorded "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again" with Roy Orbison. The duet was a Top 10 hit on both the Country and Adult Contemporary charts. They would win the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. She would also be featured on Paul Kennerley's concept album ''The Legend of Jesse James'', which also featured Levon Helm of The Band and Johnny Cash.

Pop-chart success, songwriting[link]

In 1981, Harris reached the Top 40 on the Billboard pop chart with a cover of "Mister Sandman"—again Top 10 Country as well as Adult Contemporary—from her ''Evangeline'' album. (The album version of the song was a track from the ill-fated ''Trio'' sessions with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, but neither Parton's nor Ronstadt's record companies would allow their artists' vocals to be used on the single, so Harris re-recorded the song, singing all three parts.)

Harris moved to Nashville in 1982. ''White Shoes'' in 1983 included an eclectic pairing of the rockish reading of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" with a remake of the Donna Summer hit "On the Radio", as well as tracks from a diverse group of songwriters such as Hot Band member Crowell, Sandy Denny and T-Bone Burnett and was her last album produced by Brian Ahern until ''All I Intended to Be'' in 2008.

Harris's major-label releases thus far had included few self-penned songs, but in 1985 her songwriting skills were much in evidence with the release of a concept album ''The Ballad of Sally Rose'', for which she co-wrote all of the songs. The album was semi-autobiographical in theme, based loosely on her relationship with Parsons. Harris described it as a "country opera", and a "huge commercial disaster". Her co-writer and producer on the album was English songwriter and musician Paul Kennerley, writer of the hit singles "Born to Run" (on Harris's 1981 ''Cimarron'' album) and "In My Dreams" (on ''White Shoes''). Kennerley also produced her next album, ''Thirteen''. They were married in 1985 and divorced in 1993.

In 1987, nearly a full decade after they'd first attempted to do so, Harris teamed up with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt for their long-promised and much-anticipated ''Trio'' disc. The album was the biggest commercial success of Harris's career, spending five weeks at #1 on Billboard's Country Albums chart (also quickly reaching the Top 10 on the Pop Albums chart), sold several million copies and produced four Top 10 Country hits, including "To Know Him Is To Love Him", which hit #1. The disc was nominated for the coveted Album Of The Year Grammy award (given to U2 that year for ''The Joshua Tree'') and the three women won the statuette for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal; the album's Linda Thompson-penned track "Telling Me Lies" reached #3 Country, #25 Adult Contemporary, and was also nominated for a Grammy as 1987's Best Country Song.

Harris also found time in 1987 to release a solo album, ''Angel Band'', featuring traditional gospel songs, on which she worked with, among others, rising country star Vince Gill.

In 1989, she recorded two songs with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their album, ''Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume II''. In a snippet of studio chatter included on one of the tracks, she talked during the recording session about her beginnings and how music had changed:

Around 1991, she dissolved The Hot Band and formed a new band of acoustic musicians—Sam Bush on fiddle, mandolin and vocals, Roy Huskey, Jr. on bass and vocals, Larry Atamanuik on drums, Al Perkins on banjo, guitar, Dobro guitar and vocals, and Jon Randall on guitar, mandolin and vocals—which she named The Nash Ramblers. They recorded a Grammy Award-winning live album in 1992 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, which led to the $8 million restoration of the facility into a premium concert and event venue. It was her last album with Reprise Records.

New directions[link]

By the 1990s, Harris started receiving less airplay as mainstream country stations began shifting their focus to the youth-oriented "new country" format. Harris's albums ''Bluebird'' and ''Brand New Dance'' (1989 and 1990, respectively) received ample critical acclaim and sold reasonably well, yet her chart success was on the wane. 1993's ''Cowgirl's Prayer''—the first album since her switch to Elektra Records—was critically praised but received very little airplay, and its lead single, "High Powered Love" charted very low, peaking at #63, prompting her to shift her career in a new direction.

In 1995, Harris released one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the decade, ''Wrecking Ball'', produced by Daniel Lanois, best known for his work with U2, Peter Gabriel and Bob Dylan. An experimental album for Harris, the record included Harris's rendition of the Neil Young-penned title track (Young himself provided guest vocals on two of the album's songs), Steve Earle's "Goodbye", Julie Miller's "All My Tears", Jimi Hendrix's "May This Be Love", Kate and Anna McGarrigle's "Goin' Back to Harlan" and Gillian Welch's "Orphan Girl". U2's Larry Mullen, Jr. showed up to play drums for the project. The album received virtually no country airplay whatsoever, but did bring Harris to the attention of alternative rock listeners, many of whom had never listened to her music before.

Harris then took her ''Wrecking Ball'' material on the road, releasing the live ''Spyboy'' in 1998, backed with a power trio comprising Nashville producer, songwriter and guitarist Buddy Miller and New Orleans musicians, drummer Brady Blade and bassist-vocalist-percussionist Daryl Johnson. In addition to performing songs from ''Wrecking Ball'', the album updated many of Harris's career hits, including "Boulder to Birmingham".

