Twenty-seven years in the making (1940–67), this tapestry of nearly two hundred American popular and protest songs was created by three giants of performance and musical research: Alan Lomax, indefatigable collector and preserver; Woody Guthrie, performer and prolific balladeer; and Pete Seeger, entertainer and educator who has introduced three generations of Americans to their musical heritage. In his afterword, Pete Seeger recounts the long history of collecting and publishing this anthology of Depression-era, union-hopeful, and New Deal melodies. With characteristic modesty, he tells us what’s missing and what’s wrong with the collection. But more important, he tells us what’s right and why it still matters, noting songs that have become famous the world over: “Union Maid,” “Which Side Are You On?,” “Worried Man Blues,” “Midnight Special,” and “Tom Joad.” “Now, at the turn of the century, the millennium, what’s the future of these songs?” he asks. “Music is one of the things that will save us. Future songwriters can learn from the honesty, the courage, the simplicity, and the frankness of these hard-hitting songs. And not just songwriters. We can all learn.” In addition to 123 photographs and 195 songs, this edition features an introductory note by Nora Guthrie, the daughter of Woody Guthrie and overseer of the Woody Guthrie Foundation.

Although Joe Klein's Woody Guthrie and Ed Cray's Ramblin' Man capture Woody Guthrie's freewheeling personality and his empathy for the poor and downtrodden, Kaufman is the first to portray in detail Guthrie's commitment to political radicalism, especially communism. Drawing on previously unseen letters, song lyrics, essays, and interviews with family and friends, Kaufman traces Guthrie's involvement in the workers' movement and his development of protest songs. He portrays Guthrie as a committed and flawed human immersed in political complexity and harrowing personal struggle. Since most of the stories in Kaufman's appreciative portrait will be familiar to readers interested in Guthrie, it is best for those who know little about the singer to read first his autobiography, Bound for Glory, or as a next read after American Radical.

The Depression brought unprecedented changes for American workers and organized labor. As the economy plummeted, employers cut wages and laid off workers, while simultaneously attempting to wrest more work from those who remained employed. In mills, mines, and factories workers organized and resisted, striking for higher wages, improved working conditions, and the right to bargain collectively. As workers walked the picket line or sat down on the shop floor, they could be heard singing. This book examines the songs they sang at three different strikes- the Gastonia, North Carolina, textile mill strike (1929), Harlan County, Kentucky, coal mining strike (1931-32), and Flint, Michigan, automobile sit-down strike (1936-37). Whether in the Carolina Piedmont, the Kentucky hills, or the streets of Michigan, the workers' songs were decidedly class-conscious. All show the workers' understanding of the necessity of solidarity and collective action. In Flint the strikers sang: The trouble in our homestead Was brought about this way When a dashing corporation Had the audacity to say You must all renounce your union And forswear your liberties, And we'll offer you a chance To live and die in slavery. As a shared experience, the singing of songs not only sent the message of collective action but also provided the very means by which the message was communicated and promoted. Singing was a communal experience, whether on picket lines, at union rallies, or on shop floors. By providing the psychological space for striking workers to speak their minds, singing nurtured a sense of community and class consciousness. When strikers retold the events of their strike, as they did in songs, they spread and preserved their common history and further strengthened the bonds among themselves. In the strike songs the roles of gender were pronounced and vivid. Wives and mothers sang out of their concerns for home, family, and children. Men sang in the name of worker loyalty and brotherhood, championing male solidarity and comaraderie. Informed by the new social history, this critical examination of strike songs from three different industries in three different regions gives voice to a group too often deemed as inarticulate. This study, the only book-length examination of this subject, tells history "from the bottom up" and furthers an understanding of worker culture during the tumultuous Depression years.

Prophet Singer: The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie examines the cultural and political significance of lyrics by beloved songwriter and activist Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie. The text traces how Guthrie documented the history of America's poor and disadvantaged through lyrics about topics as diverse as the Dust Bowl and the poll tax. Divided into chapters covering specific historical topics such as race relations and lynchings, famous outlaws, the Great Depression, and unions, the book takes an in-depth look at how Guthrie manipulated his lyrics to explore pressing issues and to bring greater political and economic awareness to the common people. Incorporating the best of both historical and literary perspectives, Mark Allan Jackson references primary sources including interviews, recordings, drawings, and writings. He includes a variety of materials from the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the Woody Guthrie Archives. Many of these have never before been widely available. The result provides new insights into one of America's most intriguing icons. Prophet Singer offers an analysis of the creative impulse behind and ideals expressed in Guthrie's song lyrics. Details from the artist's personal life as well as his interactions with political and artistic movements from the first half of the twentieth century afford readers the opportunity to understand how Guthrie's deepest beliefs influenced and found voice in the lyrics that are now known and loved by millions.

