Woody Guthrie’s full name was Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, and he was a folk singer and songwriter from the United States. Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, on July 14, 1912, the same year that Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate. As a child, he suffered a series of tragedies. His sister’s death, his mother’s involuntary commitment due to Huntington’s disease, and his father’s injury in a fire were among them. With his family disbanded, Woody Guthrie dropped out of high school and embarked on a career as a traveling musician.
Woody Guthrie began writing songs as a young adult after learning to play the harmonica and guitar. Music was the constant thread in his career, even though he wrote articles and hosted radio shows — both with others and solo — and served in the Merchant Marine and the US Army. He wrote some of the country’s most popular folk and children’s songs as he moved around the country, marrying three times and fathering eight children.
While “This Land Is Your Land” is his most well-known song, he also wrote “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Youh.” “Pretty Boy Floyd,” “Grand Coulee Dam,” and “Hard, Ain’t It Hard.” Many of his children’s songs are not recognized as Woody Guthrie’s work, but are assumed to be old folk songs, such as “Why, Oh Why,” “Pretty and Shiny-O,” “Put Your Finger in the Air,” “Car Song or Riding in My Car,” “Jig Along Home,” and “All Work Together.”
Woody Guthrie died of Huntington’s disease on 3 October 1967 in Queens, New York, after 15 years in and out of hospitals. Arlo Guthrie’s music and recordings of his songs by himself and other singers such as Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, the Kingston Trio, Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Bruce Springsteen, and others bear witness to his influence.