Also in 1998, she appeared prominently on Willie Nelson's moody, instrumentally sparse ''Teatro'' album, produced by ''Wrecking Ball'' producer Lanois.

During the summer of 1997 and 1998, Harris joined Sarah McLachlan's all-woman musical touring festival, the Lilith Fair, where new artists like Patty Griffin could share new experiences and ideas with seasoned musicians like Harris and Bonnie Raitt.

In January 1999, Harris released ''Trio 2'' with Parton and Ronstadt. Much of the album had actually been recorded in 1994, but remained unreleased for nearly five years because of record label and personnel disputes, conflicting schedules, and career priorities of the three artists. ''Trio 2'' was much more contemporary-sounding than its predecessor and was certified Gold. It included their version of Neil Young's classic "After The Gold Rush", which became a popular music video and won another Grammy—this one for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Harris and Ronstadt then released a duet album, ''Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions'', later the same year. The two superstars toured together during the fall months in support of the disc. Both albums made the Top 10 of Billboard's Country Albums chart and did well on the pop side as well.

Also in 1999, Harris paid tribute to her former singing partner Gram Parsons by co-executive producing ''Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons'', an album that gathered together more than a dozen artists. Harris performed duets with Beck, Sheryl Crow and The Pretenders on this album's tracks.

In 2000, Harris released her solo follow-up to ''Wrecking Ball'', ''Red Dirt Girl'', produced by Lanois protégé Malcolm Burn. For the first time since ''The Ballad of Sally Rose'', the album contained a number of Harris's own compositions. Like ''Wrecking Ball'', the album's sound leaned more toward alternative rock than country. Nevertheless it reached #5 on Billboard's Country Albums chart as well as a healthy #54 on the pop side. It also won Harris another of her 12 Grammy awards, in the category of Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Harris also accompanied on alternative country singer Ryan Adams' solo debut ''Heartbreaker'' and on Tracy Chapman's fifth album ''Telling Stories''.

Also in 2000, Harris joined an all-star group of traditional country, folk and blues artists for the T-Bone Burnett-produced soundtrack to the Coen Brothers film, ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' The soundtrack won multiple CMA, ACM and Grammy awards. A documentary/concert film, ''Down from the Mountain'', featured the artists performing music from the film and other songs at the Ryman Auditorium. Harris and many of the same artists took their show on the road for the Down from the Mountain Tour in 2002. In 2003, Harris supplied the finishing touches in harmonizing with the Dixie Chicks on a song they were recording in the studio, "Godspeed".

Recent work[link]

Harris released ''Stumble into Grace'', her follow-up to ''Red Dirt Girl'', in 2003. Like its predecessor, it contained mostly self-penned material. In 2004, Harris led the Sweet Harmony Traveling Revue tour with Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin. They performed singly and together and swapped instruments.

On September 9, 2005, Harris participated in "Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast", a series of concerts simulcast by most American television stations to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. She performed with Beth Neilsen Chapman and the Dixie Chicks, harmonizing on Patty Griffin's song, "Mary".

In 2005, Harris worked with Conor Oberst on Bright Eyes' release, ''I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning'', performing backup vocals on three tracks. In July, she joined Elvis Costello on several dates of his US tour, performing alongside Costello and his band on several numbers each night. Harris and Costello recorded a version of Costello's song, "The Scarlet Tide", from the soundtrack of the movie ''Cold Mountain''. July also saw the release of ''The Very Best of Emmylou Harris: Heartaches & Highways'', a single-disc retrospective of Harris's career, on the Rhino Entertainment label. This same year, Harris appeared as a guest vocalist on Neil Young's widely acclaimed ''Prairie Wind''. She also appeared in the Jonathan Demme documentary-concert film ''Neil Young: Heart of Gold'', released in 2006. ''All the Roadrunning'', an album of collaborations with former Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler, was released in April 2006 and supported by a tour of Europe and the US. The album was a commercial success, reaching #8 in the UK and #17 in the US. Selections recorded during the ''All the Roadrunning'' tour performance at the Gibson Amphitheatre were released as a CD/DVD package titled ''Real Live Roadrunning'' in November 2006. In addition to several of the compositions that Harris and Knopfler recorded together in the studio, ''Real Live Roadrunning'' features solo hits from both members of the duo, as well as a few classic tracks from Knopfler's days with Dire Straits.

Harris is featured on ''A Tribute To Joni Mitchell'', released on April 24, 2007. Harris covered the song "The Magdalene Laundries" (originally on Mitchell's 1994 album, ''Turbulent Indigo''). She sang "Another Pot O' Tea" with Anne Murray on Murray's album ''Anne Murray Duets: Friends and Legends'', released November 13, 2007, in Canada and January 15, 2008, in the U.S.

Harris wrote a song called "In Rodanthe" for the 2008 film ''Nights In Rodanthe''.

