The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands in the 1930s, particularly in 1934 and 1936. The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent wind erosion. Deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains had displaced the natural deep-rooted grasses that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture even during periods of drought and high winds.
During the drought of the 1930s, without natural anchors to keep the soil in place, it dried, turned to dust, and blew away eastward and southward in large dark clouds. At times, the clouds blackened the sky, reaching all the way to East Coast cities such as New York and Washington, D.C. Much of the soil ended up deposited in the Atlantic Ocean, carried by prevailing winds, which were in part created by the dry and bare soil conditions. These immense dust storms—given names such as "black blizzards" and "black rollers"—often reduced visibility to a few feet (around a meter). The Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2), centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and adjacent parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.
Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs. Among his productions are The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007), The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009) and Prohibition (2011).
Burns' documentaries have been nominated for two Academy Awards, and have won Emmy Awards, among other honors.
Ken Burns was born in 1953 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, according to his official website, though some sources give Ann Arbor, Michigan, and some, including The New York Times, give both Brooklyn and Ann Arbor. The son of Lyla Smith (née Tupper) Burns, a biotechnician, and Robert Kyle Burns, at the time a graduate student in cultural anthropology at Columbia University, in Manhattan. Ken Burns' brother is the documentary filmmaker Ric Burns.
Burns' academic family moved frequently, and lived in Saint-Véran, France; Newark, Delaware; and Ann Arbor, where his father taught at the University of Michigan. Burns' mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when Burns was 3, and died when he was 11, a circumstance that he said helped shape his career; he credited his father-in-law, a psychologist, with a signal insight: "He told me that my whole work was an attempt to make people long gone come back alive.". Well-read as a child, he absorbed the family encyclopedia, preferring history to fiction. Upon receiving an 8 mm film movie camera for his 17th birthday, he shot a documentary about an Ann Arbor factory. Turning down reduced tuition at the University of Michigan, he attended the new Hampshire College, an alternative school in Amherst, Massachusetts with narrative evaluations rather than letter grades and self-directed academic concentrations instead of traditional majors. He worked in a record store to pay his tuition.
Joe Bonamassa (born May 8, 1977) is an American blues rock guitarist and singer. He began his career playing guitar in the band Bloodline, which featured the offspring of several famous musicians (such as Miles Davis, Robby Krieger and Berry Oakley of The Allman Brothers Band). He released his first solo album A New Day Yesterday in 2000, and has since released nine more solo studio albums, four live albums and three live DVDs, along with two albums with the band Black Country Communion and one album in collaboration with vocalist Beth Hart. He tours the world regularly, and has developed a large following in the U.K. especially. His most recent album, Driving Towards The Daylight, reached #2 on the U.K. Top 40 Albums Chart, and he completed an arena tour there in 2012. In 2009 he was the recipient of the Classic Rock Magazine "Breakthrough Artist of the Year" award, and The Guardian said of him: "the 32-year-old from upstate New York has consolidated a reputation as the pre-eminent blues-rock guitarist of his generation".
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.
I should know to leave them home.
They follow me through the store with these toys I can't afford.
'Kids, take them back, you know better than that.'
Dolls that talk, astronauts, T.V. games, airplanes
They don't understand and how can I explain?
I try and try but I can't save.
Pennies, nickels, dollars slip away.
I've tried and tried but I can't save.
My youngest girl has bad fever, sure.
All night with alcohol to cool and rub her down.
Ruby, I'm tired, try and get some sleep.
I'm adding doctor's fees to remedies with the cost of three day's work lost.
I try and try but I can't save.
Pennies, nickels, dollars slip away.
I've tried and tried but I can't save.
The hole in my pocketbook is growing.
There's a new wind blowing they say, it's gonna be a cold, cold one.
So brace yourselves my darlings
It won't bring anything much our way but more dust bowl days.
I played a card in this weeks game.
Took the first and the last letters in three of their names.
This lottery's been building up for weeks.
I could be lucky me with the five million prize
Tears of disbelief spilling out of my eyes.
I try and try but I can't save.
