March 1st Spin A Record That Was A Gift:

So, it was suggested by a friend that March first be "Play A Record That Was A Gift" Day. OK. So I couldn't pick one, I went with two. Both of them gifts from my wife. I thought these two were particularly relevant to today. These are uncertain political times in the nation, and both of these songwriters tackled those types of things with gusto. As Joe Strummer sings on Long Shadow, "You don't face your demons down, you gotta grapple 'em jack, and pin 'em to the ground."

Oddly enough, Joe Strummer was a huge Woody Guthrie fan, going so far as to take on the monicker of "Woody" as a young man. Neither was a man to back down, or as Guthrie sang, "Ain't the world's best writer, ain't the world's best speller, but when I believe in something I'm the loudest yeller."    

These are both artists I reach for to get grounded, to refocus, because they both were good at dropping pretense, and cutting to the quick. They both also seem to have been good at turning their weakness into strength. By that I mean, neither was a child of means, both had serious character flaws, and unhealthy tendencies that would have crushed most people. But, these men were able to channel those weaknesses into empathy, and that empathy into fearlessness. Strummer once said, "...I realized early on, you either became a power or you were crushed." Seems like Woody knew this too. It's in that attitude were one feels both the toughness and the tenderness in their songs.

There you go, my vinyl spinning that was a gift.                                                                                                                        

Woody Guthrie:

The Legendary Woody Guthrie In Memoriam:(1967)

1940-1946 Original Recordings Made By:(1977)

Dust Bowl Ballads Sung By Woody Guthrie:(2009)

What a guiding light this man continues to be, a benchmark for honest defiant sympathetic songwriting. Woody was more perfectly embodied that Rock'n'Roll, Punk, American spirit than just about anyone. And did it all during a time there wasn't necessarily gold at the end of music fame rainbow. Whenever I feel a bit down about my chosen profession or the world in general, I can play a Woody record, and get back on the path. Here's Woody in his own words:

I hate a song that makes you think you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody.No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim. Too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. I'm out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.

I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own songs and to sing the kind that knock you down farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.