A solo album, ''All I Intended to Be'', was released on June 10, 2008, to critical acclaim. Contributors include Buddy Miller, the McGarrigle sisters, Vince Gill, Phil Madeira, and Dolly Parton. She toured with an ensemble she dubbed the Red Dirt Boys, featuring Phil Madeira on accordion, guitar, and keyboards, Colin Linden on guitar and banjo, Rickie Simpkins on mandolin and fiddle, Chris Donohue on bass, and Bryan Owings on drums. It did not include Miller, who was touring with Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and T Bone Burnett at the time. In 2009, Harris toured with Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Miller as "Three Girls and Their Buddy". Madeira, Simpkins, and Donohue performed with her in late 2008, and in 2009, appearing on "A Prairie Home Companion" and at MerleFest and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. In September 2009, Owings rejoined the Red Dirt Boys with Miller for the remainder of 2009.

In April 2009 Harris became a grandmother. Her daughter gave birth to a daughter, Prudence.

In 2010, Harris regrouped with the latest version of the Red Dirt Boys—Madeira, Owings, Donohue, and Simpkins—for Lilith Fair summer dates and a scheduled US autumn tour.

According to an interview with Bonnie Tyler by Digital Spy, Emmylou Harris will be teaming up with her on Tyler's upcoming album. Harris will do backing vocals on a song, written and produced by Wayne Warner. A new solo album, ''Hard Bargain'', was released on the Nonesuch label on April 26, 2011.

PBS host Tavis Smiley interviewed Harris in a program that aired on April 20, 2011. In the interview Harris spoke of being a straight-A student in high school, which led her to being selected as valedictorian, and recounted learning to play guitar by memorizing three chords on a Taylor 310CE.

The 2012 single "Emmylou" by Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit on their album ''The Lion's Roar'' is, in part, a tribute to Harris, with its lyrics referring to her relationship to Gram Parsons.

Activism [link]

In 1997 and 1998, Harris performed in Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair, promoting feminism in music. Since 1999, Harris has been organizing an annual benefit tour called Concerts for a Landmine Free World. All proceeds from the tours support the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation's (VVAF) efforts to assist innocent victims of conflicts around the world. The tour also benefits the VVAF's work to raise America's awareness of the global landmine problem. Artists that have joined Harris on the road for these dates include Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bruce Cockburn, Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle, Joan Baez, Patty Griffin, Nanci Griffith, Willie Nelson, and Lucinda Williams. Harris is a supporter of animal rights and an active member of PETA. She founded, and in her spare time assists at, an animal shelter in Nashville.

She became a member of the newly formed Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011.

Awards and other honors[link]

Grammy Awards[link]

2005 Best Female Country Vocal Performance ("The Connection")

2001 Album of the Year (''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'')

2000 Best Contemporary Folk Album (''Red Dirt Girl'')

1999 Best Country Collaboration with Vocals ("After The Gold Rush", with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt)

1998 Best Country Collaboration with Vocals ("Same Old Train", with Alison Krauss, Clint Black, Dwight Yoakam, Earl Scruggs, Joe Diffie, Marty Stuart, Merle Haggard, Pam Tillis, Patty Loveless, Randy Travis, Ricky Skaggs & Travis Tritt)

1995 Best Contemporary Folk Album (''Wrecking Ball'')

1992 Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (''Emmylou Harris & The Nash Ramblers At the Ryman'', as Emmylou Harris & The Nash Ramblers)

1987 Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (''Trio'', with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt)

1984 Best Country Vocal Performance, Female ("In My Dreams")

1980 Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group ("That Lovin' You Feelin' Again", with Roy Orbison)

1979 Best Country Vocal Performance, Female (''Blue Kentucky Girl'')

1976 Best Country Vocal Performance, Female (''Elite Hotel'')

Country Music Association Awards[link]

2001 Album of the Year (''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'')

1980 Female Vocalist Of The Year

1988 Vocal Event of the Year (''Trio'', with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt)

Other honors[link]

VH1's 100 Most Influential Women in Rock and Roll (1998) - Number 22 out of 100

Billboard's Century Award recipient (1999) - inducted by Sarah McLachlan

''CMT's 40 Greatest Women of Country Music'' - #5 ranking (2002)

Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on February 12, 2008

Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.

Awarded an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music in 2009.

Discography[link]

Collaborations and other appearances[link]

References[link]

Sources[link]

''In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music,'' Nicholas Dawidoff, Vintage Books, 1998. ISBN 0-679-41567-X

''Emmylou Harris: Angel in Disguise,'' Jim Brown, Fox Music Books, 2004. ISBN 1-894997-03-4

Fong-Torres, Ben. (1998). "Emmylou Harris". In ''The Encyclopedia of Country Music''. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 230.

External links [link]

Official Site (requires Flash player)

Emmylou Harris Comprehensive former official site

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Emmylou Harris Questionnaire (June 2008)

Pitchfork article

Gibson interview

Interview

Category:American acoustic guitarists Category:American country singers Category:American country singer-songwriters Category:American female singers Category:American female guitarists Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American vegetarians Category:Asylum Records artists Category:Nonesuch Records artists Category:Grand Ole Opry members Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Category:Jubilee Records artists Category:Musicians from Alabama Category:Military brats Category:Musicians from North Carolina Category:Musicians from Virginia Category:People from Birmingham, Alabama Category:People from Woodbridge, Virginia Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:Slide guitarists

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