Pennies, nickels, dollars slip away.
I've tried and tried but I can't save.
The hole in my pocketbook is growing.
There's a new wind blowing they say, it's gonna be a cold, cold one.
So brace yourselves my darlings
It won't bring anything much our way but more dust bowl days.
[ music: Robert Buck/words: Natalie Merchant ]
I should know to leave them home.
They follow me through the store with these toys I can't afford.
"Kids, take them back, you know better than that."
Dolls that talk, astronauts, T.V. games, airplanes, they don't understand and how can I explain?
I try and try but I can't save.
Pennies, nickels, dollars slip away.
I've tried and tried but I can't save.
My youngest girl has bad fever, sure.
All night with alcohol to cool and rub her down.
Ruby, I'm tired, try and get some sleep.
I'm adding doctor's fees to remedies with the cost of three day's work lost.
I try and try but I can't save.
Pennies, nickels, dollars slip away.
I've tried and tried but I can't save.
The hole in my pocketbook is growing.
There's a new wind blowing they say, it's gonna be a cold, cold one.
So brace yourselves my darlings, it won't bring anything much our way but more dust bowl days.
I played a card in this weeks game.
Took the first and the last letters in three of their names.
This lottery's been building up for weeks.
I could be lucky me with the five million prize, tears of disbelief spilling out of my eyes.
I try and try but I can't save.
Pennies, nickels, dollars slip away.
I've tried and tried but I can't save.
The hole in my pocketbook is growing.
There's a new wind blowing they say, it's gonna be a cold, cold one.
So brace yourselves my darlings, it won't bring anything much our way but more dust bowl days.
You better watch yourself
You better watch yourself
You better watch yourself
I got my eyes on you
Yeah, you steal my heart
Then you go away
Don't tell me
You'll see me another day
You better watch yourself
You better watch yourself
You better watch yourself
I got my eyes on you
Yeah, I gave you all my love
All my things too
Fine Cadillac
Baby, what you gonna do?
You better watch yourself
You better watch yourself
You better watch yourself
I got my eyes on you
Oh, show them now, baby
Well, people are talkin'
All over the town
You say you're gonna love me
But you put me down
You better watch yourself
You better watch yourself
You better watch yourself
I got my eyes on you
Hey, ooh
nothing but a cold floor under my feat
and outside the wind blows blustery
nothing but a ghost knocking on my door
all because you can’t send me love no more
{chorus}
send me no more love
it would only stand to make me sick
send me love no more
I would only get back in what I got out
real quick
I knew a man that would talk a good game
words sweet as syrup pouring down like rain
one fateless night fooling around down town
when that girl came in you could hear the sap
hit the ground
now I know a girl
with a man on a string
she likes to see how much he could take
with a come on
and little heart break
she swore she didn’t need anymore
then all she could take
nothing but a cold floor under my feat
and outside the wind blows bitterly
nothing but a ghost knocking on my door
all because you can’t send me love no more
{chorus}
Dust Bowl
(Reg Presley) Copyright Control
-------------------------------
Some folks are living in a dust bowl
I've seen them on TV, ah
Some folks are living in a dust bowl
Don't love like you and me, ah
Some folks live in little boxes
Underneath the railway station
Some folks live in little boxes
What a way to run a nation
When after all is said and done
We've only got one earth, one sun
There's nowhere in our universe
Where we can go if things get worse
We'd better make a start today
The problems here won't go away
We'd better take just one step back
Cos our beautiful bubble is about to crack
Some folks are breaking down the ozone
Breaking down the ozone layer
Some folks are messin' with the ozone
Hope they're around when it's time to pay, ah
Some folks are cuttin' down the forest
Cuttin' down the forest station
Some folks are cuttin' down the forest
Do we need the devastation?
Cos after all is said and done
We've only got one earth, one sun
There's nowhere in our universe
Where we can go if things get worse
We'd better make a start today
The problems here won't go away
We'd better take just one step back
Cos our beautiful bubble is about to crack
Some folks are living in a dust bowl
Some folks live in little boxes
Some folks are breaking down the ozone