These are the guitars so famous that their names are often household words: B. B. King's Lucille, Eric Clapton's Blackie, Stevie Ray Vaughan's First Wife, Billy F Gibbons' Pearly Gates, Neil Young's Old Black, and many more. Here's the first-ever illustrated history of the actual guitars of the stars that made the music. Other best-selling guitar histories look at the rank-and-file models, but this book is unique in profiling the actual "star guitars"--the million-dollar babies, such as the 1968 Stratocaster that Jimi Hendrix burned at Woodstock, which sold at Sotheby's auction house in 1993 for $1,300,000. Amateurs buy guitars to emulate the stars--Clapton's Strat, Slash's Les Paul--and this book explains the stars' modifications, thus showing how others can recreate those famous tones.

Ronald D. Cohen is Professor Emeritus at Indiana University, Northwest. He is the author of Folk Music: The Basics (Routledge, 2006).

First published in 2010, Ultimate Star Guitars, the first illustrated history of ticonic guitars and their owners, is now expanded to include 32 additional instruments. Where other best-selling guitar histories look at the rank-and-file models, Ultimate Star Guitars is unique in profiling the specific favorites of famous players - oftentimes million-dollar babies, such as the 1968 Stratocaster that Jimi Hendrix burned at Woodstock and which sold at Sotheby's in 1993 for $1.3 million. Guitar journalist Dave Hunter explains the stories behind each: the important sessions on which they were used, landmark tours and gigs on which they were played, modifications made by their owners, and more. From twangy country to scorching metal, from full-throttle punk to sophisticated jazz, and from gut-punch blues to lo-fi indie rock, Ultimate Star Guitars is illustrated with performance and candid photography of the artists with their star guitars, relevant memorabilia, and more often than not, studio shots of the guitars or signature models based on them. An information-packed visual feast for guitar enthusiasts!

The Oxford Handbook of Sociology for Social Justice presents an alternative approach to sociological research that begins with community engagement and political commitments focused on social justice. The collection includes international case studies of students and faculty partnered with labor unions, farmers and farmworkers, activists Of many stripes, and others who not only use their social science skills to support social justice work, but also recognize how these movements impact our understanding of sociology to begin with.

Selling Folk Music: An Illustrated History highlights commercial sources that reveal how folk music has been packaged and sold to a broad, shifting audience in the United States. Folk music has a varied and complex scope and lineage, including the blues, minstrel tunes, Victorian parlor songs, spirituals and gospel tunes, country and western songs, sea shanties, labor and political songs, calypsos, pop folk, folk-rock, ethnic, bluegrass, and more. The genre is of major importance in the broader spectrum of American music, and it is easy to understand why folk music has been marketed as America's music. Selling Folk Music presents the public face of folk music in the United States via its commercial promotion and presentation throughout the twentieth century. Included are concert flyers; sheet music; book, songbook, magazine, and album covers; concert posters and flyers; and movie lobby cards and posters, all in their original colors. The 1964 hootenanny craze, for example, spawned such items as a candy bar, pinball machine, bath powder, paper dolls, Halloween costumes, and beach towels. The almost five hundred images in Selling Folk Music present a new way to catalog the history of folk music while highlighting the transformative nature of the genre. Following the detailed introduction on the history of folk music, illustrations from commercial products make up the bulk of the work, presenting a colorful, complex history.

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912-67) has had an immense impact on popular culture throughout the world. His folk music brought traditional song from the rural communities of the American southwest to the urban American listener and, through the global influence of American culture, to listeners and musicians alike throughout Europe and the Americas. Similarly, his use of music as a medium of social and political protest has created a new strategy for campaigners in many countries. But Guthrie's music was only one aspect of his multifaceted life. His labour-union activism helped embolden the American working class, and united such distinct groups as the rural poor, the urban proletariat, merchant seamen and military draftees, contributing to the general call for workers' rights during the 1930s and 1940s. As well as penning hundreds of songs (both recorded and unrecorded), Guthrie was also a prolific writer of non-sung prose, writing regularly for the American communist press, producing volumes of autobiographical writings and writing hundreds of letters to family, friends and public figures. Furthermore, beyond music Guthrie also expressed his creative talents through his numerous pen-and-ink sketches, a number of paintings and occasional forays into poetry. This collection provides a rigorous examination of Guthrie's cultural significance and an evaluation of both his contemporary and posthumous impact on American culture and international folk-culture. The volume utilizes the rich resources presented by the Woody Guthrie Foundation.